Part One

No Need to Watch the Bridges that we're Burning

Oh God, she peeled open one eyelid with enormous difficulty. The curtains were wide open and the beautiful Las Vegas sunshine was streaming in and was making her wince. She appeared to still be alive, if only just, even if her mouth did feel like she'd eaten a whole pack of cream crackers straight out the packet without bothering to put anything on them and even if she had been dribbling on her pillow ….. still, she peeled the other eyelid open with even more difficulty, shit the light hurt, at least it all looked familiar, it was definitely her room and she was definitely in her bed, the one she'd slept in for the last three nights since they'd got here. It was just that she didn't appear to be wearing a stitch of clothing, no knickers or anything, and had absolutely no recollection of getting undressed, actually she had no recollection of even getting back to the room, full stop. The last thing she could remember clearly was being in some tacky karaoke bar with the stag party that she and Lees had somehow managed to crash at some point the previous evening and she'd been bawling 'bastard' into her Vodka shot before ordering another one because someone, no, some bloody loved-up couple, had been singing "Don't go Breaking my Heart".

Certain unmistakeable and horribly unpleasant facts were starting to creep into her consciousness. First, she wasn't alone in her room, in her bed, and that unless Lisa had decided to give up her own bed in her own room in favour of sharing, and she hadn't noticed her having any lesbian tendencies before, or had given up on shaving her legs for the last year or three, Molly hastily jerked her foot away from the hairy leg, she was definitely in bed with a stranger. A bloke. A strange bloke, a strange hairy bloke and she didn't know whether he was stark bollock naked like she was and didn't quite dare lift up the duvet to have a quick peep, she wasn't even sure that she wanted to know, oh fuck, oh fuckety, fucking fuck, what the hell had she done? How the hell had she ended up here?

She peeled her eyelids open wide enough to check out the face asleep on the puffy white pillow next to hers, the person who owned the hairy legs, blue eyes, blondish hair, and a sort of brownish blondish stubble, not bad looking and definitely a bloke and oh shit, shitting hell, blue eyes, which meant that he was awake, oh holy crap. She didn't know him, except she sort of thought she might just possibly recognise him from the stag party, not the fucking groom she didn't think, so supposed she should be grateful for small mercies, very small ones, and whoever he was he didn't seem to be quite as hungover as her because he didn't look as bad as she knew that she did. He moved and stuck a hairy leg out on top of the duvet and he was, as she'd feared, definitely starkers unless he was wearing a posing pouch or something, but somehow she didn't think so… Oh god, all there was to worry about now was whether they'd had sex. She didn't recall the earth moving or anything, and surely she'd have noticed something if they'd had proper sex, or even if it had been 'nearly' sex, and it wasn't like she could ask him, was it? What could she say? It would be insulting, any normal bloke would be mortified if the girl they were in bed with had to ask, and anyhow in her badly hung over, brain dead condition she couldn't think of the right words to ask him anything.

She was just grateful she was still on the pill, that she hadn't flushed them all down the bog like she'd been going to when ….. well ….. so no matter what had gone on, at least there wasn't going to have to be a frantic dash around Vegas looking for somewhere to get hold of the 'morning after' that was if they even did it here, how would she know? She put her hand down and found that the irritating itch on the side of her right foot appeared to be the foil wrapper from a condom which was a bit of a mixed blessing, it seemed likely that they had had sex which was not something she was exactly over the moon about, obviously not very memorable sex either, but on the other hand at least she could be sure she wasn't going home with a nice dose of Chlamydia or Herpes to keep her company, and where the fuck was Lees, how could she have let her get herself in this bloody mess?

"Morning …" He looked as awkward as she felt but at least he was English and not a septic tank "I'm Adam by the way" He thought for a minute, obviously embarrassed at his needing to ask "And you are? I mean, what's your name, I seem to have forgotten, sorry"

"I'm Molly, how do you ….." She stopped herself before she could put her hand out to shake his, oh shit, this was bloody shit, awful, it had been forever since she'd last had a one night stand, it had been well before everything, before Afghan, before well ….. and even then she'd never had sex that she couldn't remember with someone that she couldn't remember either the following day, awkward didn't begin to describe it "I'm just going to …. ummmm … bathroom, so can you just …. ummm .. not look for a minute .."

It seemed bloody ridiculous in the circumstances bearing in mind what had obviously gone on when she was still pissed but the room looked like some sort of sexual assault crime scene off of CSI with clothes spread all over the floor and she really needed to find her knickers, and her phone as well, which turned out to be half hidden under his boxers which she picked up between her thumb and finger trying her best not to shudder. She spotted her knickers immediately, although where the fuck her bra had ended up was anyone's guess, but at least she could cover her bum and minimise the amount of flesh she was displaying in front of him. She didn't stop to try and put them on, just clutched them and instinctively hunched over, and even though he still had his head turned away, not looking, and she ran, well scuttled really, alternating between putting an arm across her tits and putting her hands over her bush to do her best to … hide .. her bits. Even though it was ridiculous she was mortified and desperate to get to the sanctuary of the bathroom, a room with a door, a door with a lock and a bathrobe hanging on the hook.

She didn't wait to put the robe on before locking the door and just sinking to sit on the floor and put her head in her hands before leaning back against the cold side of the bath, powering up her phone and praying that she hadn't left it on all night kyboshing the battery and carefully stayed within easy reach of the bog in case she did actually need to puke, which seemed highly likely. She had no idea what the time was, it felt early but … could be anytime … but she didn't give a shit if Lisa was still out cold and snoring, happily tucked up fast asleep in her own bed, on her own, lucky cow, so that a call would wake her up, or get her out the shower or even interrupt her having a crap, Lisa was her mate, so why the hell had she let her take some complete stranger back to her room with her? She knew that Molly was struggling, that she was miserable and ripe for a bit of getting under one bloke to get over another, but why hadn't she stopped her? Surely that's what mates are for, to stop you doing stupid stuff like that and he could be a fucking mass murderer or a terrorist or something, could even have been a fifty shades sort of bloke so that by now she'd be tied up and tortured, unlikely she knew, but he could be ….

"Morning ….. good night was it? How do you feel this morning, cos I feel like shit, don't know what the fuck we were drinking last night, fun though, wasn't it?"

"Was it? Nice of you to ask but I feel horrible and what the fuck was so much fun? It don't feel all that funny from where I'm sitting, so why did you let me do it? Or was it you set me up?"

"Course not, Oh come on, Molls, I didn't set you up and it was just a laugh, nothing else so no harm done, eh? and it was your idea to take him back with you, mate, not mine, you thought it was a right laugh last night, so where's your sense of humour this morning?"

"I dunno Lees, hiding in bed with that bloke I don't know that I didn't have to shag but seem to have done, anyway, and what was so bloody funny about it? Go on tell me, I can't remember and I could do with a laugh, before I cry"

"Shit, don't you remember? Bet you haven't looked at your phone either have you? Look, don't worry it was just a bit of fun, honestly it was for a laugh so it wasn't real and you were well up for it last night, so just tell him, whatshisname to piss off and then forget all about it now, I mean, we're going home in a couple hours and it was just a bit of messing, lot of fun though"

"Yeah you said, WHAT WAS?"

"Look at your phone and then we'll go get some breakfast, might as well cos we've already paid for it haven't we?"

"Okay"

The first few pictures didn't really add up to much, a few of the outside of the casino and a couple inside and then some jobsworth security person telling her to stop, that it was forbidden, and then the hotel, a selfie with her and Lees grinning like lunatics on the steps, so that she began to relax a bit as she carried on looking for the pictures that could be called 'just a bit of fun'. Shame she couldn't remember that much of it after the karaoke bar, but still …. and these weren't that bad, some of them were well out of focus, which was probably just as well, and there were tons and tons of someone's feet, not hers, and then of the floor and a couple of the side of the bar with someone's hand waving about in front of the lens, and then there was quite a few of someone's arse in a pair of horrible bright red trousers and then her smile slipped and her hands began to shake with rapidly mounting horror as some of it started to come back to her.

Their so-called Smurf pilgrimage with the incredibly tacky "chapel" and its plastic altar and vase of plastic flowers and the little fat bloke with his wig on so that he had a dark quiff, a wig that looked like it was made of those nylon pot scourer things that Nan used to use. He was obviously the star in the look-alike Elvis gig so he'd squeezed himself into a shite white onesie with a few sequins stuck on it here and there and he kept on twitching his lip up trying to do what he thought was an Elvis type sneer, only it wasn't and he was nothing like as he stood there showing off every one of his rolls of flab. There were actually plenty of them, but most attractive of all, you could clearly see the outline of his knob and whoever was doing the video kept on zooming in for a close-up, even when he wasn't pulling at the crotch of the bloody thing, which he did a lot of the time…. She could definitely remember now how her and Lisa had laughed themselves sick about his ….. wedding tackle being on show ….. Oh shit.

The worst of it was there she was, someone, and she thought it was most likely Lees, had thoughtfully used her phone to record the whole thing. She was totally hammered so you could see that she could barely stand on her own two feet and looked like she was about to puke any second, she'd kept on swaying about when "Elvis" was talking so that someone, fuck knows who, but not her 'husband' the one standing next to her in the 'chapel' who was now in the room next door, in her bed, but someone, had kept on pushing her back upright. Her eyes were crossed as she'd peered at Elvis from under her hair which was all over the bloody shop so it was obvious that she couldn't see an awful lot, if anything, and she had red wine splattered all down the front of her best frock, the one that she'd bought to go out to dinner in Bath … the one that was now in a heap on the bedroom floor, at least she bloody well hoped it was wine. She had this purple plastic flower in her hand which looked like a sort of wrong coloured daffodil and she kept on waving it about like she was conducting a bleeding orchestra as she exchanged vows, of a sort, with whatshisname, Adam, the bloke in her bed who was probably busting for a pee by now, not that she cared.

"I promise to … what is it now? ….. shut up, shut up, I know, WILL YOU ALL FUCKING SHUT IT? I know what to say, I'll love you for forever, yeah?"

"Oh yeah, ditto"

Oh god, Oh god, Oh god, how bloody romantic …

She closed her eyes at the wave of pure horror at the whole thing, but it was the 'ditto' that really got to her, the thing that made her stomach lurch as if she was about to throw up. This was ….. well, she had to wake up any second, she bloody had to, Christ alive, there was no way that this could be real, she would never have said that to anyone else, it was special …. theirs … it was their word.

She was going to kill Lisa, slowly and as painfully as she could and her so-called mate could forget all about them getting breakfast, she was never going to have any sort of appetite for food ever again. She hated Vegas breakfasts almost as much as she hated Vegas Vodka, which was almost as much as she hated Lees, in fact she hated just about everything about this shite holiday in this shite dump. She was never, ever going to drink Vodka ever again, and she was never ever going anywhere ever again as long as she lived. The good thing was that they were flying home in a few hours and then she could forget all about it.

She would go back in there now and tell whatsits , thingy, him, that it had been very nice meeting him but would he mind just fucking right off now and then once she got home she could do whatever you have to do to get rid, and could then delete it from her memory as well as off her phone. With a bit of bloody luck bloody Adam in there would have the decency to live in deepest darkest north of somewhere or other so that she would never have to clap eyes on him ever again.

The worst of it was this was all down to her. The trip and the visit to the chapel was supposed to have been about closure, whatever the fuck that meant, not only for Smurf but … anyway it was supposed to help her to move on, which she hadn't believed in the first place, so it served her bloody right for listening to Lees and then actually thinking there might be something in all her touchy-feely self-help bollocks.

A/N: This story is going to be in three parts and my thanks to Elvis, the real one that is, for the title and the chapter headings and for the "make believe you love me one more time" music which has kept running through my head, not to mention the words, as I've been writing it… Chapter two sees them back in the U.K… Be kind, publishing the first chapter of anything is unbelievably scary ….

-OG-