SKYLAR
I walk past the marble bust of Francis Pelham, the first mayor of Emberfield, for the tenth time, cursing his jovial smile as I do.
There’s nothing to be happy about, Frankie.
The world is imploding. I check my phone again.
It’s eight-seventeen and still no sign of Declan.
I deleted his number years ago. Do I still have it memorized?
Yes. Did I try it and get a ‘this number is no longer in service’ recording? Also, yes.
I do a few more laps back and forth in front of the Emberfield Courthouse, and by eight twenty-five, I give up and storm inside.
I heave the door open, take a sharp left and walk down the hallway to the County Clerk's office. Marjorie is sitting at the front desk as usual, typing away at her computer. She holds a slightly arthritic finger up as she continues to click the keys with her other hand.
Marjorie has been the head office administrator here for going on forty years. I wouldn’t be surprised if she assisted Francis Pelham himself at some point. I got to know her pretty well over the past few years as the point person at the paper for county records.
“Hi Marge,” I greet her. She insisted I start calling her Marge after we spent an afternoon together rifling through public tax records for a piece Dan was working on.
“What brings your pretty little face here so early on a Monday? New hot story?”
“Not exactly.”
Marjorie frowns, pulling her glasses down to her nose so she can look up at me through the top of them. “Are you in trouble? Henry can have a getaway car idling out front in ten minutes.”
I smile at the thought of Marjorie’s eighty-year-old husband showing up outside the courthouse in his Pontiac to whisk me off to safety.
“Maybe. Depends on how this next part goes,” I answer honestly, and Marge’s eyes widen.
She must not have checked her work email over the weekend.
According to my interview with her for the article, she gets notified of all of the online marriage licenses so she can print out official copies, file them, and send them to the newlyweds.
“Marge.” I lean in a little closer even though I’m the only one in the office. “I sort of got married last night using the new online system.”
Her eyes go wide, and I think for a moment she might fall out of her chair, but then the biggest smile spreads across her face.
“Oh, heavens! That’s great news. I thought you were going to tell me you got caught up in one of those pyramid schemes.
” She pushes her glasses back up. “I had no idea you were even seeing someone,” she says as she clicks around on her screen.
“Let me see here.” She leans in close until her eyes are almost flush against the monitor. “Declan Astor? Sounds hot.”
“Marjorie!” I scold.
“What? Henry gets it. We both have our hall passes, you know.” Oh my God.
Who taught her that word? “Anyway, this is pretty shocking news.” She looks me up and down.
“You were giving off single vibes, dear. Just the other day, I told Henry that you were too pretty to die alone in that little cottage. We were even going to set you up with our nephew, Clyde. He just got that new job at the cemetery, and he’s hoping to move out of my sister’s basement by the end of the month, but I guess that ship has sailed, huh? ”
“I’d say so. Listen, Marjorie.”
“Marge, honey. Call me Marge.”
“Marge. It was a mistake.”
“A mistake? With the license?” She looks back at her computer, adjusting her glasses. “Everything looks right on my end. Did you spell his name wrong?”
“No, I mean the marriage was a mistake.”
She looks at me for a few pregnant seconds, narrowing her eyes before glancing back at the screen. “But you uploaded your license. E-signed the disclosures. It’s all here.”
“I know. It’s a long story, but the bottom line is that I didn’t mean to submit the marriage license request.”
“Oh, honey. It’s not a request. It’s a legal marriage.”
“Right, that’s what I meant. Anyway, if you could just reverse it, I’ll be out of your hair.”
Marjorie, the sweet woman that she is, at least attempts to keep the pity out of her soft blue eyes as she sets aside her glasses.
“Skylar, dear.” She speaks softly, not in a condescending way, but a little like she’s dealing with a toddler on the verge of a meltdown. “There were several disclosures.”
“I know, but it changed,” I argue. “There used to be another page after the initial submission where you had to upload a video.”
“Oh, yes. Apparently there were some complaints about that being confusing. Didn’t you see the warning in large font at the bottom regarding the change? I told them to write it in red. Was it not in red?”
The letters could have jumped off my phone screen and hit me in the head for all the attention I was paying. There was only one thing on my mind. Press submit. Watch him squirm. Except he didn’t squirm, and I’m the one who fainted.
“I don’t—”
“Look, Skylar. You know I would damn it all to hell and delete this from the system for you if that were all there was to it, but this license was automatically sent to the county recorder and the state marriage board. My hands are tied.”
As I nod, I can already feel the pressure behind my eyes building, but I refuse to cry. Not about this.
“Do you know him well?” Marjorie’s voice echoes in the otherwise empty office.
“Yeah, I guess. He’s…an old friend from high school.”
“I see.”
“Is that bad?”
“Not bad, per se, but if you could prove he was a stranger when you married him, that might help an annulment case.”
My heart swells with relief at that word. There’s still a chance I can erase this. That’s what an annulment is, right? A clean slate?
“So I can get an annulment?” I ask her. “I wasn’t sure if Connecticut even had that option.”
“Annulments are legal in Connecticut, but I’ve heard they’re hard to get. You have to prove it was fraud, coercion, or incapacity. I’m no lawyer, but I did my homework after the fourth couple came in claiming they got drunkenly married. Apparently, intoxication is usually not enough.”
Great. There goes my annulment case. Unless being drunk on not only alcohol but also the citrusy scent of the man you hate most in the world counts.
“Oh, you know what?” Marge chirps behind her computer as she bends down to open a drawer.
“I almost forgot. A young man came in the other day with a stack of cards. A family law attorney who recently moved to town.” She hands me one of the cards from the top of the stack.
It reads, “Joseph Jonas, Attorney at Law.”
You have to be fucking kidding me.
“It’s not the Joe,” Marjorie says, a lilt of disappointment in her voice. “Trust me, I’d know. He’s one of my hall passes.” This she pairs with a wink. I’d laugh if I didn’t feel like my tears were only a fraction of a second away from being unleashed all over this poor woman.
“Thank you,” I tell her, pocketing the card. “Seriously, Marge, you’re the best. I’m sorry you had to deal with me first thing in the morning.”
“You’re welcome, honey. You never have to apologize to me for visiting. I wish there were more I could do to help.”
I shrug. “I’ll call Mr. Jonas. Maybe he can help me.” Or find a loophole to get me out of this ninth circle of hell I’ve found myself in, but I don’t say that.
“Skylar,” she calls out as I turn to leave. When I look back, her eyes are shiny and slightly crinkled. “You’re not something that has to be dealt with.” I give her a small smile, nodding once. With that, I walk out, as pity finally takes over Marjorie’s features.
An hour later, I’m still staring at the small Helvetica letters on the white rectangular business card.
Joseph Jonas, Attorney at Law.
I’m no closer to dialing the number than when I first sat down at my desk after stopping at The Roasted Bean for an iced mocha.
Now the ice is nearly melted, I haven’t done an iota of work despite the emails that keep pouring in, and I can’t stop imagining Joseph Jonas having these cards printed.
Excitedly skipping off to drop them at the courthouse, hoping to make a buck off the poor souls who got wasted and thought getting married online would be a good idea.
“Article pitches for this week.” I look up to see Dan standing above me with a stack of papers.
“You weren’t answering my emails, so I thought I’d print them out and bring them by.
I just need approval.” His eyes briefly flick to my hand, and I think he’s looking at my cast before I remember the ring.
The one I’m still wearing partly because it’s stuck and partly because I couldn’t bring myself to try again after my initial half-hearted attempt to take it off.
“Dan, listen. I’m so sorry about the other night. It was unprofessional and—”
He waves me off. “Not a problem. I was happy to help young love…blossom or whatever.” I can tell he wants nothing more than to drop the subject, and I’m right there with him.
“Right, well thank you for that…and these.” I take the papers from where he set them down on my desk. “I’ll email the approvals over now.”
He turns to leave, but I stop him. “Oh, and Dan. If you could keep this quiet for now? We haven’t really told anyone yet.”
“Yeah, of course.”
“And let Chase and Devon know?”
“You got it.”
“Thanks. I appreciate your discretion.”
“Sure thing.” Dan nods and nearly scampers out of the room, bumping into a chair on his way out.
He may be the only person in this office more awkward than I am.
For all his world traveling, he’s not very worldly, although it’s possible he could be a closet freak.
Nerdy in the streets, Daddy in the sheets, or however the saying goes.
I rest my forehead against my desk and briefly wonder if I should have Marjorie set him up with one of her relatives, but the thought evaporates at the sound of boots thudding against the hardwood floor.
Boots I know all too well.
Lifting my head slowly, I’m met with espresso eyes, buzzing with intensity. Said eyes rake slowly and painfully over me until they land on my cast—no, once again it’s not my cast someone is staring at. It’s the twisted wire around my ring finger.
I quickly move my hand behind my desk and out of sight. “Where the hell were you, Declan?” I snap. “I waited at the courthouse for half an hour.”
“I had a meeting,” he replies easily. Now it’s my turn to look him up and down.
He’s leaning against the doorway, legs crossed at the ankles, wearing dark jeans, a Rancid T-shirt, and the same leather jacket from the other night.
His hair is styled, a contrast to the finger-raked mess he was sporting when I found him in my living room yesterday morning.
“You don’t look like you’re dressed for work,” I observe.
“Didn’t say it was a work meeting.”
His lips turn up in a ghost of a smirk and my heart sinks. Is he insinuating he was hooking up with someone? I wouldn’t put it past him. He may have looked gutted when I told him we had to fix the mistake we made, but I’ve had to learn the hard way that he’s a good actor. “You’re an asshole.”
“I’ve been called worse.”
“Well, while you were off getting your dick sucked, I was trying to get us out of this mess. It can’t be reversed, but we can try for an annulment, which is the next best thing. I have the name of an attorney and—”
Before I can finish speaking, he pushes off the door frame, his long legs eating up the distance between us until he’s so close I can smell the stupid citrus of his cologne mixed with a vague note of cigarettes.
Then his hands are on my desk and he’s leaning forward, a piece of dyed blonde hair falling into his face.
“If you think I was getting my dick sucked, you don’t know me at all. ”
I’m momentarily taken aback—by his sudden anger or his proximity, I don’t know. It takes a second, but when I finally snap out of it, I’m the one who’s angry. “I never said I did.”
He straightens up, flicking his head to the side to move the hair from his face.
“Honestly, I don’t give a shit what you were doing this morning.” I go on. “What I do care about is getting this annulment, so you better show up when I make an appointment with the lawyer.”
He slides a hand into his pocket. “Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“Yeah, I don’t always know what my schedule is going to look like, but sure, you can try to set up an appointment.”
A frustrated sigh escapes me before I can hold it back. “Declan Astor! This isn’t a joke anymore. We got married. Legally fucking married.”
It’s at that exact moment, I notice one of the photography interns walking past my office.
Stomping past Declan, I slam the door shut until I hear the snick of the latch engaging.
“Give me your new phone number,” I demand.
I’m not taking any more chances if he decides to stand me up again.
Not that he would answer my calls anyway, but at least I can try.
“I don’t have a new number. It’s the same one from high school.”
I furrow my brows. “But I tried calling you like five times today.”
“Then you called the wrong number.”
He takes his phone out, tapping the screen a couple of times until a faint buzzing fills the space.
I grab my phone from the desk drawer where I keep it while I’m working.
Declan’s number flashes on the screen. Only it’s off by one digit from the number I called this morning.
Meaning I’m forgetting him. Of course, the moment I start losing pieces of him, he comes barreling back into my life.
I take pleasure in declining the call before dropping my phone back onto my desk. “I’ll text you with the details.”
Declan has the nerve to bite his lip, trapping that stupid silver ring between his teeth.
I force myself to nod toward the door, silently dismissing him, and he walks backward, cockiness dripping off his body as he reaches behind him to open the door.
It’s not lost on me that he was able to exit my office ten times smoother than Dan while walking backward.
Maybe he’s the opposite. Cocky in the streets, dud in the sheets.
Except I happen to know he’s anything but a dud in the sheets. I know because he’s the only man who has ever made me feel alive while thoroughly wrecking me at the same time.