Chapter Six #2
At 1:12 p.m., the first pretext fell into my lap like a fortune cookie with the warning baked in: “Major Las Vegas Wedding Chapel Loses License Over Clerical Error; Hundreds of Marriages in Legal Limbo.”
I found the article on the homepage of the Times. The statistical probability that this story would break within forty-eight hours of my own legal catastrophe was so low I briefly considered whether the universe was trolling me on purpose.
I scanned the article. The chapel in question was three doors down from the one Jude and I had stumbled into, and the photo—a washed-out, sun-bleached awning—looked exactly like the one I remembered, minus the bachelorette parties and the guy in the chicken suit.
I debated forwarding the link to Jude. On one hand, it was the sort of dry, procedural news he would find hilarious. On the other, I didn’t want to imply buyer’s remorse, or, worse, invite him to consider the possibility of annulment.
But the urge to see his name light up my phone won out.
I copied the link and pasted it into a text: “I think we dodged a bullet. See attached.”
I hovered on the send button, then added: “Or maybe we’re in the bullet. Hard to say.”
Send.
I waited. I told myself I was going to set the phone down and go about my day, but instead I watched the screen, thumb hovering, the way people do in movies when they’re expecting bad news.
Forty seconds. That’s how long it took.
“Ours was licensed. I checked. The certificate was in triplicate.”
I laughed, surprised at how much relief the text delivered.
“So we’re stuck with each other,” I texted back.
His response came so fast I could see the bubbles before I finished reading my own: “Apparently.”
There was a pause, and then another bubble, “I can forward the receipts if you want. For your records.”
I considered the correct reply, then decided to test the edge of the ice: “I don’t want a paper trail. I want a person.”
A minute passed, then, “I have to go into a meeting or I’ll be fired. More later.”
I watched the bubble vanish, but the warmth stayed. For the next hour, I let myself replay every word of the exchange. His humor, the rhythm of it, the subtlety in what was not said.
I realized, not for the first time, that this was what I’d missed for years—someone whose mind ran at a speed and angle that made every line a new thing to chase.
I was supposed to be on a quarterly review call at two.
I blew it off.
Instead, I stood in my kitchen, phone in hand, and smiled at nothing. I could feel the energy between us, sharp and alive, a current that hummed just under the surface of every interaction. I wanted to touch him again. I wanted the real thing, not the digital echo.
But for now, this was enough. For now, I was content to know that somewhere in Manhattan, Jude Thomas was counting the minutes, too.
I spent the late afternoon working, or something that could pass for it if you ignored the fact that all I did was open the same spreadsheet three times and then stare at my own reflection in the office windows.
By six, the city outside had taken on its evening armor—lights flickering on in a grid, taxis radiating out from the base of the building, the whole island sharpening into something harder than it had been at noon.
I retreated to the study: dark wood, leather chair, the slow curve of a whiskey glass in my hand. I let the noise of the city fade, then picked up the phone and dialed Lucas Kincaid.
If Miles was the man I trusted with problems, Lucas was the one I trusted with secrets. We’d known each other since our undergrad days—two of a kind, both stubborn, both a little too quick to treat life like a competition, but never at the cost of loyalty.
He answered on the second ring, his voice just tired enough to signal that he’d already outlasted three board meetings and was now settling in for the real work.
“Ken,” he said, stretching the word out. “You running for office, or just prepping for the next scandal?”
“Neither,” I said. “It’s personal.”
That got his attention. Lucas could be cold, but he was never unkind. “Go on.”
I gave him the short version. Las Vegas, Carolyn, the accident at the chapel. I didn’t bother to dress it up—I didn’t have to. He would see through it anyway.
He listened without interruption. When I finished, there was a silence at the other end, the kind that only happens between men who have run out of reasons to pretend.
“What’s the problem?” he asked, finally.
“Carolyn. The fallout.”
He snorted. “She’s already moved on. She’s probably booking the florist for round two as we speak.”
“Her friends aren’t going to see it that way. Neither is the press.”
He said, “Then you control the story.”
I waited.
He waited longer.
Finally, he asked, “Is this about the boy?”
I considered denying it, but what was the point? “Yes.”
I had to wonder how many people around me actually knew of my interest in Jude. Had I been that transparent?
“He good to you?”
I let the question settle. “Yes.”
“Then bring him to dinner. Kyue will want to meet him.”
I was caught off guard, and for a second, I forgot how to answer. “You’re not going to ask what he does? Or if he fits the profile?”
Lucas laughed, low and real. “I’ve met you, Ken. If he made it through the first twenty-four hours, he’s probably made of steel.”
I couldn’t argue with that.
“Kyue and you should come to the penthouse for dinner instead. Jude hasn’t seen it yet.”
There was a bit of amusement in Lucas’s voice as he stated, “We’ll be there.”
There was a knock at his door, then the muffled voice of his own assistant. He covered the receiver, murmured a quick answer, then came back to the call.
“Look,” he said, “you want to keep the marriage, keep it. You want to blow it up, blow it up. But don’t waste my time pretending you haven’t already made the decision.”
“I haven’t told him yet,” I admitted.
“Tell him.” There was a warmth in his voice, a kind of tough kindness that made the order sound like a favor.
“You think it’ll work?” I asked.
“I think if you want it to, it will.”
I exhaled, slow. “Thanks.”
He laughed. “Just don’t bring up the wedding photos.”
I promised nothing. We hung up.
The city outside looked different now, the lights a little less hostile, the future a little less uncertain. I finished my drink, then set the glass down and rolled the wedding ring around my finger, feeling the groove it had already worn into the skin.
Lucas was right, of course. I’d made my choice.
Now all that remained was to make it real.
I stood at the window, watched the taxis trace the edges of the island, and for the first time in a long time, I believed in the possibility of a story with no clean exit, only forward motion.
Jude Thomas was my disaster, and I was ready to let it burn.
That night, the penthouse was quiet enough to hear the pulse in my own ears.
I lay in bed, staring at the white ceiling, tracing the pattern of shadows the city lights threw across the molding.
The sheets were cool, the air set three degrees colder than necessary, a force of habit I never questioned until now.
I counted the hours. Forty-eight since Vegas. Thirty since the jet bridge. Less than twelve since I’d decided to keep him.
I replayed everything. Not in fragments, but in one unedited reel. The exact shape of his laugh in the club, half-buried in the thump of the music. The shock on his face when the first kiss landed, then the way he melted into it, as if he’d been waiting years for permission to stop pretending.
The elevator ride: the panic, the fumbling, the glasses knocked askew and set right again, the sense that we were breaking every rule that had ever mattered and finding we didn’t care.
The suite, his body, soft in the way a real person was, real in a way I hadn’t let myself want since I was a kid.
The morning after, when he woke up next to me, hair in his eyes and a look on his face like the world had ended, but he was glad to have watched it burn.
The phone calls, the text chain, the way even his silences were alive with intention.
I catalogued each detail, the way I did with every asset, every risk, every potential disaster. I turned each memory over, looking for flaws, and found none.
I wanted him.
I wanted to wake up with him in this bed, with his glasses on my nightstand, with his books stacked on the window ledge and his sense of humor ricocheting off the concrete at sunrise.
I wanted the rest of it, too—the fights, the slow negotiation of boundaries, the first time we made each other angry enough to raise our voices.
I wanted it all.
I reached across the mattress, to the space where he should have been, and let my hand rest on the smooth, cold expanse of nothing.
I thought about texting him again, just to close the gap, but didn’t. I let the ache sharpen. I was a patient man. I’d waited a year for this. I could wait a little longer, but not much.
In the dark, I smiled at the ceiling, at the city, at the memory of him. I let myself feel it—want, not as a weakness but as the engine of everything worth having. When the morning came, I would call him.
And when he came to me, I would keep him.
Every risk, every cost.
I would keep him.