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When Criston was 20, right before his father passed, he worked as security at the summer estate of a rich man and fell in love for the very first time in his life. Being twenty he had assumed this was, of course, his soulmate and their fiery love would smash through any obstacles it would meet. It would atomize class, race and money into pure dust if only they choose each other. So he had asked her to marry him.
Rhaenyra had looked at him like a deer in headlights.
“I’m still in high school, Criston.”
“Next year then,” he’d pressed, still on one knee with a rose in hand.
She fiddled with the colorful stones enriching her fingers, amethysts, sapphires and rubies winking in the light. “You know I’m sixteen.”
The world turned slightly black around the edges. “What.” It hadn't really come out as a question.
Rhaenyra’s eyes had widened in panic. “I’m sixteen.” And suddenly the slightness of her stature and the fat clinging to her cheeks had become very obvious.
Criston dropped the rose and leaned back in a panic, like distance could undo what he’d done. “You're a child?”
“No!” She scowled at him. “You knew this.”
“How the fuck would I know this.”
“I- I have a wikipedia page!” she cried out.
“Why would I read your wikipedia page?”
“You’ve been here three months, you never thought to ask?” She twisted her platinum hair around her fingers and blushed. “Perhaps I should have clarified, my uncle always says I’m very mature for my age,” she said with pride.
Criston shook his head. “That’s not… good.”
She scowled again. “You like immature teenagers?”
The black edged back in his vision
Perhaps taking pity on the paleness of his face she’d grabbed his arm and pulled him upwards. “I cannot marry you,” she said resolutely. “And I don't think you want to continue this… whatever it was.”
Criston mutely shook his head.
She bit her lip and held out her hand. “Friends?”
He briefly considered killing himself before clasping her hand firmly. “Friends.”
Rhaenyra could laugh about it now, had even invited him to her birthday trip when she turned 28, laughing that the statute of limitations was now over, he could stop sweating and they should celebrate. In Vegas.
The thought of getting married had not been appealing after that fiasco.
Which was why he was so confused at his drunk self.
The man was pretty (and definitely not a teenager, thank God) with long golden lashes and finely crafted features. Clear blue eyes that were staring numbly at the paper on the hotel desk in front of him.
Criston shifted, bunching the sheets firmer over his lap and looked down.
“If it's so easy to get married it has to be easy to get an annulment,” his husband? (partner? victim?) reasoned while trailing a slender finger over the words lawful wedlock.
“I believe it holds the same legal weight as any other marriage,” Criston said evenly.
The man hummed, surprisingly calm, or maybe too hungover to react. “How did we get a marriage license?”
“We must have visited the license bureau.”
Long fingers ran through mussed reddish hair, still dark from the shower, Criston’s mind flashed back to when he’d fisted a hand in it to bend him over. “And they gave us one?”
“I am great at seeming sober,” Criston said regretfully. In fact his drunk self found it funny to act sober and then call people and have strange conversations, which is why Alicent had kept his phone in her purse yesterday.
Why did she abandon me? he agonized to the indifferent universe.
“At least we kept our names. I like my name. Better than,” he squinted, “Cole, anyway.”
“Thank you.”
“Don't take offence, Criston. I don't have the,” he gestured vaguely at his person, “presence, the suaveness, if you will, of a Cole.”
“Suaveness?”
The man’s lips quirked up in amusement, it fit well on his face. “Tall, dark, handsome. A very brooding sort of look.”
Criston looked away, suddenly shy, and the man made a delighted sound. He rested his chin on his palm lazily, looking up at Criston with heavily lidded eyes. Effortlessly poised even in a borrowed houserobe with a head that must have been killing him, judging by the amount of paracetamol he took. “So tell me about yourself, husband.”
Criston cleared his throat and stuck out his hand. The man shook it firmly, amusement now plain on his face. “Criston Cole.”
He smiled again. He had a wide mouth, Criston noticed, and he smiled easily and often. It was charming. “I know your name, I know you look lovely and I know you fuck like a plough horse,” he listed off on his fingers. “Something else.”
“I am thirty-two, I currently work as an executive protection agent and was single.” A lazy flick of a finger told him to go on. Criston searched for something that would keep those luminous eyes plastered to him for a moment longer. “I served in the army for six years, I enjoy fitness, I like running, hiking, and I volunteer with a local community program where I mentor kids, as a role model.”
“And you like whiskey sours,” the man finished for him.
Criston inclined his head. “Too much.”
“And you do a great Santana impression.”
“What is your name?” Criston asked before he started remembering more of the night.
“Gwayne.” The lilt of his voice made it sound expensive and graceful.
Criston frowned. “Have we met?”
Gwayne scanned his face carefully, then shrugged. “I don't believe so. Maybe you’ve seen something online? I’m currently CRO at the family company.”
Criston squinted and pointed at him. “You're filthy rich.”
“We’re comfortable.” Gwayne shrugged. “I am thirty, I like padel, golf, used to fence competitively, I studied economics at Cambridge, I like theater and am currently taking care of my youngest nephew.”
“You're comfortable and went to Cambridge?”
“We’re very comfortable,” Gwayne said. “Wouldn't change a thing.” He smiled and Criston smiled back.
Criston cleared his throat again. “I should shower.”
Gwwayne’s eyes gleamed. “Want me to join you?”
Briefly images flashed through his head, Gwayne’s wet back arching away from the tiles, Gwayne on his lap, hips rolling down, Gwayne’s lovely mouth stretched around him.
He dropped his eyes down to those lips.
“You are placing those sheets very strategically,” they said.
Criston swallowed. “Strategy is important in my work.”
Another inviting smile as Gwayne sauntered over to sit on the edge of the bed, fingers trailing over his stomach. When Criston laid a hand on his thigh Gwayne looked up through his lashes and trailed his hand lower. His nose and cheeks were freckled. “Do you want me to suck you off, baby?”
Criston cupped his face and pulled his bottom lip down slightly, entranced by how pink it was. Gwayne’s tongue flickered out quickly, moving forward to lick his thumb in his mouth.
The beep of the hotel door startled them apart. “Gwayne! Why are you not- Criston?”
Gwayne quickly pulled his hand away. “Alicent?”
She stood frozen in the doorway, hair in a frizzy ponytail and wearing a dusty diamond lululemon sweatsuit.
Her eyes took in Criston’s hand placement, Gwayne’s messy appearance and then finally the piece of paper on the table. “What did you do?” She strode forward, hair bouncing with every step, and snatched it up. “Are you fucking serious? Why? How did a clerk agree to this? We were gone for like two hours.”
“You abandoned me!” Criston burst out.
She shook her head wildly, hair slapping her in the face and sticking to the lipstick smeared around her mouth. “I didn't abandon you, I left you with my idiot brother.”
Ah, that Gwayne.
Her brother looked sheepishly at the floor. “He really did seem sober.”
“I told you he wasn't,” Alicent hissed. “Why won’t you just listen? And why would you agree to a drinking contest? Stop being so competitive!” She stomped her foot in anger.
Gwayne looked contrite. “It’s Vegas,” he offered meekly, wilting further when she glared.
“So you got married? Married!” she screamed.
Rhaenyra stumbled into the room, barefoot and wearing one of Alicent’s cocktail dresses. Grinning, she swayed over towards the bed and nestled herself into Criston’s side. Giggling as she drew her arms around his shoulders and drew their heads together. “You’ve finally bagged a rich man,” she cooed. “I’m so proud.”
He patted her arm. “Thank you.”
“You have to take him for everything he’s got,” she whispered in his ear.
“Rhaenyra!” Alicent snapped. “It’s not funny.”
Criston tried to draw back but she locked her arms together, almost choking him. “I think you're still drunk,” he said.
“It’s my birthday,” she whined.
Gwayne gently unlocked her arms. “Back off my husband, Miss Targaryen.”
“Husband!” she crowed and collapsed in a fit of laughter off the bed and onto the floor.
Criston turned and laid down.
“You can’t ignore this,” Alicent warned.
“Can.”
“At least he’s cute,” Gwayne offered.
Criston hid his smile at the loud whack that echoed through the room. Drifting off to sleep as the Hightower siblings set off squabbling again.