You're Lying

Aspen bolted up right so fast the bartender didn't have a chance to react and ended up tumbling off the bed and onto the floor rather roughly.

"Oy oy. Can you watch what you're doing?" The bartender rubbed his sore backside with a wince. They really needed to exchange the hardwood floor for plush carpeting. If only his roommate would listen to him about this.

"This- I- What did you do!" Aspen screamed at his left ring finger. His eyes were wide and mouth agape as he couldn't believe what he was seeing. No matter how much he stared, nothing changed. The diamond-studded ring remained proudly in place on his ring finger, glistening in the light peaking into the room around the edge of a window's curtain.

"Uh, what did I do to you? It was your choice, not mine. To be fair though, it all happened rather quickly and you were being so cute while drunk I couldn't exactly say no. If it makes you feel better, I really like the one that you got me as well." The bartender held his left hand up to show off in a rather proud fashion. Unlike Aspen's, his ring looked like one of those cheap toy rings one could get in the twenty-five-cent toy machines. It didn't make Aspen happy to see it. Instead, he became more aghast as he looked between his and the bartender's hand. No no no. This turned out even worse than anything he could have expected!

"This shouldn't be legal! I don't have any recollection of this for it to hold up as any kind of legally binding relationship. That or you must be lying! There's no way that this could've happened to me." Aspen groaned, flopping back on the bed as his head began to pound mercilessly in response to his over-excited state.

"Oh but it is perfectly legal. I mean, we obviously didn't go about doing the whole wedding thing. One night isn't long enough to plan that kind of thing." The bartender stood up, straightening himself out as one hand supported his lower back.

"You even made me take a picture to commemorate the occasion." The bartender would have to remember where he put his phone first to prove that the picture did exist.

"How can I go about marrying someone whose name I don't even know." Aspen's hands covered his face. Too mortified to want anyone to see his face despite the fact that his 'husband' was the only one in the room with him.

How could he let this happen? Only a few weeks into living in a new city and he already messed up so royally. Life must've held some serious grudge against him.

"Names? We already exchanged those last night as well. Your little Aspen and I am big Raphael. Seems like you really don't remember anything that took place last night though, huh?" Raphael cocked his head to one side, watching the distraught young man in mixed amusement and intrigue.

"If I was aware of what I was doing last night or even what happened, I would never have agreed to go through with something like that." The voice came out muffled by the hands pressed tightly against their owner's face. Aspen could hide his face but not his red-tipped ears.

He could acknowledge that name Raphael fit into the list of names he would accept for a boyfriend but husband? Even Raphael happened to be the sexiest man alive on the face of the earth (Not that he was. Aspen could think of others who were better looking), he still couldn't go about marrying the bartender without getting to know him.

But the other thing...

Big Raphael? Dear god. Aspen desperately hoped that those words didn't come out of his mouth despite the small voice at the back of his head admitting it sounded like something his drunk self would say.

"Whether you remember it or not. What happened, happened. So here we are. Now, are you going to eventually stop having some kind of albeit somewhat cute breakdown on my bed? You and I have a lot of talking to do after last night." Aspen didn't use words as he shook his head vehemently. He didn't want to do any kind of talking with the other.

All Aspen wanted to do at the current moment in time was crawl back under the covers and go back to sleep until he woke up and to all of this being a dream. Raphael wasn't going to put up with that. Not in his house on his bed.

"Fine. Then I am going to have to go about taking you down myself so we can go get some coffee and talk this over." Aspen yelped before he could stop himself when the bartender effortlessly picked him up and tossed him over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

"You want to do it that hard way, we can do it the hard way. I don't really think though that this is the way that you want things to go on our first official morning together." With each step, Aspen got jostled. His stomach lurched at the uneven rhythm of the pace and the rather well-toned shoulder digging into his upper stomach.

Aspen tried to protest and demand to be set down but it turned out to be harder than he thought to talk while being carried down a flight of stairs. Not only did he dislike the position, but he also didn't have proper clothes on!

"Put. me. down. I. mean. it." His sentence came out in a rather disjointed manner, words cut off by each step they went down.

"No no. We are going to get talking about this out of the way right now. I wanted to do it differently but you wanted it the hard way." Raphael's hand shifted to support Aspen's backside causing the other to blush furiously at the feeling of the large, strong hand against his underwear-clad ass. The small tap that followed only made the bright pink cheeks flush to dark scarlet red.

How dare he touch him in such a manner!