Jock Royal (Jock Hard 4)

He hasn’t even made one lap.

“Did you mean purity ring?” someone else cuts in, also breathing a little too heavily for the short amount of running we’ve done.

“Yes exactly,” I agree. “Big thing back home, everyone wears one.”

“That’s cool,” Conner allows. “Maybe I should get one since I’m not boning anyone right now. It would probably be a babe magnet—everyone wants what they can’t have.”

“No one wants you.”

“That’s my point. They’ll sense my desperation.” He laughs. “Maybe if I made myself unavailable, the babes would be lining up at my door. Like reverse psychics.”

“It’s reverse psychology, you moron.”

We run on.

“No amount of wearing a purity ring is going to make anyone come to your yard,” Andy says, coming up from the rear and passing us both to take the lead. He was a long-distance runner in high school and can out-stamina us all on the field.

He passes by, leaving us to bicker.

“So what does this purity ring entail? Where do I get one?”

I shrug and jog. “Dunno, my mum sent it,” I lie, not feeling the least bit guilty.

They would roast the shite out of me if I told the truth, told them the ring is in fact a wedding band, that I got hitched in Vegas—the vacation I hid from everyone so they wouldn’t show up and ruin my fun.

In hindsight, if I hadn’t done that, I probably wouldn’t be married.

Not a single one of these blokes would have allowed it, and I wouldn’t be in this mess.

On the other hand, for some perverse reason, I’m not entirely keen to put an end to it, either—and there’s my rub. I’ve never even had a girlfriend before and now I have a wife and I want to keep her?

That’s so fucked up beyond any measurable reasoning, and yet I can’t describe why I’m not ready to let go yet.

It would be so simple to get the annulment and then court Georgia properly. Do it the way they do it in the States: take her to the movies, take her to a football game, take her to dinner. Buy her gifts on Valentine’s Day—shite like that.

Even more curious? Georgia doesn’t seem as offput by the entire situation as she should be. Hasn’t had any meltdowns, hasn’t panicked about it, hasn’t screamed or yelled at me the way I’ve been waiting for her to.

She’s been reasonably calm for a girl who’s gone and gotten herself married.

When she walks in the door from practice later on in the evening, after I’ve cleaned myself up from my own training, she drops her duffle bag next to the door in the same spot she always does.

“Lady Dryden-Jones, did you want me to order us dinner or were we just going to fend for ourselves?”

She rolls her eyes. “Please stop calling me that.”

I shrug. “I’m only calling you that because that’s what you are.”

We’ve been home six days, and Georgia hasn’t returned to her own bedroom, sleeping in mine every night as if that’s been her rightful spot in the house all along.

Still, she’s been loathing it when I call her Lady Dryden-Jones, which oddly I love the sound of.

Lady Dryden-Jones isn’t the actual way to address the barony title—it’s Lady Talbot, and that is, and will only be, my mother. The wife of a baron’s first son has the courtesy title of “the Honorable” until her husband inherits his title, but the look on Georgia’s face when I call her Lady is so priceless I cannot make myself stop saying it.

Besides, Mum’s not around to hear it.

Georgia, who is theoretically now my wife, strides over and plants a kiss on my mouth, swatting me on the arse.

We’ve not taken the steps to annul the marriage, but we did agree not to wear our rings.

“Watch yourself or you’ll get caught being too domestic.”

Too domestic.

Is that a thing?

“What should we do for dinner?”

“Mmm, I’m not all that hungry just yet. Maybe a salad, I don’t know. I actually have some homework, and we have to video-chat later with Nalla, Priya, and the rest of the group so when we hand in our final project, everyone has their part completed.”

I shove a cucumber slice in my mouth. “Ugh, fine—I’ll go work out until you’re done and then we can eat.” I wipe my hands on a nearby towel.

Bzzt, bzzt.

Bzzt, bzzt.

No object makes that annoying sound except my mobile, and it’s buzzing on the counter next to the stove.

I raise it to my ear.

“Mum. What’s going on?”

“You’re married?”

“I…we…were sauced when we did it.”

“Sauced,” Mum repeats, sounding scandalized. “My son went and got married without telling me, without a proper ceremony, and he was tossed while doing so.” I hear a sob on the other end of the line and glance over at Georgia.

“It was a lark, Mum. We’re handling it.”