The (Arranged) Wedding Crasher

“Are you pregnant?” Josh West Prime asked with a raised eyebrow and a sight smirk, resolving that he needed to stop letting her corner the market on coy expressions.

Shannon smirked in kind as she raised her glass, swishing it slightly. “No.”

“Am I pregnant?” He continued with a mock-thoughtful expression, prompting a full-on laugh.

“I sure hope not.”

“Then whatever it is, I’m sure it can’t be too bad.” Josh leaned back, letting his shoulders sag comfortably as he sucked his own drink between his lips.

“I’m engaged.”

New Josh’s drink exploded from between his lips, putting the napkins scattered over Shannon’s bosom to good use as he stared at her with a crazed, uncomprehending expression. “I—I’m sorry, I gotta go—”

Josh was halfway out of his seat before he felt her gentle tug on his sleeve, and he looked back despite himself to see her leaning half out of her chair, her eyes meeting his in a pleading expression. “Please. I’ll pay for lunch.”

In the end, his empty stomach and emptier wallet won out.

“How much do you know about Saudi Arabian culture?” Shannon asked him, her arms crossed in front of her mostly-empty salad bowl while her cleavage bunched up tantalizingly against the table’s edge.

Josh thought for a moment, pausing in between bites of his obstinately expensive hamburger (if this was one of his last meals before getting murdered by an angry fiancé, he was going to make it count damn it). “Literally nothing.” With most of his old memories lurking in the attic of his mind like a treasured childhood toy he just couldn’t seem to find, the amount he knew about Middle Eastern culture could be boiled down to news articles and factoids. How the hell did I make such a comprehensive list about this stuff just a day ago? What did I even put down about Saudi Arabian women again…?

“Well, suffice it to say,” Shannon said, shifting a tad uncomfortably, “arranged marriages are still a thing.”

“Ohhhhhhhh, okay.” Josh said as he busied himself with wiping his hands, sure that the sheer power of his relief could power a nuclear plant. “So your parents are just shipping you off to live with some sultan, then?”

This was met with a balled-up napkin to his temple, even as Shannon let out a giggle that said she at least thought he was joking. “This isn’t Aladdin, silly. Our families are all about getting their women together with other families they can trust, families they’re close to. Sometimes… very close to.” At this, Shannon rolled her eyes and let out a sigh. “Long story short, I’m marrying my cousin.”

Josh gave a slow nod at this. “Better.”

This earned him a ranch-drenched lettuce leaf to the torso instead, along with a threatening jab of her fork underneath a lopsided grin. “Shut uuuuup! That’s it, you don’t get to say anymore until I’m done.”

Josh made a zipping motion at his mouth, then made as though he were throwing away the key.

Shannon leaned to the side, her cheek propped up by one hand even as the other used her fork to tease a piece of stray lettuce. “Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like I don’t like him or anything, he’s fine. I just… don’t… love him, you know? Plus, Saudi women have this… quirk, that means that there’s usually a lot of women to one man. So I’d just be one of--I don’t even know how many. And if I went through with it, I’d be expected to transition to family life like that, which means I’d have to move, give up my studies, pack up my career, throw away my life—”

At some point Shannon’s ministrations had taken on a stabbing quality, something the Indian woman realized too late to save the piece of lettuce in question. Clearing her throat awkwardly, Shannon sat up and rested the fork gently in front of her, before meeting Josh’s eyes. “That’s why I need your help. That same quirk means that if we stay with the same man for a certain amount of time, we’re kind of stuck on them. So I just have to convince my family that I’m, you know, stuck on you.”

Josh nodded, about to say something stupid like ‘Oh, like the song’ before the other shoe dropped. “Wait, so by stuck on, you mean…”

Shannon nodded enthusiastically. “Just for a few weeks, I kinda need you to pretend to be my boyfriend.”

Josh’s lips peeled open in a fit of involuntary nervous laughter like the cracking of an icy lake, having a similar effect as one on Shannon’s expression. “So you’re trading marrying your cousin for marrying a stranger?”

“I said pretend, didn’t I? We just have to lie about how much time we’ve spent together, and they’ll come to certain conclusions on their own.”

“I can think of a few good holes in your plan,” Josh said, “starting with, you barely know me. Did I ever even tell you my last name?"

“Your name is Josh West.” She retorted playfully.

“Alright, so you have a good memory—”

“You were born in February, under the sign of the Aquarius.”

“—and you’re a good guesser—”

“And the only relationships you’ve ever had were with white or black girls, which were ‘It’s Complicated’ longer than they were actually a thing.”

“—aaaaaaaaand you’ve been stalking me.”

“Facebook stalking.” Shannon said, nonetheless turning her face to the side and scratching her cheek. “’s not illegal.”

“Right. So what’s in this for me, exactly?”

“Oh,” Shannon said, drawing back with a gleam in her eye like she was the snake waiting underneath the casket lid, “I’m sure you’ll be able to think of something.” Innocuously draping her arm around the back of her head, she gripped the bicep of the opposing arm as she seemingly leaned casually backwards, shifting the unreal bulk of her caramel mounds in Josh’s direction. They jostled and wobbled in place as she gently squirmed from side-to-side, letting out grunts of tender stretching satisfaction that read as something entirely different to Josh’s suddenly hormone-drenched mind.

“Th-that’s a dirty trick.” He said, his tongue echoing hollowly against a suddenly dry mouth.

“Oh~? Could it be that’s because I’m a…” Shannon’s arms folded in front of her, supporting her breasts on the shelf of one horizontal arm as she couched it in the crook of her elbow, and pulled. “…dirty, dirty girl?”

Josh found his lips unconsciously rising to the level of her nipples as Shannon’s breasts were heaved gently upward, the faint but unmistakable indentations in the fabric rollicking in place like craters amidst an earthquake. Josh had just about gathered a frame of mind necessary to say something, when a loud “Oops!” penetrated his consciousness, and Shannon got to her feet even as her eyes never left his.

“Looks like I…” Shannon moved a lock of hair behind her ear as she bent forward slightly at the waist, “dropped something.” Bending forward in a smooth motion, Shannon’s cleavage stopped just short of disappearing past the edge of the table, leaving Josh with nothing but a smooth, unbroken expanse of bulging caramel flesh, gently knocking against one another as if every square inch of the voluminous expanse were competing for his attention. He found it increasingly difficult to be cognizant of how she didn’t seem to be looking for something at all, or what question she had originally asked him, or what his name was…

Somehow, someway, he found the presence of mind to simply close his eyes, and found a modicum of spittle to speak with. “Momma didn’t raise no fool.” He croaked out.

There was a disappointed sigh, the scuff of a chair, and a rustle of paper. “I’ll also pay you.”

Josh’s resolve lasted for exactly five seconds after that, sagging into his chair as he opened his eyes. “…when do we start?”