Accidental Runaway Groom

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The main stipulations that I’d given my brothers and friends when I’d gotten engaged was that my bachelor party could not go off the rails. There would be no heavy drinking, no strippers, no obscene, ridiculous, out-of-hand event. I didn’t want to be ashamed of what I did the next morning. Making sure that Jo still enjoyed being with me and wasn’t ashamed of my actions, was kind of an important part of getting married. Her being embarrassed because I had stayed out too late the night before the wedding would not be a good way to start off our marriage.

My brothers, Ewan and Galen, as well as my sister Gwen had all agreed that being an idiot when it came to a bachelor party wasn’t in the cards. In fact, when my elder brother Ewan had gotten married to his wife Livvy, we hadn’t had a ridiculous bachelor party, which would leave everybody with hangovers, regret, and not a little bit of nausea.

Instead, we’d gone out for a sunset ride, had a single drink with our dad, from one of the single barrels that he liked so much, and then come back to hang out with Ewan’s stepdaughter, Amelia.

Maybe that made us old, or even a little non-traditional, but it wasn’t as if we didn’t hang out all the time anyway. And heavy drinking had never really been our thing.

Even my younger brother Galen had agreed, although he had wanted to go a little more exuberant than we had with Ewan. Probably because I wasn’t a dad, and we were slightly younger.

However, agreements were made, and a small yet tasteful bachelor party had been planned.

So why did I taste vomit on my tongue, and my head felt as if somebody had driven a nail right into my temple? And not just a tiny nail. No, one of those ragged ones that got overheated when you hit it too many times. Or maybe even a screw. The same type of screw that got too hot and turned practically magnetic and weirdly sharp because you were drilling into a stud and decided to strip the damn thing.

Yes, one of each dug deep into my temples. That was exactly what was happening.

What the hell had happened the night before?

It was morning, right? It had to be.

I swallowed hard and realized I hadn’t actually opened my eyes yet.

Oh yes, the day was going well.

Today.

My wedding day.

Well, fuck.

With trepidation slithering over my skin, I pried open one eyelid and promptly shut it.

Dear God, who invented the sun, and why was it so bright?

I swallowed back that dryness again, jagged shards of glass tearing my throat, and forced both eyes open this time.

I was a cattle rancher, a cowboy to some, and had ridden bulls when I had been younger and far more stupid. After all, my frontal lobe hadn’t quite been developed yet.

I could handle a wee bit of sunlight.

The sun glared back at me—despite the increasing number of clouds rolling their way into the horizon—and I put one hand on my leather upholstery and forced myself into seated position. Why was I in one of the family’s old trucks?

Not my new 4×4 with the deep bucket seats that had the best heater in the world during winter and the cooling bands for a hot summer. No, this was one of the older trucks that had the bench seat, so I had been practically sprawled over it, and I had no idea how I had gotten here.

I ran my hand through my hair and winced at the crick in my neck. Where the hell was I? And why did I have zero memory of how I’d gotten here? I swallowed hard, trying to wet my mouth as it was oddly dry. I blinked again and realized that since the sun shone far too brightly in my eyes, I was at least facing east, and on one of the main farm roads off the highway that led to the McBride Ranch and lands, but other than that, I was still a little groggy on everything that had happened.

I tried to find my phone and cursed. I wore my jeans from last night, that much I remembered, but I had no keys, no wallet, no phone. Panic increasing now, I opened the glove compartment, didn’t find it there, and began to search the cab of the truck. Nope. Nothing.

How the hell had I gotten here? And what the hell was happening? I opened the door, the rusted metal screeching ever so slightly to the point that it felt like it jingled those nails and screws right back into my temples.

“What happened last night?” I muttered as I gingerly stepped out of the cab, my boots pressing into the packed dirt beneath my feet.

I was somehow pulled to the side of the road, and sleeping in my truck, without any identifying markers or way of getting home and/or contacting someone. That’s when a sliver of a memory hit.

The entire mess of my unknown surroundings and headache had nothing to do with my bachelor party.

No, this had happened after.