Chapter Seven
Julien
The bar was called Lucky’s, which felt like a cosmic joke considering my current situation.
I slid onto a barstool and immediately flagged down the bartender. “Whiskey. Double. Neat.”
I wasn’t a drinker. I allowed myself maybe three drinks a year: a glass of wine at Christmas dinner, champagne at New Year’s, and occasionally a beer if someone forced me to attend a social gathering. Alcohol impaired judgment, slowed reaction time, and interfered with sleep quality.
But desperate times called for desperate measures.
And if there was ever a time that qualified as desperate, it was now.
She sat down next to me, still smiling that impossibly bright smile. “I’ll have a mojito, please! With extra mint. Mint is very cleansing for the aura.”
The bartender nodded and went to work.
I stared straight ahead, willing the whiskey to arrive faster.
“So,” she said, turning to face me fully, “I know this probably seems really sudden, but the universe doesn’t really do things on human timelines, you know?
It operates on a much higher frequency, and when it aligns two souls that are meant to be together, it just kind of...
happens. Like boom. Instant recognition.
Which is what I felt when we bumped into each other earlier.
Did you feel it? That electric current? That cosmic pull? ”
“No,” I said flatly.
“You probably did but didn’t recognize it,” she continued, completely undeterred.
“Most people aren’t as in tune with their spiritual energy as I am.
It’s not your fault. Society conditions us to ignore our intuition and focus on logic and reason—which are important.
Don’t get me wrong, but they’re not the whole picture.
The universe speaks to us in feelings and signs and synchronicities, and if you’re not paying attention, you miss them.
But I’m very good at paying attention. My sisters say I’m the most spiritually aware person they know, which is saying something because Freyja literally talks to spirits and Phoebe can read tarot cards with her eyes closed. ”
The bartender set my whiskey down in front of me.
I picked it up and drank half of it in one swallow.
It burned. God, it burned. But it was a good burn. A cleansing burn. The kind of burn that might, if I were very lucky, drown out the sound of her voice.
“Anyway,” she continued, “the universe has been very clear about this. I pulled The Lovers this morning, which is basically the universe’s way of saying ‘Your soulmate is near,’ and then I pulled The Sun, which represents joy and fulfillment and cosmic alignment, and then...
this is the really interesting part, I pulled The Tower, which most people think is a bad card, but it’s actually about necessary destruction and transformation, which makes total sense because meeting your soulmate is transformative, right?
It destroys your old life and builds a new one.
So really, The Tower is perfect. It’s like the universe saying, ‘Get ready, everything is about to change.’”
I finished the rest of my whiskey and signaled for another.
“—and then I bumped into you,” she said, her eyes sparkling with what I could only describe as manic enthusiasm, “and I knew. I felt it in my bones. In my soul. The universe was screaming, ‘THIS IS HIM!’ and I tried to tell you, but you were in such a hurry, which I totally understand now because you had that presentation about brains, which was fascinating by the way. I didn’t understand most of it, but I loved your energy up there.
Very confident and knowledgeable, very attractive—”
The second whiskey arrived.
I drank it faster than the first.
“—and then my sisters called, and they confirmed it, which was amazing because Phoebe’s readings are never wrong and Freyja’s spirit guide Lucille is incredibly accurate, like scary accurate, and they both said I’d already met my soulmate, and I was like, ‘No way,’ but then I realized it was you and everything just clicked into place.
The universe doesn’t make mistakes. When it aligns two souls, it’s for a reason. A purpose. A destiny.”
Third whiskey.
I was starting to feel it now. A pleasant warmth spread through my chest. A slight fuzziness at the edges of my vision.
Maybe if I drank enough, she’d disappear.
Maybe if I drank enough, this entire day would disappear.
Maybe if I drank enough, I’d wake up in my apartment in New Haven and discover this was all a stress-induced hallucination.
“The thing about soulmates,” she continued, apparently capable of talking indefinitely without requiring oxygen, “is that they’re not always what you expect.
Sometimes the universe pairs people who seem completely opposite because that’s how growth happens.
You challenge each other. You balance each other.
Like yin and yang. Light and dark. Order and chaos.
Which is clearly us, right? You’re very structured and organized, and I’m more...
fluid. Intuitive. I go where the universe guides me, and you probably have a five-year plan color-coded by priority level—”
Fourth whiskey.
The bartender was giving me a look. I ignored him.
“—which is perfect because I need someone to ground me and you need someone to help you loosen up and embrace spontaneity and trust the universe instead of trying to control everything—which you clearly do. I can tell just by looking at you, you have very controlled energy, very rigid, like you’re holding yourself together with a sheer force of will—”
There were definitely two of her now.
Two identical women with wild curly hair and bright eyes and voices that wouldn’t stop talking about the universe and cosmic connections and spiritual energy.
I blinked hard, trying to merge them back into one person.
It didn’t work.
“—and that’s exhausting, right? Trying to control everything all the time?
The universe wants you to let go. To trust. To surrender to the flow of destiny.
Which is what this is. Us meeting. It’s destiny.
Capital D destiny. The kind that’s written in the stars and woven into the fabric of reality itself—”
Fifth whiskey.
Or was it the sixth?
I’d lost count.
The two versions of her were now possibly three. They were all talking at once, a chorus of cosmic nonsense that was somehow getting louder despite the fact that I was drinking specifically to make it quieter.
This isn’t working, I thought desperately. She’s multiplying. I’m making it worse.
But I couldn’t stop now. Stopping would mean acknowledging reality. And reality was unacceptable.
Reality involved a woman who thought we were soulmates because she’d bumped into me in a casino and felt “cosmic energy.”
Reality involved my carefully planned Vegas trip turning into absolute chaos.
Reality involved me sitting in a bar, getting progressively drunker while listening to an extended lecture on universal consciousness and spiritual alignment.
No, reality could go to Hell.
I was staying right here in this pleasant, fuzzy, increasingly blurry space where nothing made sense and maybe, just maybe, if I drank enough, she would literally vanish into thin air like a cosmic hallucination.
Poof.
Gone.
Never to be heard from again.
“—because the universe doesn’t bring people together randomly,” one of her said.
Or maybe all three of them said it in unison.
“Every meeting has meaning. Every connection has a purpose. And our connection is significant. I can feel it. Can’t you feel it?
That pull? That magnetic attraction? That sense of... ”
I picked up what I desperately hoped was my seventh whiskey and drank it in one long swallow.
The room tilted slightly.
The three versions of her blurred together, then separated again, then did a little dance that might have been real or might have been my brain giving up entirely.
“You’re very quiet,” she said. Or they said. The cosmic chorus of chaos. “Are you okay? You look a little... unfocused.”
Unfocused.
That was one word for it.
Other words included... drunk, desperate, questioning every life choice that had led to this moment, and seriously considering whether passing out face-first on the bar would be preferable to continuing this conversation.
“I’m fine,” I heard myself say.
My voice sounded strange. Distant. Like it was coming from underwater.
“Are you sure? Because you’re swaying a little bit and—”
“I’m fine,” I said again, more forcefully this time.
I was not fine.
I was the opposite of fine.
I was so far from fine that fine was a distant memory, a concept I’d once understood but could no longer grasp.
But admitting that would require acknowledging reality, and we’d already established that reality was unacceptable. So I ordered another drink. And another.
And possibly several more after that—though at that point I’d lost the ability to count or form coherent thoughts or do anything other than desperately hope that the universe, her universe, the one she kept talking about, would take pity on me and make her disappear.
It didn’t.
She just kept talking. And I just kept drinking. And somewhere in the pleasant, fuzzy darkness that was rapidly consuming my consciousness, I had one final, crystal-clear thought.
I’ve made a terrible mistake.
Many... many hours later, I woke up. Or at least, I thought I woke up. It was hard to tell because my head felt like someone had taken a sledgehammer to it, my mouth tasted like something had died in it, and the room was spinning in a way that suggested I might still be drunk.
Actually, I was almost positive I was still drunk.
I lay there for a moment, trying to remember where I was.
Vegas. Right. I was in Vegas. For the TED Talk. Which I’d given. And then... something had happened. Something involving a bar and whiskey and...
Oh God.
Oh God!
The memories came flooding back in horrifying fragments. The woman. The cosmic energy. The endless talking. The drinking. So much drinking.
I sat up very slowly, immediately regretted it, and stumbled toward what I hoped was the bathroom.
I made it just in time.
Several minutes later, after I’d finished using the facilities, splashed cold water on my face, and stared at my reflection in the mirror (pale, disheveled, looking like death warmed over), I stumbled back into the bedroom.
And froze.
There was someone in my bed.
Someone naked.
Someone with wild curly hair spread across my pillow.
No.
No, no no no no.
This wasn’t happening.
This could not be happening.
I stood there, frozen in absolute horror, my brain trying desperately to process what I was seeing while simultaneously refusing to accept it.
The woman. Her! The cosmic energy woman, the universe woman, was asleep in my bed.
Completely naked.
In. My. Bed.
What did I do?
What did we do?
Oh God, what happened last night?
My hands were shaking as I grabbed my phone from the nightstand.
I needed help.
I needed advice.
I needed someone who’d been in worse situations than this and lived to tell the tale.
I scrolled through my contacts with trembling fingers and hit call.
It rang twice before a familiar voice answered, sounding far too cheerful for whatever ungodly hour it was. “Julien! How’s Vegas? Did you survive the TED Talk?”
“Fitz,” I croaked, my voice barely above a whisper. “Fitz, I need help.”
There was a pause. “Are you okay? You sound terrible.”
“I’m not okay. I’m the opposite of okay. I’m in my hotel room and there’s a woman in my bed, and she’s naked, and I don’t remember anything after the bar and I think... I think something happened and I don’t know what to do and...”
I heard it then.
Laughter.
Not a chuckle. Not a snort.
Full, genuine, absolutely delighted laughter.
“Fitz, this isn’t funny.”
“Oh my God,” he gasped between laughs. “Oh my God. You... you actually...” More laughter. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I just... this is amazing. This is the best thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Fitz, please.”
“No, no, I’m sorry.” He was still laughing. “It’s just... you? Julien Darcy? Mr. Precision and Planning? Mr. I-Have-A-Color-Coded-Schedule? You woke up with a random woman in your bed after a night you don’t remember?”
“Yes,” I said miserably. “Yes, that’s exactly what happened, and I need you to stop laughing and help me figure out what to do.”
“This couldn’t have happened to a better guy,” Fitz said, his voice full of gleeful satisfaction. “Seriously. The most uptight, straitlaced, by-the-book person I know, and you managed to have a wild Vegas night. I’m so proud of you right now.”
“Fitz.”
“Did you get married? Please tell me you got married. That would make this perfect.”
“I don’t know!” I practically shouted, then immediately lowered my voice, terrified of waking her. “I don’t remember! That’s the problem!”
More laughter. “Oh man. Oh man. This is incredible. Wait until I tell the others.”
“Don’t you dare.”
“Gabriel’s going to lose his mind. Quinton will probably throw a party. Hayden will give you that look—you know the one, where he’s disappointed but also secretly impressed.”
“Fitz, I’m begging you.”
“Okay, okay.” He was still chuckling. “What do you need? Besides a time machine and a new identity?”
I looked at the woman in my bed, still asleep. Thank God, because I felt panic rising in my chest like a tidal wave. “I need you to tell me this is fixable,” I hissed. “I need you to tell me this isn’t as bad as it seems.”
There was a long pause.
Then Fitz said, very gently, “Buddy, I think you need to check your left hand.”
“What? Why would I…?”
And then I saw it.
A ring.
A gold band on my left ring finger.
I stared at it, my brain refusing to process what I was seeing.
“Fitz,” I whispered. “Fitz, I think I got married.”
The laughter started again, louder this time.
“Welcome to Vegas, Julien. Welcome to Vegas.”