32. Chapter 32 – Tamen
Chapter 32 – Tamen
“H old on, one second.” I rubbed my temples as Sloane paced around the room. If the raging hangover in my head wasn’t taking away my ability to think, it would be my raging erection from watching her pace naked. “There’s no way we’re married.”
“Then what the fuck is this?” She screeched, throwing her hand in my face on her way by. “You remember the chapel!”
Shrugging and forcing back bile, I tried to reassure her. “I remember a chapel. Vaguely. In bits and pieces of time. Not the whole thing.”
“Well, what happened then?” She cried out, stopping her pacing to stand in front of me with her arms crossed over her abundant tits as she angrily glared at me. “Because I don’t fucking remember anything after dinner!”
“Why are you yelling at me like I’m the bad guy?” I hissed, walking around her for a bottle of water from the table. Blimey, my throat was dry.
“Because you let us get married in Vegas!” She screamed, no longer able to hold back her panic. “I was drunk! I shouldn’t have been able to consent! Isn’t there a rule for wedding day sobriety!”
Her aura was bright orange as she started crumbling into her terror.
I scoffed with a shrug, “The Vegas wedding chapel market would crash if there was, I suspect.”
“I hate you!” She hissed, resuming her pacing.
Her words spurred a memory to come back to me, and I froze, remembering it.
“What?” She asked when she saw me lost in thought. “What do you remember?”
“You told me you love me.” Grimacing, I replied, the taste of regret bitter on my tongue as I realized my words weren’t helping to dispel the image of us, stumbling drunk down the aisle, hitched by a cheesy Elvis impersonator.
Fuck, I remembered the Elvis man. It was looking worse and worse the more I remembered.
“I did not.” She snapped. “I said I love that I hate you!” She froze and covered her mouth, remembering it firsthand as she whispered, “And you said you hate that you love me.”
“Same thing.” I stated, but she wasn’t listening to me.
She was lost in a memory.
“Oh my god, what if we actually did this moronically stupid thing?”
“Then we undo it.” I replied, walking out of the room.
“Undo it?” She chased after me at an alarming speed for someone who looked like they were going to blow chunks five minutes ago. “You want to undo it?”
I glared at her over my shoulder as I searched for another bottle of water. Jesus, the room cost me nearly five grand a night, why was there no bloody water anywhere?
“A moment ago, the idea of it happening was the last thing you wanted.” I chided, grabbing the open bottle of champagne off the table and chugging it. Alcohol was the last thing I needed right now, but my mouth felt like I spent the evening licking a donkey’s ass. I was desperate.
“I don’t.” She paused, “But—”
“Just stop and take a second.” I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and offered her the bottle, but took it back when she turned visibly green without even looking at it. “There’s absolutely nothing that panicking is going to do right now. If we did or if we didn’t meet Elvis at the chapel, it is done. Let’s just take a second, wake up, sober up , and try to piece together what happened.”
She huffed and then took a deep breath and glared at me. Sloane might not be very happy with me at the moment, but she knew I was right.
“Okay.” I hit the button to open the blinds, letting the midday sun into the space and grimaced when it made my headache intensify. “Headache meds, water, and food. In that order. Then we can talk about who, if not me, put that tiny rock on your finger.”
She grimaced at me again, lifting her hand to inspect the pathetic ring on her finger, but stayed silent.
It wasn’t necessarily tiny, but it wasn’t what I would have picked out for her if I had intended to get married.
The idea of being married to the woman should have alarmed me, but it didn’t. Realistically thinking, she was probably the only woman I’d ever feel even slightly comfortable tying myself to legally, but still.
I wasn’t husband material.
Besides, were Vegas marriages even legally binding?
Sloane hesitantly took a bite of her avocado toast across the table from me, but she wouldn’t meet my eyes. Was she afraid of what I’d see in them if she did? People weaved in and out around us on the patio of the hotel restaurant as we tried to eat food that would absorb the alcohol without making us throw it all back up.
An hour ago, we had woken up in hangover bliss. Somehow my ass was on the floor, and she was naked in bed and beckoning, and I had easily and happily accepted her call.
And then everything went to shit because of that small golden band on her finger.
Now, she was silently creating God only knows what scenarios in her head, more than likely blaming me for them, and avoiding me like the plague.
I took her silent treatment and tried to focus on what I remembered. Bits and pieces of fuzzy memories were all I had after dinner, and they all seemed too farfetched to be believable.
What if the whole thing was literally an alcohol induced bad dream, and none of it had actually happened?
What if she wasn’t my bride?
What if she wasn’t my anything?
Why did that scare me more than the alternative?
I fought through the haze, trying to remember what we did after dinner or if we went anywhere else beside our hotel.
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the newlywed couple out in the sunlight for the first time!” The crackly old voice of the woman who haunted my dreams assaulted us.
Sloane’s eyes rounded to the size of oranges as she wiped her mouth as the feral post office lady, Dolly, sidled up to our table.
As if she was the catalyst for unlocking all of my blacked-out memories, the bits and pieces of what happened last night fell into place, filling the gaps in vivid, colorful images.
Jesus fuck, Sloane and I got married.
“What?” Dolly paused, when neither of us acknowledged her. “Hungover, aren’t you?”
“We—” Sloane cringed and then held her head in her hands. “Oh god.”
“We blacked out.” I admitted, leaning back in my chair and finally looking over at the scary woman. “But you just confirmed what we were pretty sure we already knew.”
Dolly chuckled and patted my arm, making me cringe slightly. “Oh, don’t fret, I’m sure with a little sunshine and time, you’ll see what we all saw last night.”
“Which was what, exactly?” Sloane asked, breaking her self-imposed vow of silence.
Did I care what the predatory old lady thought about us, no.
“You two are soul mates.” Dolly replied, catching me off guard. I chanced a glance at Sloane and she peeked across the table at me before turning away again. “Look, I’ve been around long enough to recognize the connection of two souls in that deep way that defies any other logic or reason. It doesn’t happen often, surely you can agree with that. But with you two, there’s something that needs no words or titles to make sense. So, what if you two drunkenly put a title to it in Vegas?” She put her hands on her hips and glared at me, “I’m sure you’ve done far worse in your life.” I looked away. “Sit on it. See how it feels for a few days and then go from there.” Dolly finished with a wink, “Besides, they say the newlywed phase is the best time of your life.”
“Is that how you’re feeling this morning?” Sloane asked, chancing a small smile as she looked at Dolly. “You were drunker than us last night and you look like you’re standing in a photo shoot, all glam and happy as a newlywed yourself.”
Dolly chuckled and shrugged, “My liver is so pickled at this point in my life I hardly ever get a hangover. Besides, I’ve waited a hell of a long time to find a good man willing to put up with my floosy self. I’m not wasting a second of it. And you shouldn’t either, you two. Life passes in the blink of an eye when you’ve got a good thing, and it drags out at a snail’s pace when you’re lonely. Don’t waste the opportunity you’ve given yourself.”
With that, the old lady walked away, talking about finding Raymond at the slots and making him take her to see Celine Dion in concert.
The silence hung between us, as the rest of the restaurant goers lived their life unbothered by the turmoil we felt.
“Do you think she’s right?” Sloane asked in her silky voice, sipping her orange juice, finally looking across the table at me.
“Do I think the feral post office lady that chased a naked Dane through a cornfield is right about anything? No.” I joked and then toyed with my fork absently. “Which part are you talking about?”
“That this could be an opportunity. That maybe it could work.”
In the time I had known Sloane, not once had I seen her uncertain of herself. Not once had I seen hesitation and question in those golden eyes, and it made something in my chest ache a little knowing I caused part of that change.
“I do.” My reply, I hoped, would give her some needed confidence. “I meant what I said last night.”
She snorted gently and widened her eyes, “You said you don’t remember anything.”
“I didn’t. But I do now.”
“You do?” She leaned forward, intrigued. “All of it?”
“All of it.” I held her stare. “I remember telling you I love you.” Her chest rose quickly, remembering the same moment after dinner. “I remember watching you interact with the feral geriatric cougars all night and thinking that I hoped you were just like them when you were in your golden years, and how I want to be around when that happens.”
“Tamen.” She whispered, searching my eyes for something.
“I remember you nudging me when Dolly and Handyman Hank said I Do and whispering how it all made you almost want to have a midnight Vegas elopement too.”
“I did?”
“And I remember kissing you right there in front of the Elvis wannabe after he said you were mine, my wife .”
“Jesus.” She sighed, falling into her seat.
“Far from it, Rainbow.” I lifted her hand into mine where it sat on the table and gave her a gentle squeeze, rejoicing in her return one. “But for you, I’ll try to be as good as I can be.”
“And if I don’t want that?” She asked hesitantly, and my chest ached at her rejection. How could I grieve something I didn’t even know I had until moments ago? Her fingers fell from mine as I sat back in surprise.
“Then we’ll annul it.”
She rose to her feet and walked around the table in a flash, sitting down onto my lap sideways, uncaring of the other guests in the restaurant. “That’s not what I mean.”
My hands fell to her waist, holding her tight as she laid her lips against mine in a chaste kiss, “I mean I don’t want you to be good for me.” Pulling back, she stared at me, “I don’t want you to be anything but the crass butthole you always are with me. I want the moody and broody man who groans every time I walk into the room in a ridiculous outfit picked specifically to drive you nuts. I want the overprotective jerk who thinks he has a say in who or what I spend my time doing.”
I grunted in response, countering the fact that she believed I only thought I had a say in that. We both knew her days of letting other men touch her were done.
“I want the dark man with scars on his body that only I get to touch.” She pressed on, drawing our conversation back to a serious note. “I want you Tamen. Just the way you are. Because I think the crazy old lady is right, I think our souls knew long before we did that we were meant to give this a try. I think it’s why we’ve been so drawn together, even though most days we can’t stand our own damn selves, let alone each other.”
“You want this?” I lifted her left hand, twisting the pathetic ring with my thumb. “Figuratively, because this ring is pitiful, and I’ll upgrade it immediately. But it was all they had there.”
“I want this. Even though I don’t think anyone will ever actually love me. I don’t think anyone can. But I’m willing to let you try.” She smiled brightly, kissing me again. “Under one condition.” She hesitated, “Two actually.”
“There it is,” I grumped, jokingly and then nodded for her to lay down her rules.
“Condition number one,” She wrapped both arms around my neck and sat up straight. “This is a probation period marriage. You’re on a tight leash, and if you fuck it up, I get to make your life hell.”
Snorting derisively, I rolled my eyes, muttering, “As if that would ever change, no matter how long we’re married. But sure. And the second?”
She took a deep breath and brought her hand with the tiny ring up between us again, “My second condition is that we have to keep this ring somehow, maybe have it melted down into a wedding band or something to go with a new ring.” Her amber eyes misted over slightly as she stared at me. “Even though it’s not either of our styles, it’s still the one you slid on my finger the night we got married. I think that makes it special, somehow.”
“Deal.” I replied instantly, loving the idea of using it as part of the new ring. “Whatever you want.”
“Whatever?” She smirked, “Because there’s something I’ve been wanting again for a while now.”
“Blimey.”
“Remember that night at Prism, right after we opened? The night where you gave over full control to me and pretended to be such a good boy for a short while. I want that. All of that.”
“You bloody would.” I groaned, already bricking up at the mere mention of another night as Sloane’s toy. “Deal.”
“Mmh, good boy.” She hummed, kissing me again. “My perfect bad boy, who’s only good for me.”