22. Sage
sage
My head was pounding. It sounded like someone was banging on the wall. More pounding. Maybe if I just laid still and went back to sleep, the pounding would stop.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
“Ugh!” Christian groaned beside me. “Go away.”
Go away? Was he talking to me?
“We gotta make our flight,” came a muffled reply.
Was that Kale? Was he talking through the door?
“Check out is in an hour if you aren’t joining us for breakfast.” Kale was talking to us from the hallway.
The hallway of our hotel suite. We had to leave soon for our flight. I rolled to my side. This didn’t turn into a waterbed did it?
Christian’s hand reached for me. “We need to get up.”
I gripped his hand to stop him from jostling me. “Don’t move. I think I’m still drunk.”
My eyes fluttered open. Why was it looking so white and frosty? What’s on my face?
I pulled at it. Whatever it was, was attached to my head.
“What’s in my hair?” I asked, pulling it out.
“I think it’s a veil from that bachelorette party we ran into,” Christian said before letting out a groan as he shifted in bed. “We should’ve closed those curtains last night. It’s too bright in here.”
I turned to look at him, his hand covered his face to shield it from the light. But then he froze at the same time I did.
“Um, what’s that?” I asked him at the same time he said, “What am I wearing?”
There on his ring finger was a black tungsten wedding band.
“No,” I breathed. I looked down at my own hand. “What the fuck happened last night?” Beside the engagement ring was a simple, delicate white gold band. It was nestled perfectly next to the halo of stones that surrounded the diamond.
“Did we—?” he began. Christian’s eyes went wide as he stared at me like I had all the answers.
I shook my head but then stopped when it started to swim. “No, we couldn’t have.”
“Did we—?” He lifted the sheet to see he still had his boxers and undershirt on.
My boobs ached so I knew I was still wearing my bra. Pretty sure I was wearing my underwear too. “I don’t think we got very far if we did.”
He blew out a breath. “Good. I’d want to be able to remember that, at least.”
I shifted to a seated position, my head throbbing. I spun the rings on my finger as if it would reveal something to me.
Christian sat up and pushed out of the bed, picking up his jeans. He pulled out a folded document from the back pocket. “What’s this?”
It couldn’t be what I thought it was. My stomach twisted and rolled. Don’t be sick, please. I hated throwing up. I held my breath waiting for him to tell me what I already knew.
He scanned the paper, his mouth falling open. “Sage.” His eyes found mine, large, round, and pained.
Why was he in pain?
“Sage,” he began again. Christian’s Adam’s apple bobbed on a deep swallow, the color drained from his face. “We’re married.”
“What?” My voice came out high pitched and sharp.
I snatched the document from his outstretched hand, my eyes falling on our signatures at the bottom of the Clark County Marriage License. “What fucking happened last night?”
My brain strained, trying to remember. The tightness of panic began to build in my chest, washing me with clammy heat.
“I think we got fucking married,” Christian replied.
He was standing there, his jeans still in his hands, not moving as if any quick movement would send the whole room spinning.
I shook my head, but it made me feel like my neck was going to break. Yep, I was still drunk.
“This can’t be happening,” I said. But it felt like the words were coming from someone else and I was watching this from above.
“Oh, it’s happening, baby.” Christian looked apologetic but his words didn’t quite match.
He felt his pockets in his jeans again.
“Where’s my phone?” he asked.
I searched our room. My clothes were on the floor by the window. A bottle of champagne and glasses were sitting on the table. My purse was there too, but I didn’t see Christian’s phone.
“Can you call it?”
I set the document down, wrapping myself up in the sheet before walking over to my bag and pulling out my phone. I went to my contacts to pull up Christian’s, but nothing was coming up.
“Huh, that’s weird.”
“What?” he asked.
“Hold on.” I went to my text app and pulled up my recent messages. There weren’t any messages to Tick Tac. My hand shook, hovering over his contact that read, “Hubby.”
Bile rose in my throat and I swallowed it down. This wasn’t happening.
I touched the phone icon to call him.
The ringer went off from the depths of my purse. When did I put his phone in my purse? I vaguely remembered him taking a photo of me by the fountain. That was before …
I felt like I was short-circuiting as I pulled his phone out of my purse. I was moving in slow motion, like the air was quicksand. There across the screen was “Mrs. Riggs” calling. I knew it wasn’t his mom. It was me. I was calling him. I clicked end on my cell and it ended the call on his.
“Christian?” I held out the phone to him. “You have me as Mrs. Riggs in your contacts.”
His brows pinched and he took the phone from me, pulling up his recent calls. “I have you in my phone as Mrs. Riggs,” he repeated, as if he couldn’t believe it himself.
My head swam and my stomach made a weird growling sound.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
I held up a hand before I ran to the bathroom to, hopefully, get rid of the rest of the alcohol in my system.
“You guys look like shit,” Kale said, hanging over the back of the seat mid-flight.
“Thanks. I’m surprised you’re as awake as you are after your night.” I glared at him.
“I’m guessing you had a good night?” Christian commented beside me.
I side-eyed him. “Don’t encourage him.”
“I did have a great night, thanks for asking. NFR buckle bunnies are a different breed.”
“Ew, Kale.” I slid on my sunglasses again, hoping he’d take the hint and let me try to sleep off this hangover.
“All right, I’m going to try to get some shut eye before we land,” Kale said, turning back around.
“Do that.”
I was annoyed.
Christian had already wanted to argue with me about putting our wedding bands in his pocket.
There was no way in hell I was ready to share this information now that our fake engagement had turned into a very legal marriage.
I wasn’t ready for this. In fact, I was already trying to think how I could undo it.
“So are you going to stay with me when we get back home?” Christian asked, making sure his voice was low so Kale couldn’t hear.
I looked at him through my shades. He was taking this too well.
“No, this doesn’t change that.” I pulled out my headphones from my bag and put them on, but Christian moved one to whisper in my ear.
“You know you can stay with me. Now that we’re—”
“Don’t you dare say it.”
“Married,” he said it anyway. And with a smile on his face.
“Shut the fuck up,” I hissed, eyeing the seats in front of us where his parents and Kale sat. “I’m not staying with you in that tiny apartment with my brother in the next room.”
“You should only be worried about that if you were expecting something to happen in my bed.” He winked. “Are you wanting to consummate the marriage, wifey?”
“Sssh! You better keep quiet or I’m going to throw you out of the plane.”
He smiled, pleased with himself. “Just give me a couple of weeks and I’ll come up with something for us.” He put my headphones back in place as if this was the end of our conversation.
I removed my headphones again, I wasn’t done. “I don’t want to give it a couple of weeks. This should’ve never happened in the first place. We need to get it annulled.”
Now it was his turn to hush me.
I hoped he could see my glare through my sunglasses. He was not helping my headache.
“We shouldn’t make a rash decision. Think of our kid,” he argued.
“We don’t have a kid.”
“Yes, we do. I don’t want Arlo growing up in a broken home.”
“He’s a dog, Christian.”
“But you know it will affect him going back and forth between houses.”
“You’re impossible. He’s my dog.”
“Now you’re going to take my dog in all of this?” He protruded his bottom lip in an exaggerated pout.
“Why am I even arguing with you about this? You can’t take anything seriously for two seconds.”
He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, his brow furrowed. “I can take things seriously.”
“No, you can’t. How are you not freaking out about this?”
His jaw ticked. “I'm scared out of my mind too, Sage. But while you’re scared because this is out of your control, I’m scared that I was the one who fucked this up for both of us.
I’ve wanted you for so long … but not like this.
I’m pretty sure I just ruined the one chance I had with you and I’m never getting it back. ”
My words stalled on the tip of my tongue, my chest aching at the realization that he was as scared as I was.
I may have given him the final rejection that would finally break him.
His eyes were sad as he pulled on his own headphones, laying his head back on the seat and closing his eyes, leaving me to close my own to keep the tears from falling.
Christian didn’t even say a word to me when we got off the plane, booking it to baggage claim and making me and the rest of us keep up with him.
My gut soured with guilt when he didn’t even look at me as he removed my fifty-pound rolling suitcase from the conveyor belt and handed it to me.
I’d been so focused on my own feelings and this drunken mistake we’d made, I hadn’t even thought to ask him how he felt about it.
Knowing he was as scared as I was should’ve made me feel better, but it only made me feel worse.
Without a word to the rest of us, he turned on his heels and headed out of the airport. I hesitated, wondering if I should hitch a ride with Bill and Agatha or Kale, but they were already heading to their own vehicles, assuming I was going with Christian.
“Fuck it,” I said under my breath, running to catch up with his long strides, my rolling suitcase dragging behind me.
He had almost made it across the parking structure to his truck as I struggled to catch up. “Christian!”
He stopped in his tracks to wait for me, but he didn’t turn, instead looking down at his feet. I lightly touched his arm, peering beneath the shadow of his cowboy hat.
“I know neither one of us planned this,” I said tentatively.
His eyes found mine. They were pools of deep green. “Last thing I ever wanted was to ruin whatever chance I had with you.”
I nodded slowly and ran my bottom lip between my teeth. “I know. I think we both just need time and space to figure it out.”
He turned to me fully then, his large hands wrapping around my arms as if to steady me.
His eyes were intent, giving me his full attention, showing me that he was serious.
“Then we’ll figure it out. If it’s space you need, I can give you that as long as you're kept safe. But I need you to do something for me.”
I swallowed. “What’s that?” He’d given so much to me already, I could give something in return.
“I need you to give me two weeks.”
“Two weeks for what?”
“Two weeks to let me figure this shit out. Two weeks to convince you this could work, to give me a real chance. To let me prove to you I could be serious, because I’m dead-ass seriously in love with you.”
My breath caught and I stood there not knowing what to say. He didn’t wait for my reply either. He just grabbed the handle of my suitcase from my hand and started walking to the truck, knowing I’d follow him.