Chapter 8

Sorry I haven't updated.  I've been mega busy with other stories.  And they have actually expected me to do my job lately.   What are they thinking?  Anyway-  Didn't mean to leave you hanging that long.  Hope you like.

So maybe the tequila stories weren't complete falsehoods Jackie thought when she cracked an eye at 2:30 Sunday afternoon.  The lamp that they didn't turn off before passing out at 5:30 a.m when they finally made it home –shot a bolt of pain through her pupil and into her brain.  She decided then and there that either it had to die or her.  And she didn't really care which.  She would settle for turning it off but she couldn't move.  Thank god they didn't have to work today.  Why did she drink that much?  She felt bad after 2 beers.  What made her think she could drink an entire bottle of hard liquor?  God somebody please make the pain stop.  That damn lamp was going to kill her.  She uselessly reached for it but her short arm didn't get half way.  Damn petiteness! Jackie thought for the first time in her life.  Oh to be a lumberjack like Donna.  If she had her arms and her constitution she wouldn't feel like this.  After one more effort she gave up banging her arm on the way down.  She hit her hand on the side table and another bolt of pain began its migration to her head.  Her left hand now felt like it was on fire –she inspected it –nothing broken.  Thank god for small favors.  But it felt bad enough to be.  On second inspection she decided it was indeed fine.  4 fingers, 1 thumb, silver ring – yep a-ok.  Maybe she was still drunk though because it took her a whole 5 minutes to remember that she couldn't remember owning a silver ring.  The hell?

"Steven?"  she called out frantically looking toward the other bed.  No Steven.  Oh god did she trade Steven to a jeweler?  Where the hell was he?  "Steven?!", she shouted this time ignoring her headache. 

"What?" was the grump pain filled response as the source rolled over from the unnoticed lump beside her.  He was obviously still drunk as well because it took him 10 minutes realize where he was.  An the unlikelihood of his natural presence there.

"Steven what the hell happened last night?" Jackie demanded.  Hoping he knew more than her on the subject.  It was all a blank in her jumbled mind.

"Why are you always asking me shit like that?" he sounded worried.  Obviously he didn't know much more than her.  What was the last thing she remembered? Events circled in her head in no specific order.  Rum.  Sitting in Steven's lap…. stumbling home.  Laughing as Steven fell off the bed.  No –nope –none of that involved new jewelry.  Something had to be missing between the first two and the third.  Try harder Jackie.  Tequila.  Rum.  Sitting in Steven's lap.  Him saying they didn't have to go home…

"You told me you wanted to marry me."  Steven hesitantly said. 

That was it!  There you go – mystery solved.  Good.  Wait – not good.  Why was she always the one proposing? 

Steven rolled over and grabbed her hand –searching for what he of course found.  "OH god.  Did we get married?" 

He sounded so scared it pissed her off.  She yanked her hand away.  "I don't remember –and thank you so very much for the look of terror – just what a girl wants to see on her possible first day of marriage."  She started to get up –but her head swam and Steven caught her as she fell back.  He cradled her in his arms and she remembered asking the question and why.  This was where she wanted to be.  He brushed her hair back soothingly.

"I didn't mean it that way.  My problem is not that we did it –if we did- but that we don't know.  I would kind of like to remember my wedding day.  And I'd kind of like my bride not to have been too toasted to know what she was doing."

Good ole' Steven again.  She remembered thinking the night before that his nobleness would cause problems.  He was worried that the alcohol had made her do things that she wouldn't have normally done.  That it made her propose.  She didn't but wanted to tell him that she knew what she was doing when she asked.  She wanted to tell him that if they were married she wouldn't regret it as long as he didn't. She wanted to say she still loved him.  But in the cold light of day with the hangover to end all hangovers she couldn't find the strength. So she laid her head on the chest of the man she loved and fell back to sleep.