Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
Sophie
Polished resorts and towering signs give way to wedding chapels, repair shops, stucco apartments, and sun-faded shopping centers where handwritten signs promise cash advances, discount bail bonds, and same-day divorces.
Beside me, Caleb’s posture changes almost imperceptibly. He’s not tense, but his attention sharpens as we pass certain streets, as if he’s comparing it to memories only he can see.
“You know this neighborhood,” I say.
His gaze remains outside. “Used to.”
He offers nothing more, which only makes me want to know more.
A few minutes later, the SUV stops next to a building that could have once been a drive-through wedding chapel. It has a low white roof trimmed in fading pink with a neon heart blinking erratically from the roof.
Beneath it, a hand-painted sign announces: TILL TACOS DO US PART
Stunned, I read it twice before turning to Caleb. “Is this where we’re having lunch?”
Lucian looks up from his phone. “Pierce has impeccable taste.”
“In tacos?” Caleb asks.
“I was referring to wives.”
I look at them, but Caleb is already opening the door.
Outside, several metal tables sit beneath an awning strung with colored lights.
A bride in a short white dress and cowboy boots is taking pictures beneath the taco sign while her new husband holds a cardboard tray of food, and an Elvis impersonator waits nearby, drinking something violently pink through a straw.
I laugh before I can stop myself.
Lucian removes his sunglasses.
“What?” I demand. “You’re staring at me.”
“You’re laughing.”
“I do that occasionally.”
“Not with us.”
He’s right. And I’m a little shocked that it’s happening at all.
Caleb places his palm at the small of my back and guides me toward the ordering window. “Come on, wife. Let’s feed you before you begin analyzing the psychological implications of tacos served from a former wedding chapel.”
“It’s too late for that.”
“I assumed it would be.”
A woman with silver threaded through her dark hair is taking orders at the window.
Then, when it’s our turn, her entire face changes, her wrinkles deepening as she flashes a genuine smile. “Caleb Pierce.”
His eyes lighten with something that might be affection.
The woman plants both palms on the counter and leans through the opening. “You have some nerve coming back here looking like that.”
He glances down at his black shirt and trousers. “Like what?”
“Expensive.”
Lucian chuckles.
“Hello, Rosa. I’ve missed you.”
She reaches through the window and cups his cheek.
This is the man who moves through the world with a controlled readiness that warns sensible people to keep their distance.
Rosa pats his cheek as if none of that impresses her in the slightest. “You’re too thin.”
“I’m not.”
“Rich men are always thin. They eat food arranged with tweezers.”
I laugh.
Her attention shifts to me, then immediately drops to the rings on my hand.
“Oh.” Her brows climb. “This is interesting.”
“Sophie,” Caleb says, “this is Rosa Morales. Rosa, my wife.”
Lucian steps beside us. “Our wife.”
Rosa looks from one man to the other, then back to me.
I brace myself for questions.
Instead, she nods. “Good for you, sweetheart.”
This is Vegas. Probably nothing surprises her anymore.
“She needs to eat,” Rosa tells Caleb. “Carne asada for you?”
“Always.”
She points toward Lucian. “And him?”
“Feed him whatever you think he deserves.”
Lucian slips his sunglasses into the front of his shirt. “Your hospitality is overwhelming.”
Rosa tells us she’ll prepare a feast for us to share
“And Sophie wants a Queen of Hearts,” Caleb adds.
I frown at him. “How do you know I want a Queen of Hearts?”
“You studied it on the menu for six seconds.”
I had, and the mocktail version with tart cherry juice, blood orange, and ginger sounded amazingly refreshing. But I’ve never had anything like it. “It might be terrible.”
“You’ll love it,” Rosa promises. “Now sit. I’ll bring everything out.”
Remarkably my husbands obey.
We take a table beneath the awning, the one with a fan making a pathetic attempt at moving the hot, dry air around.
Caleb’s back is to the makeshift wall. He’s not relaxed. And I’m beginning to believe that the only place he lets down his guard even a little is when we’re alone at their penthouse.
“You grew up here?” I ask.
“A few miles away.”
Though I hope he’ll go on, he doesn’t.
Rosa brings our drinks, followed by baskets of tacos, salsa, lime wedges, grilled onions, peppers, and elote.
There are no tweezers in sight.
Lucian studies the salsa. “Which one?”
“Start with the red,” Caleb advises.
“It appears capable of stripping varnish.”
“Which is why you’ll like it.”
I opt for a much-safer fish taco.
“Lime?” Caleb offers.
“I was raised in Texas. I know how to eat a taco.”
“Prove it.”
I squeeze lime over the top and take a bite. A thin stream of juice escapes over the side of my hand, and before I can reach for a napkin, Caleb catches my wrist and draws it toward his mouth.
My breath stalls.
Without breaking eye contact, he licks the drop from my skin.
The touch is brief, but the pulse of awareness it sends through me is not. I’m tender and more than a little tired. So why am I suddenly desperate for their touch and possession? “We have napkins,” I tell him.
“And?”
“Civilized people use them.”
Lucian adds some of the ominous red salsa to his taco. “You married the wrong men if civilization was important to you.”
I level my gaze on him. “I had no input, if you recall.”
“An oversight we are delighted to live with.”
Lucian takes a bite, and Caleb watches.
Several seconds later, Lucian reaches for his drink. “Varnish.”
Caleb grins.
I haven’t seen this side of their relationship before either. And I kind of like this easier going version of them.
For a while, we simply eat, and nothing about the meal is elegant. Salsa drips onto paper baskets, the metal table wobbles whenever one of us leans on it, and the fan makes a horrible screeching sound when it reaches the far-right side.
Wrinkling my nose, I gather the courage to try the Queen of Hearts.
It’s cold and tart, not nearly as sweet as the color suggests, with a bright, almost citrusy bite that makes me immediately take another sip.
“And?” Caleb asks.
“I’m glad you ordered it.”
“You’re saying I was right. Again?”
Just then, the Elvis impersonator begins serenading the newlyweds beneath the neon heart while completely different music continues to pour from the speaker, and I start laughing all over again.
The whole experience is ridiculous.
And yet, sitting beneath a faded awning eating tacos with two billionaires who are shockingly at home here, I’m happier than I’ve been in months.
My gaze returns to Caleb.
Rosa ordered him around, insulted his clothes, touched his face, and treated him as if being rich and dangerous were the least interesting things about him.
And he let her.
“Do you miss Vegas?”
His gaze meets mine.
“Parts of it.”
“This part?”
He glances toward Rosa, the taco stand, the flickering neon heart.
“Yeah.”
It isn’t much of an answer. But I doubt I’ll get anything more from him. “Thank you for bringing me here.”
His gaze returns to mine. “You’re welcome.”
No joke or provocative comment follows, and something about the simple sincerity of the words settles warmly inside me.
Then Lucian reaches across the table and steals the final bite of my fish taco.
I glare at him. “You did not just do that.”
He eats it.
“You have your own.”
“I wanted yours.”
Without the slightest hint of remorse, he picks up another fish taco and deposits it in my basket. “Restitution.”
I’m beyond stuffed when Rosa clears the baskets and tells us to come back soon.
“I’d enjoy that,” I tell her. “This was amazing.”
Caleb’s gaze is focused on me, as if he sees something he wasn’t expecting.
I look back. Nothing about this honeymoon has been anything I expected either.
Both men stand, and Lucian slides his sunglasses back into place. “Ready to go?”