Chapter Seven
Hale
Inside the little coffee shop, one that feels like it belongs in a sleepy Connecticut town instead of Las Vegas, we sit at a bistro-style table, nursing our coffees. Eric demolishes a tray of assorted donuts in the center of the table, while my stomach rebels at the mere thought of sugar.
The silence is palpable, heavy and oppressive. Seriously. You could hear a whisper from across the café with how quiet we’re being. I can’t figure out where to start. How did we go from seeing each other for the first time in forever, to a strip club, to married? I need a visual timeline.
Which reminds me.
“You said there are videos and photos from last night?”
Eric promptly chokes on his chocolate donut with the rainbow sprinkles, laughing hard enough to draw stares from the workers behind the counter.
He shows absolutely zero sympathy for my amnesia-filled misery.
“Oh, hell yeah, there are videos. I’ve got one of you proposing at the strip club, one of all of us outside the Forever a King Chapel singing Katy Perry at the top of our lungs, and one of you two kissing as husbands for the first time.
” He sighs dreamily and wipes a very fake tear from his chubby cheek. “It was so romantic.”
My head is spinning. We actually fucking did it. We got married. A small, irrational part of me had been clinging to the hope that this was all an elaborate prank, but the way they’re both looking at me tells me otherwise. This is real. And apparently, there’s video evidence to prove it.
Wait.
“You said I proposed?”
Eric nods enthusiastically. When I look at Aksel, he just nods too and takes another calm sip of his coffee, like waking up married in Vegas is part of his regular morning routine.
“That doesn’t sound like me,” I murmur, my voice thin. “Why did you say yes? I was obviously too drunk to understand the long-term consequences of what I was doing.”
My chest tightens as the thoughts pile on top of each other, fast and sharp. I can’t stop them. My breathing picks up, shallow and uneven, and I’m suddenly teetering on the edge of a full-blown hissy fit.
I’m pissed.
At Aksel.
At myself.
At this entire absurd situation.
I glare at him, heat prickling under my skin.
But underneath the anger, there’s an uncomfortable truth I don’t want to look at. This isn’t entirely his fault. It takes two to tango and all that bullshit. We’re both adults. He could’ve said no when I proposed, but I also could’ve not proposed in the first place.
For the first time today, Aksel looks genuinely angry. His nostrils flare, his brows drawn low over his eyes, the teal darkening until it’s almost black with his rising ire. When he finally speaks, his alpha bark is loud enough to snap me upright in my chair.
“News flash, Hale, I was just as out of it as you were,” he snaps. “The only reason I’m not losing my mind right now is because I’ve already seen the photos and videos. I’ve had a little more time to wrap my head around this.”
He exhales sharply, dragging a hand through his hair before continuing, his voice tight but controlled.
“Is this how I imagined getting married? No. Not even close. But now that I’m sober, I can’t honestly say I regret it.” His gaze locks onto mine. “I know you’re hungover. I know you’re in shock. But that doesn’t give you the right to come at me like this over something we both chose to do.”
My mouth is hanging open by the time he finishes his little speech. I haven’t seen him this worked up since we were eighteen. Since I accused him of buying his apprenticeship. I’d forgotten how hot angry Aksel is.
If I hadn’t swallowed half a bottle of suppressants, I’d be leaking slick all over this wrought-iron chair.
As it is, I’m hard enough to pound nails.
I scrub my hands over my face and rub at my temples, forcing my thoughts anywhere but there before my hormones decide to stage a mutiny and make this situation even worse.
And then it hits me. Fuck.
Why didn’t I think of this sooner?
Aksel woke up in his boxers, and I was fully clothed, but that doesn’t mean anything. I could’ve gotten dressed after. The realization turns my stomach, nausea crawling up my throat at the idea of something that important happening and me not remembering a single second of it.
“We didn’t…” I trail off, the rest of the question choking itself out somewhere between embarrassment and dread.
He frowns, clearly thrown by the sudden shift. “We didn’t what?”
“Uh… I was just wondering if we had… You know.” “I know what?”
He is absolutely not making this easy. My cheeks feel like they’re on fire now. Before I can die of embarrassment, Eric, traitor, menace, plague upon my life, leans forward with a grin.
“What my painfully prudish friend is trying to ask,” Eric says brightly, “is whether you two bumped uglies last night. Made the beast with two backs. Did the horizontal tango. Knocked boots. Got jiggy with it. Played hide the hot dog.”
I glare at him. He ignores me.
“And the answer,” he continues cheerfully, “is no. You did not fuck like drunken little bunnies. But, and you listen closely because this is important, you absolutely need to watch the video of you trying your very best to make it happen. Truly inspired. Oscar-worthy. I wept at the beautiful cinema of it all.”
“What?” I squeak. The sound is so high-pitched I’m pretty sure all nearby dogs just sat up.
“Oh yeah,” Eric says, nodding. “A full-on striptease, followed by some very heartfelt begging. Glorious, babes. Absolutely magnificent.”
“I did not strip,” I insist vehemently. “I was fully dressed when I woke up this morning.”
“One moment, please,” Eric says, lifting a finger as he scrolls through his phone.
While he searches for the video that will undoubtedly kill me on the spot, I glance at Aksel.
He’s doing a terrible job of pretending not to smile.
His lips are pressed together, eyes tipped toward the ceiling like he’s praying for strength, but his face is flushed red, and his shoulders shake with silent, traitorous laughter.
The sound of my own voice, high, whiny, and unmistakably shitfaced, cuts through Eric’s hysterical cackling and drags my attention back to the phone he’s now holding out for us to see.
“Come oooooon,” drunk me whines from the screen. “One orgasm and I promise I’ll go to sleep. It’s our wedding niiiiiiight. I deserve some good loving.”
I watch in horror as I waggle my eyebrows and attempt what can only generously be described as a hip shimmy, something that might’ve been seductive if I hadn’t immediately tripped over absolutely nothing and face-planted onto the floor.
“Holy shit! Are you okay, Fylgja?”
Aksel’s shirt is off, and his pants are unbuttoned. His hands grip his blond locks as he stares at me in shock. He’s obviously just as drunk as I am. He’s swaying where he stands and takes a stumbling step before righting himself.
“I’m fline, baby. How are you?”
I watch in horror as last night me clings to the edge of the bed, hauling himself upright like a newborn giraffe with zero survival instincts.
“Yeah, Aksel! See!” Eric’s voice pipes up from behind the camera. “He’s fline! Go ahead and give him some good lovin’.”
The video jolts violently as Eric loses it, laughing so hard the frame goes crooked.
I’ve officially reached my daily limit of humiliation.
I stab the screen to stop the video and immediately drop my forehead onto the table with a dull thud. The cool surface does nothing to soothe the mortifying heat crawling up my neck.
I threw myself at Aksel last night. I fucking married Aksel last night. Fuck.
Last.
Night.
Aksel’s control is admirable, though. Not many alphas would’ve been able to turn down a drunk, begging omega. Props to him for that, I guess.
Eric cackles at the chaos, and I lift my head just long enough to glare at him, the effort making me feel as pathetic as I must look. The anger hits harder than I expect, tight, sudden, and sharp in my chest, squeezing until my eyes burn.
“You can be a real dick,” I say, my voice quieter than I mean it to be. “You know that, right?”
Eric’s laughter dies immediately. He glances at Aksel, then back at me, his expression softening.
“I’m sorry, babes,” he says, a nervous chuckle sneaking out anyway.
“That was overboard even for me. I was trying to make you laugh. I wasn’t thinking.
” He shrugs, sheepish, an apologetic half-smile tugging at his mouth.
Aksel clears his throat, drawing our attention, and holds up his phone.
“For the record,” he says evenly, “I have the holy grail of embarrassment right here.” His mouth twitches despite himself. “Eric has absolutely no room to talk when it comes to last night.”
I take the phone and hit play, bracing myself as the grainy video fills the screen.
“Come here, Mr. Sexy Elvis Man,” Eric slurs loudly. “I wanna say I do to that dickprint.”
Onscreen, Eric is very clearly leaning into our wedding officiant’s personal space, specifically, whispering directly into his ear while groping the poor minotaur’s crotch with reckless enthusiasm.
Elvis shoves him back with a stern, deeply offended warning about sexual harassment, and Eric immediately loses his balance, tumbling down the steps and landing sprawled across a wooden pew.
“Flirt,” Eric mutters proudly, narrating his own downfall.
The video cuts to him swiveling toward a bride waiting for her turn to walk down the aisle. Without missing a beat, he offers to have a threesome with her and her future spouse.
The video ends.
“I see nothing embarrassing there,” Eric says, completely serious as he examines his nails. “I don’t remember most of last night, but I do know I got laid. So honestly? Worth it.”
Aksel and I lock eyes and immediately dissolve into laughter.
Apparently, Eric was just as obliterated as we were last night.
As much as I’d like to be mad at him for enabling our impulsive marriage spiral, it’s hard to stay angry when the whole thing was my brilliant, terrible idea in the first place.
Guess the only person I can blame is myself.
Fuck. I hate when that happens.
“Why do you think you got laid last night?” Aksel asks, brow furrowing in genuine confusion.
Eric scoffs like the answer is obvious. “Please. Did you not notice me walking like I’d just ridden a horse across state lines this morning?” He sighs dramatically. “Honestly, I’m hurt. You’re always checking out Hale’s ass. I assumed mine got the same appreciation.”
He punctuates this with an exaggerated pout. “Pity.”
I squint at him. “So you’re saying you got laid because your ass hurts and you woke up naked in Aksel’s bathtub?”
That tracks. Eric could find a willing participant anywhere, anytime. His standards are… flexible. As he so eloquently puts it: any hole is a goal. Freaking pansexuals.
“Why yes,” Eric says proudly, nodding to himself. “Yes, I am, Hale.”
Aksel sets his phone in the center of the table, a video of Eric shucking off his pants and promptly falling ass-first into the bathtub looping on repeat.
“That doesn’t prove anything,” Eric says with a dismissive sniff.
The tension that’s been choking the air all morning finally cracks, and I take my first full breath of the day.
Yeah, we got married, but people get married all the time.
That doesn’t mean we have to stay married.
It’s not like we’re fated mates or cursed by some ancient spell.
This is Vegas. I’m sure divorce lawyers here hand out business cards like flyers.
This will be fine.
Everything will be fine.
Hell, maybe Aksel and I can even salvage a real friendship out of this disaster now that I’ve finally let go of my grudge. That’s something, right? One tiny silver lining in a vodka-soaked mess.
Yeah.
Everything is going to be A-OK.