4. Chapter 4
Chapter four
Gina
“Hey.” Milo grabs my arm, his voice a quiet rumble. “What the hell is going on?”
On the deck, Benji turns to look at me. I don’t need to turn to know that Cheryl and Diana are watching us. Their conversation has stopped.
My panic has been simmering for the last hour as I planned the wedding to my best friend with the help of the man I’m starting to think might be my husband, and now it erupts into a full boil.
“We’ll talk later,” I whisper, pulling free of Milo’s grip and slipping out the door before he can say anything else.
Benji smiles, and I don’t miss the smug look he gives Milo, but I brush past him, clomping down the steps, gravel crunching under my boots as I lengthen my stride, trusting Benji to follow.
He does.
“Gina—”
I shush him. “Not here.” Where anyone having a late lunch or lying down for a mid-afternoon nap with a window open might overhear.
But we can’t be silent, either. That would be suspicious.
So I start talking about the lodge as I lead us around the looped dirt road the cabins are clustered around, and I don’t stop until we reach the point where the road is furthest from the lodge before it circles back.
“Cabin six.” I point to the three-bedroom down the road.
“You can see your friend’s car. That one is yours. ”
He nods and follows me around the back of the cabin I’d stopped in front of.
The cabins nearest us aren’t occupied, so we should be good if we keep our voices down.
I set my box of carrot cake on the picnic table and sit backward on the bench to keep an eye on the trail off to the east. Benji sets his box down and sits next to me.
I tuck a stray curl behind my ear and turn to face him. “We’re married.”
“We’re married,” he agrees with a dimpled grin that lights up his whole face.
“Are you sure?” I ask, recognizing it as a stupid question as soon as it’s out of my mouth. But maybe he only thinks we are. Maybe we were both drunk, and it never happened.
He laughs like I made a joke. “You were kinda there.”
My shoulders slump under the weight of my mistake.
The grin falls off his face, his brows drawing together. “You don’t remember. But you wrote—”
I’ll remember it forever. I remember writing that.
“You don’t remember,” he repeats softly. He scrubs a hand over his face, and when he meets my gaze again, there’s a profound sadness and sense of loss in those blue-green eyes. “I have the wedding certificate in my bag. Photos on my phone. We’re legally married.”
“But I was so drunk.”
“You were drunk,” he admits. “We both were. But not so drunk they wouldn’t marry us. We did drink a lot after. With our new friends from Singapore. I lost count of how many shots we did.”
Shots. That explains a lot. “I threw up on the plane.” I can still taste the alcohol from when it came back up. “I don’t drink like that. I was hungover for days.” I can’t believe I married a stranger—why would I do that the night I agreed to marry Milo? What is wrong with me?
“I didn’t move from the couch for thirty-six hours,” Benji admits. “But some of that was moping. You left without saying goodbye. Without giving me your number.”
I drop my head into my hands. “I almost missed my flight.”
“You should’ve woken me up.”
Maybe I should’ve. “I panicked.”
His hand rests lightly on my back, right between my shoulder blades, rubbing gently. I melt into the warmth of his palm. I don’t even know him, but I want to crawl onto his lap, bury my face in his neck, and cry over this mess, which is just nuts. He’s a stranger.
“I understand,” he says, and I think he means it.
“Did anything happen? At the hotel?” When I woke up that morning, I was confident that nothing had happened, but I need to hear him say it.
His hand stills, and I sit back up to look at him.
“No,” he says softly. “You were too drunk, and I had a serious case of booze-dick. You suggested we wait to ‘consummate the marriage’ until morning.”
I choke on air. “I what ?”
Benji laughs. “It wasn’t going to happen in the morning, either.”
For some reason, my heart sinks at the rejection. “It wasn’t?”
“No,” Benji says, and his sea-green eyes darken. “You would’ve been too hungover to enjoy what I had in mind.”
“Oh my god,” I mutter, burying my face in my hands to hide my blush.
His hand, still on my back, moves again. A gentle back and forth that feels incredibly soothing. “You really don’t remember anything?”
I take a deep breath and blow it out, then drop my hands down to my knees.
I don’t want to see the hurt in his eyes again, so I stare at the grass.
“I remember a cantina. But it’s fuzzy.” It was one drunken night, and I’d give anything to remember it.
To remember him. He’s gorgeous and seems kind and genuine, and—“I need a divorce.”
His hand stills. “Don’t. Don’t ask me for that. Don’t marry him.”
I straighten. His hand drops away as I turn to face him again. “It was one drunken night.”
He looks at me with the wounded eyes of a kicked puppy, and I want to take it back.
“It was more than that,” he says before I get the chance.
“At least it was to me.” He reaches out to tuck that stupid curl behind my ear, and I almost tell him not to bother—it will never stay—but his touch, ever so light, sends a shiver down my spine.
My entire body feels like a struck tuning fork.
“I don’t mean the night wasn’t special—only that you don’t know me. I don’t know you. I wish I could remember, but I can’t.”
“So let me stay for the summer,” he says, trying to tuck the curl back when it inevitably falls free. “I can help you remember. We can get to know each other. Please?”
I should push his hand away, not tilt my head into his touch. “I can’t.”
“That one drunken night was the best night of my life. I don’t want a divorce.” Benji’s voice drops even deeper into a whisper. “And you don’t want to marry him.”
Oh god, could he see that? Can everyone?
“Gina,” Milo’s voice snaps like thunder, and I spring up to my feet, spinning to face him.
I should’ve told him about Benji. Fuck. I never thought Benji would come here. I never thought we were really married.
Benji gets to his feet, but his eyes aren’t on Milo. They’re on me.
“I need to talk to Milo,” I say. “Why don’t you get settled in the cabin, and I’ll stop by when I’m done?”
“Are you sure?” he asks, looking concerned.
Milo might be a teddy bear, but he doesn’t look like one. “I’ll be fine,” I say. Benji searches my eyes for a minute and decides to believe me. He picks up his boxed cake, walks around the picnic table, and stops within arm’s reach of Milo.
“Hurt her, and I’ll hurt you,” he says, his voice calm.
Some of the anger leeches off Milo’s face. “I would never hurt her.”
Benji nods and continues on his way around the cabin.
Milo watches him for a minute, then turns to me. “What the fuck, Gina?”
This is it. Milo and I are finally going to fight.
We’ve never fought before—not that our friendship hasn’t had ups and downs. But we’re both conflict-averse and more apt to solve our problems by walking away, letting nature soothe ruffled feathers until we’re ready to be around each other again.
That’s not an option today. I fucked up big time.
“What’s going on?” Milo demands. He’s trying to keep his tone low and gentle, but I can hear how brittle it is. How spooked he is.
Funny story , I want to say. But it’s not funny right now. I hope it will be funny in twenty years and not still be a sore spot between us.
“I got drunk in Vegas,” I say, stuffing my hands in my pockets.
My fingers brush the diamond Benji gave me, and I tamp down the inappropriate butterflies.
“Really drunk. I don’t remember a lot of it.
” Milo and I had just agreed to get married that night, and I was upset.
That first drink with Benji was a tiny act of rebellion against the part of me that agreed without questioning to put my happiness aside.
It felt good, so I had another. And another.
For the first time in my life, I got drunk. Blackout drunk.
Milo bristles, turning in the direction Benji left in. “Did he—?”
“No. He didn’t take advantage.” I can’t look at Milo, so I stare at the ground. “We kind of…got married.”
Just within my peripheral vision, his head turns back to me so fast I’m afraid he’ll have whiplash. “You what ?”
My shoulders hitch, and I feel the need to get defensive creeping up through my bones. I take a deep breath to quash that urge. “I married him.” Silence follows, so I finally look up.
Milo stares at me in wide-eyed astonishment as he rakes his hands through his shoulder-length hair, gripping handfuls of the dark locks. “How could you do this to us?”
“I was drunk. I don’t remember any of it.” That answer feels so weak given what’s at stake—what I knew was at stake that night.
“Does he have proof?”
“There’s a wedding certificate. Photos.” I pull the rings out of my pocket. “I woke up with these.”
Milo stares at the gigantic rock like it’s an asteroid promising destruction. Maybe it is.
“I’m sorry. I should’ve told you, but—”
His hands fall from his hair to his sides. “Shit, Gina, she’s not going to sell me Happy Lake without you, and you know that. You’re the dependable one. You’re the one she likes. I needed you, and you went out and married the first person who would have you? Why would you do something so—so—?”
Every word slices my heart, and tears—more from being overwhelmed than anything else—prick my eyes.
“This isn’t you,” he finally snaps. “Did you and Dawn pull a Freaky Friday in Vegas? Because I don’t know how else something like this happened.”
There it is. My heart breaks, and I can’t even argue because he’s right. I behaved like my mother would, with no regard for anyone else. I let him down. And I don’t know why I did it that night, so how can I make him understand?
I don’t say anything. I can’t.
“I can’t fucking believe this,” Milo mutters, turns, and storms off.