The next morning, I woke up in a strange bed, completely naked and nothing covering me. The bed was big, much bigger than anything I was used to, and definitely much bigger than a tour bus. I could barely reach out and touch the body next to me. A body that was also completely naked, only one leg covered by a thin sheet. At least the body was Jack's.
"Where are we?" I croaked out before even checking if Jack had also woken up.
It took a second, but eventually his voice responded, "what?"
"Where are we?" I repeated, not daring to move my body an inch. Everything felt horrible.
"I don't know," Jack mumbled. His head slowly moved to take in our surroundings.
I breathed out loudly and went to run my fingers through my messy hair. But something caught me off guard. One of my fingers literally caught in my hair. I had to tug harshly to get it out, dragging a few strands for longer than I would have liked. Immediately, I glared at my finger to see what the fuck was going on.
And then I saw it.
A huge flashy diamond right was on my left ring finger. It was a hideous, expensive-looking thing. A large clear round diamond in the middle, little diamonds outlining it, and even more diamond encrusting the entire silver band.
"Jack..." I rapidly held my hand up straight into the sky, causing my head to pound.
"What?" He grumbled again, rubbing his face with his own hands.
"What is this?!" I whispered harshly.
His eyes must have fallen on what I was showing him. "Oh, shit! Where did you get that?!"
But his question was already answered before he could say the whole thing. His own hands shot up to pull my hand towards him to have a closer look. And that's when we both saw it. His own left ring finger sported a perfect golden band itself.
"Jack..." I warned again, the realisation settling in.
Before we could even react to what was happening, my phone started buzzing on my nightstand. I rolled onto my side and checked who it was. Alex's name showed up in large letters, my phone battery a screaming red in the corner. I sat up, the whole room spinning, and swiped to take the call. Immediately, I put it on loudspeaker and turned down the volume so it wouldn't make my head hurt.
"Jacie!" Alex's voice shouted through the speaker in relief. "We've been trying to reach you and Jack for hours!"
"My phone's about to die, please be quick," I urged, rubbing my temples as if that would cure the nastiest hangover I ever had had in my life.
"We were supposed to leave two hours ago. We've been waiting for you guys, but we need to go in half an hour if we're going to make it to the next venue in time."
"Fuck," I groaned, dragging out the vowel. In the meantime, Jack started getting out of bed. The way he moved mirrored the way I felt. "I don't think we can make that."
"Jacie. We're going to have to leave!" Alex stressed. "At least tell me Jack's with you."
"He is." I nodded and watched as Jack found a sheet of paper on the desk in the room.
"We really can't wait for you any longer. Your van has already left and if we don't go now, we won't make our VIP events."
I sighed, needing a second to think, but my brain hurt so much. "You guys just go, Jack and I will figure out a way to get there before the show."
"Jacie–"
"My phone is gonna die. We will figure it out, don't worry. Please go."
I could hear Alex's voice again, but I never got to know what he said because the call cut out and my phone's screen went black. I just hoped he would listen and tell everybody to go.
And then I noticed Jack frowning at the piece of paper he was holding.
"What's that?" I asked, seeing a credit card receipt stapled onto it.
He shook his head, speechless before he found some words. "Turns out I bought the rings."
There were conflicting emotions happening inside me. The most selfish one was relief. Relief that I hadn't put myself into insane debt for these rings. Shock. Shock that he had spent the money on these rings. And confusion. Why had he even gotten these rings?
"We've gotta return them," I breathed out in disbelief.
"What do you remember from last night?" He asked, looking up from the paper.
"Umm..." I started thinking, spotting my purse on the floor and knowing I had a phone charger in there. So, I slowly got up to get it. "The rooftop bar. The club is a bit fuzzier. I remember making out twice... and trying to set two people up... Oh, the cheese fries–"
"Oh my god, the cheese fries!" Jack groaned in pleasure, obviously also remembering that.
"And I won something at a casino. There were more drinks somewhere. But I don't know where. And... I– there was a piano somewhere?"
Jack nodded, his eyes distant as he also tried recalling the night. "I remember something similar... Only I do remember making out three times at the club."
"I'm pretty sure there were more times..." I chuckled as I plugged my phone in, getting dizzy from standing up.
"So no buying rings?"
I shook my head. I really did try my best, but I had large gaps in my memory. The only thing I could faintly remember was falling asleep.
"Maybe we took pictures?" he asked.
"Maybe!" I answered enthusiastically. "Where's your phone?"
Jack scanned the room, looking around. Eventually, he spotted it on the floor next to the closet. He picked it up and clicked the button to turn it on.
"Dead," he heaved a sigh.
"That's fine," I tried to think about the positive. "My phone's charging. We'll be able to check that in no time."
His gaze shifted back to the page as he nodded. As if he was trying to puzzle together non-existent pieces. I looked around the floor and found my panties, quickly slipping them on to provide some coverage. But even when I bent over, Jack didn't sneak a look.
"Okay, what's the damage?" I asked, walking up to him to check out the receipt myself.
Instead of letting me see, Jack quickly pulled it out of my reach. "Nothing bad."
I snatched it away before he could deny me access again.
"Oh my god," I gasped. There were way too many digits in that number for me to comprehend. It was worth more money than I had ever seen in one go in my life. "We cannot leave Vegas without returning this."
"Jacie–"
"Nope, I don't care how late we are, we are returning this ring. There's no way I will ever let you spend this kind of money on me."
He just stared back at me, a mixture of emotions on his face. Before I could investigate what was going on in his mind, my phone started buzzing again, this time a range of notifications pouring in. We both knew that that little device could hold all the answers to our unspoken questions. So, we sat down on the edge of the bed where I had originally been sleeping.
I picked up my phone and scrolled quickly through the notification. It was mainly things from before I woke up. A lot of missed calls from different people on the tour, text messages asking where the fuck we were, some random app notifications. The latest notifications were from Alex telling me they had left and that we better figure out how to get there ourselves.
I ignored them all for now and unlocked my phone. My heart started beating faster when my thumb hovered over the photos app. But my curiosity was stronger than my fear. I took the plunge and opened it. I was surprised to see that I actually didn't have that many photos and videos. The ones I did have definitely rapidly declined in quality as the night passed.
I started on a photo of the two of us on the rooftop bar. We could both remember that one clearly. It was the one I had posted on my Instagram story and Jack had reposted on his. I mean, we did look cute; smiling brightly, sitting next to each other, the city our backdrop.
The next photos were a pink mess from the club, the lights too bright for the camera to capture. Then there was a really bad photo of our cheese fries. Everything after that was even more confusing, like they were accidental photos of the floor.
But the last one? The last one was a video. It was of both Jack and I sitting somewhere on a couch. The sound played as soon as the video automatically started playing.
"Jacie! We should get married!" Jack shouted, his words slurring.
I giggled, barely able to compose myself enough to talk. "In Vegas?"
"Of course in Vegas!"
"Wooo!" I cheered loudly.
And then the video just showed us kissing, mumbling 'I love you's to each other in between every smooch.
"Okay... but that doesn't prove anything," I pointed out. I could remember joking about it in the fry shop as well. But that was also just us fucking around.
Only, then I got an email notification. I had no clue who the sender was, but the subject line said 'Congratulations! Here are the photos of your...'. I quickly tapped on it, feeling like this was finally going to show us what happened.
The text was congratulating the both of us again, with around ten photos attached to it. Luckily, these photos were a whole lot clearer than mine. It showed us standing at a shitty altar, holding each other's hands, exchanging rings, and kissing each other.
My mouth opened wide.
"I think we got married," Jack stated.