Gunther woke up fuzzier than usual-his first thought was, oh no, if I have a cold we'll have to postpone rehearsal. His mouth was dry, and his head was all tight and achy, like somebody had poured sand inside it when he wasn't looking. He rubbed his eyes, wincing a little, and tried to focus on the ceiling.

It took him a minute to remember where he was. In a hotel, sure, but he was always in a hotel, and there was nothing like four years of touring with the best dance crew in the world to make you lose track of which one you were in. Vegas, probably-yeah, they'd had the Shake It Up! Chicago reunion show to kick off the new season, and he'd come out early to spend some time with CeCe and the gang, and holy crap wait a second he was naked.

Gunther sat straight up, a move that jerked the covers down the bed and made the equally naked person next to him look up and blink in the sudden sunlight, and—

"Gunther?" CeCe Jones said blearily. "What're you doing in my room?"

"Oh, no," Gunther said, and fell out of bed.

He landed mostly on his side, with one foot and arm still tangled in the covers. He fought his way out of them.

CeCe's head appeared over the side of the bed. "Gunther?"

"Still here." Still naked. Oh, he was in so much trouble.

"Come back up here." CeCe reached a hand down. "This is Vegas, I don't think you should be sprawled out on the carpet."

A flash of memory from the night before hit him, and he felt all the blood draining from his face. "Too late," he said faintly.

CeCe stared down at him, confused, for a split second, and then it hit her too. "Holy shit."

"Oh God." Gunther crawled to his feet, batting CeCe's hand aside, and looked around frantically. His boxers and black jeans were crumpled together next to the desk; he picked them up and tried desperately to untangle them. "Oh God, oh God, oh God."

"Gunther," he heard CeCe say from behind him, but he wasn't looking, he wasn't looking, he was just going to put on his clothes, he was, oh God. "Gunther, whoa, calm down. It's all right."

"It's the exact opposite of all right," Gunther said, yanking harder. Something ripped. "This is the worst thing you can do where I'm from. My parents are going to kill me."

There was a bit of a pause. "Would it even help to remind you that you're twenty-one and they can't actually-"

"No," he said, then caught his own angry tone and frowned. He turned back to the bed-keeping his jeans carefully bunched up in front of him-and made himself smile at CeCe. "It's nice that you're trying, though."

She grinned back. She was sitting cross-legged on the bed, sheet barely covering her lap, and the sun glinted off the gold necklace that lay on her bare chest and the ring she was playing with on her hand. He felt something twist hard in his chest. No. Bad. Okay. Okay. He shook the jeans, and they knocked a bunch of papers off the desk. He leaned down to pick them up.

He started to set everything back down and then stopped and grabbed the one on top back up again. "CeCe. CeCe!"

"What?"

He put on his boxers, turned around and clambered onto the bed, abandoning his jeans. "It's okay!"

"I told you it was-"

"No, it's really okay!" He kissed CeCe full on the mouth before shoving the paper in front of her confused face. "See?"

She looked down at it, shook her head hard, and then read it again. "We're-" Her voice went up a couple of octaves. "We're married?"

"Thank God," Gunther said, and collapsed on the bed next to CeCe. "I was so worried."

"You were worried? Gunther, we got married at-at Elvis's Chapel O' Love and Rainbows. And you're fine with that?"

"What?" he asked. "Do you think it's too tacky?"

There was a long silence, and then the bed started shaking. Gunther lifted his head. CeCe was bent almost double, shoulders shaking with silent laughter. Probably laughter. He reached up and put his hand on her back, rubbing it a little. "CeCe?"

"Move over," she said, and flopped down next to Gunther. "Okay. Okay. I'm pretty fuzzy on most of last night, so help me out here, sober sister. How did we end up getting m-married?"

"Well." Gunther stared up at the ceiling. "I think we were-no, we-uh."

"You don't remember either?"

"I remember we had dinner," Gunther said slowly. "And then you said since I was twenty-one I should learn how to play poker too even though I probably have the worst poker face ever."

"Okay, yeah. Was I right?"

"What?"

"About your poker face?"

Gunther rolled his eyes. "I guess. Which is fine, since I don't actually gamble."

"But you did last night."

"Oh, Gunther, it's so good to see you again." CeCe had thrown both arms around him and hugged him so hard he nearly fell over. For once, he hadn't resisted or cut it short; he'd hugged her right back, and been the last to let go. Nobody ever hugged him like she did then, like she was sending a message from her body over to his. "Don't head back right away—you have time yet tonight, don't you? I have an idea-"

"Last night was different," he said.

"Okay." CeCe was silent for a while, staring up at the ceiling. "I don't like this. Not knowing," she added as Gunther froze next to her. "I'm not that kind of drinker."

"Well..." he said. "There was that night on the Shake It Up! tour with Rocky and Kyle and the roadies. And you weren't even of age then."

"Who told you about that?"

He smiled grimly. "Nobody. You threw up on my shoes while they were trying to drag you back to your bunk."

"Oh." Then, tentatively, "I'm not usually that kind of drinker? Anymore?"

Gunther snorted out a laugh.

They picked their way slowly through the evening: a table of their own in the VIP room. Hands of poker with an increasingly amused dealer. ("She agreed with you about my poker face." "I knew it.") Fans buying CeCe drinks.

"Which people do all the time," Gunther said. He was on his stomach on the bed, sheet pulled up to his waist. CeCe had pulled on her jeans and cropped shirt and was slouching against the headboard. She was still playing with her ring. Her wedding ring. Gunther didn't think she'd noticed yet.

"Yeah, but I don't usually get plastered from it." She frowned. "And you were just sitting there with your Sprite while I knocked 'em back?"

"And the juice," Gunther said, and immediately felt lame.

CeCe's eyebrows went up. "Juice? You ordered juice at a casino?"

"Somebody bought it for me!" He protested. He kicked at the sheet. "It was some specialty stuff. Cactus juice or something. I'd never had it before."

"What?" CeCe lurched forward. Gunther flinched backwards. "Cactus juice? You're sure?"

"I-I think so. What-" CeCe's face was a little scary. He sat up, bunching the sheet up into fistfuls at his waist. "What did I do?"

"Gunther, cactus juice is a kind of alcohol. It has tequila in it, and, I don't remember what all else. But definitely tequila."

"Oh-oh my g-oh." His voice kept creeping higher and higher.

CeCe inched forward on the bed and grabbed Gunther's shoulders. "Gunther?"

He laughed.

"…Gunther?" CeCe asked, grabbing him a little tighter.

He just kept laughing, gulping in air between whoops and shaking with them. Finally, he knocked himself off balance and fell forward onto CeCe, who fell backwards onto the bed.

"Oof!" She said, and then, "Gunther? Please stop laughing before you hurt yourself."

"Sorry," he wheezed, and tried to get himself under control. "Just-I got drunk and married in Vegas. Me!" He started laughing again, which was actually really uncomfortable because he was lying kind of crossways over CeCe, but he couldn't help it. "Nobody's going to believe this."

"Well, that'll make the divorce easier."

He thought about that for a minute. Then he wriggled around, folded his hands over CeCe's belly, and propped his head on them. "About that," he said, looking up through his eyelashes at her.

She stared back at him, clearly suspicious. "What about that?"

"Do we have to get a divorce-you know-right away?"

CeCe's expression went from suspicious to stunned. "What?"

Oh. CeCe didn't…oh. He stammered maybe two words out before his courage deserted him entirely. "Never mind," he muttered.

He started to roll away, but she grabbed his shoulders and held him in place. "Gunther Hessenheffer," she said slowly, "are you hitting on me?"

He couldn't help but feel a little bit hopeful. "Aren't you allowed to hit on someone you're married to?"

CeCe cracked up-like always-but she was kind of blushing, too, he noticed. "Words cannot express how flattered I am," she said, squeezing his shoulder, "but I'm going to have to say no."

Gunther gave a wistful thought to actual marriage, allowable, non-sinful sex, that he would, you know, remember all of the next morning, and then sighed. "All right. If you say so."

"I do."

"I can see you trying not to laugh." He climbed out of bed and dug for his jeans again.

That ripping sound from before had been his jeans. He sighed and pulled them on anyway. He was only a couple of floors away, it didn't matter. He turned around to find CeCe flat on the bed with a pillow over her face.

"Come on, we might as well get up," he said. She didn't move, except to mumble something into her pillow, so Gunther wandered over to the window. Now that he wasn't so distracted by everything else, he remembered that he was really, really thirsty. And possibly hungry, under the queasy feeling.

"Do you want to go get breakfast? Or I guess brunch, I don't really know what time-" He pulled the curtain open.

The flashbulbs went off like lightning, illuminating most of the room, including CeCe, who had just sat up. In bed. And Gunther standing there, half-naked.

He yanked the curtain shut belatedly.

He and CeCe stared at each other for a couple of seconds. Then Gunther said timidly, "Um...so that might be a problem, huh?"

She gave him an incredulous look. "That one guy at TMZ is probably having an orgasm as we speak, and it might be a problem?"

"Well," Gunther said, stung, "at least we're married!"

Cook flopped down and grabbed for the pillow again. "Wake me up when the publicists call."