Dangerous Rock (Dangerous Noise 3)

There's no way.

I rub my palms together. I rinse. I try to ignore the protrusion on my left ring finger. It's hard. Cold. Metal and stone. Rock. Ice. Bling.

Whatever it's called, it's huge.

But if I keep my eyes closed…

If I don't look…

Maybe I'm still dreaming.

I rinse my hands and turn the water off.

Deep breath.

I'm going to pinch myself, and I'm going to wake up for real. I bring my right index finger and thumb to my left forearm, above all the scars.

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I'm not supposed to do this, but I don't care.

I dig my nails into my skin.

The pain calls my senses. I am awake. My eyes burst open. They catch my reflection then work their way down my naked body—everything is in the right place, as far as I can tell without my glasses—to my left hand.

It's there, on my left ring finger, a massive rock.

It's huge.

Two carats. Maybe three.

That's a platinum band.

A Tiffany setting.

A platinum wedding band beneath it.

Memories try to fight their way to the front of my mind, but the headache makes it too hard to focus. Joel and I met at the club. We flirted. We danced. He got me off.

We had more drinks.

We went somewhere…

We got back here…

We fucked.

Everything between the somewhere and the fuck is fuzzy.

Did we really get married?

There's no way… I… I know I was drunk, but there's not enough gin in the world to get me to do something that ridiculous.

I take another deep breath. It doesn't help. It only adds to the nausea climbing up my throat.

Maybe this is a joke I can't remember.

Maybe I've got everything mixed up.