Chapter 8
ROXIE
I’d always imagined that if I ever got married, I’d at least have time to shave my legs.
Not that this was a real wedding. Not that it counted in the swoony, fairy-light, champagne-toast way.
Not that Ledger Hayes and I were … anything.
We were a team, that was all. A duo with matching panic spirals and a knack for landing ourselves in catastrophes that made sense only if you squinted really hard.
But even knowing all that, standing inside the county courthouse on a Wednesday morning with fluorescent lights buzzing overhead, I still felt like I’d wandered onto the wrong movie set.
Ledger shifted beside me, hands shoved into the pockets of his nicest pair of jeans.
He’d put on a clean black button-up, his hair was still damp from the shower, and his expression was the exact one he wore right before diving off the block.
Focused. Possibly questioning every life choice that had delivered him to this moment.
We’d waited until practically the last possible day before his sponsorship deadline.
Ledger had informed the university two days ago that he was getting married and filed the paperwork for married-athlete housing.
The woman in the athletic department had congratulated him with a suspiciously cheerful smile, like she’d never once imagined him dating someone, let alone putting a ring on it.
And here we were, in a beige hallway, one of the overhead lights flickering at the end. About to become legally entangled for … survival.
The courthouse smelled like disinfectant, old paper, and bad decisions.
Which felt appropriate, considering I was currently standing beside Ledger Hayes, both of us wearing the strained expressions of two people seconds away from jumping out of a moving car.
“This is surreal,” I whispered.
“Mm,” he grunted back, which was Ledger-speak for I agree, but I will physically combust before admitting it out loud.
A bored county clerk stamped papers behind a foggy plexiglass window. A couple holding hands—real newlyweds, probably—walked past us glowing like a Pinterest board. Meanwhile, Ledger and I stood six feet apart, stiff as mannequins, like even proximity felt too intimate.
My palms were sweating.
His jaw was clenched so hard, I could see the muscle jumping.
Great start to a marriage.
“This is fine,” Livvi whispered theatrically from behind me. “Totally normal.”
I turned to glare at her, but she only widened her eyes innocently, clutching her vanilla latte like we’d dragged her to a funeral.
Talon stood next to her, arms crossed over his chest, radiating swimmer-boy big-brother energy. “Are you two sure about this?”
Ledger and I exchanged a quick look. A silent, shared please-don’t-make-us-say-it-out-loud look we’d perfected over the last forty-eight hours.
“It’s the only option.” I tried to sound confident instead of like my soul had temporarily left my body.
Ledger nodded firmly, like he was giving a post-swim interview. “Yeah. This is the only way to keep everything from falling apart. Housing, sponsorship, my swim career … this is what makes sense.”
“‘Makes sense’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting here,” Talon muttered.
I lifted my chin anyway. “We know it’s insane. But we also know it’s what we have to do.”
“We’re sure.” Ledger exhaled slowly. “As sure as we’re ever going to be.”
Talon didn’t look convinced, but he didn’t argue, either.
Ridge held up his phone. “Can’t wait to tell your future kids about this one. ‘Hey, little Hayes, want to see the courtroom where your parents got panic-married?’”
Livvi elbowed him. “There will be no children. This is clearly a short-term, paperwork-based union of convenience.”
“Yeah,” I muttered. “Thank you, Liv.”
I inhaled deeply, letting the courthouse air, dry and mildly depressing, fill my lungs. This was good. This was fine. A means to an end.
A woman in a black dress poked her head out of the double doors. “Roxie Montgomery and Ledger Hayes?”
We both flinched.
We followed her into a cramped room with peeling wallpaper and a ficus plant in the corner that had clearly given up on life the same year the furniture was purchased. A podium stood at the front, a laminated sign taped to it reading “Congratulations on your marriage!”
The exclamation point felt aggressive.
“This is it?” I murmured.
Ledger glanced around. “You expected flowers?”
“No. But maybe a window. Or a plant that hasn’t been dead since the nineties.”
His mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. But close.
Ridge walked in behind us and immediately stage-whispered, “Wow. Stunning. Breathtaking.”
Talon pinched the bridge of his nose. “Ridge, for once, please—”
“No, no,” he insisted, waving vaguely at the room. “Let the romance wash over you. Let the magic seep into your pores.”
Livvi snorted. “If magic smells like carpet mildew, sure.”
I shot Ledger a sideways glance. He looked … not nervous, exactly. Just deeply uncomfortable. Like he wanted to detach from his own body and observe this moment from a safe emotional distance.
Which, honestly, was a mood.
The officiant, a middle-aged woman in a courthouse badge and a cardigan decorated with embroidered kittens, smiled warmly at us. “All right, you two lovebirds. Are we ready?”
My brain short-circuited. Lovebirds.
Ledger choked on air. “Yep. Ready.”
I swallowed hard.
This wasn’t supposed to feel huge. It was supposed to feel logical. Practical. A deal.
But as Ledger angled his body slightly toward mine, shoulders tense, eyes storm-dark and unreadable, something shifted. Something unsettled. Like the air itself was caught between wrong and necessary.
“Do you have vows prepared?” the officiant asked pleasantly.
“No,” Ledger and I said in unison.
The officiant nodded like this was normal, like people got married every day without vows or witnesses or sense. “No problem. I’ll just use the standard script.”
The ceremony was so fast, I almost missed it. The officiant spoke in a friendly monotone, reading from a sheet of paper she’d clearly recited nine hundred times. Ledger repeated his lines with that clipped, tense voice he used during swim interviews. I tried not to stumble over mine.
My chest felt tight, like there was too much air inside and not enough space for it. My brain kept trying to launch a protest: This isn’t real. This doesn’t count. This doesn’t mean anything.
But every time Ledger’s voice joined mine, calm and even, something fluttered in my stomach. Annoying. Unhelpful. Entirely unnecessary.
When it came time to say I do, my voice barely came out.
Ledger’s came out stronger, but only just.
“By the power vested in me by the state of Florida,” the officiant said, “I now pronounce you husband and wife.”
Livvi gasped loudly. Ridge clapped once, like we’d scored half a point. Talon rubbed his forehead.
Ledger and I stared at each other.
“Oh,” I said, brilliantly.
“Yep.” His Adam’s apple bobbed. “That’s … it.”
The officiant beamed. “Would you like to exchange a kiss?”
My brain went static. Kiss? On the lips? No. No, no, no—
Ledger’s eyes flicked to mine, equally panicked. We both shook our heads at the same time.
“Cheek is fine,” I blurted.
“Cheek,” he agreed instantly.
The officiant nodded, bless her diplomatic heart.
Ledger leaned in, slow and hesitant, like approaching a skittish animal. His hand didn’t touch me. His breath didn’t brush my cheek. Just the lightest, quickest press of his lips, barely a whisper against my skin. More air than contact.
But something zinged through me anyway—sharp and electric, like I’d just touched a static-charged doorknob.
No. Nope. Absolutely not. My brain slammed a mental door shut.
This wasn’t a real kiss. It didn’t mean anything. It was a technicality. A procedural courtesy. A … whatever.
I forced a slow exhale.
He stepped back immediately, ears visibly flushing.
Well. That was … a thing.
A small Polaroid camera clicked; the clerk snapped a photo for the records. The lighting was awful. My hair was frizzing. Ledger looked like he’d just survived a natural disaster.
Perfect.
“Congratulations,” the officiant said warmly. “You’re now legally married.”
My stomach dropped.
Ledger’s shoulders visibly stiffened.
We exchanged a look. Not excitement. Not joy.
Just identical expressions of:
What did we just do?
The paperwork portion was somehow worse. We all crammed into the clerk’s office, where a scanner beeped relentlessly and a water cooler gargled in the corner like it was dying.
Ledger and I signed the final documents, the ones that made everything—our living arrangement, his sponsorship eligibility, our fake marriage—official. Final. Binding.
My signature trembled.
Ledger’s pen hovered for a second before he pressed it down. He swallowed hard.
Talon gave Ledger a look bordering on stern disbelief. “You good, man?”
Ledger blinked slowly. “Not even a little.”
Ridge clapped him on the back. “Congrats, buddy! If you ever need a pep talk about commitment, do not ask me. I will only make things worse.”
Ledger nodded. “Noted.”
Livvi wrapped an arm around my shoulder. “How do you feel?”
“Like I missed several steps,” I muttered.
My stomach twisted, a slow, queasy roll.
Missed steps didn’t even begin to cover it.
I’d skipped the proposal. The flowers. The “I want to be with you forever” conversations couples were supposed to have.
The planning, the excitement, the moment where you look at the person you love and think, yes, this is right.
I’d skipped straight to the paperwork. The signatures.
The part where everything becomes real without any of the parts that make it meaningful.
And the queasiness wasn’t just nerves. It was the shock of realizing how far this was from anything I’d ever pictured for myself.
When we stepped back out into the hallway, the fluorescent lights felt brighter. Harsher. Like the universe was illuminating the absurdity of what we’d just done.
Livvi bounced on her toes. “Group photo!”
“No,” I said.
“Yes,” she insisted, already asking the clerk to take our photo.
“This isn’t a celebration,” Ledger pointed out.
“But it’s memories,” she countered.
Ridge pressed his face between us, grinning like a menace. Talon sighed but stepped in behind us. Livvi quickly joined, tucking into Talon’s side.
When the photo was taken and Livvi’s phone was returned, she looked at the screen and dissolved into laughter. “You both look like you’re being held hostage.”
“That’s because we are,” I said. “By each other. Legally.”
Ledger made a choking sound that might have been a laugh or a cry. Hard to tell.
We walked outside into the warm spring air, and for a moment, no one said anything. Cars whooshed past on the road. A man walked his dog across the crosswalk. It was a perfectly ordinary Wednesday.
Except Ledger and I were married.
He rubbed the back of his neck, staring at the courthouse like it had personally betrayed him. “So.”
“So,” I echoed.
“This is … good,” he said, in the exact tone of someone trying to convince himself his haircut wasn’t a disaster.
“Right,” I said. “It solves the housing issue. And the sponsorship. My trust fund. We won’t be homeless or broke.”
“Yeah.”
“Yeah.”
We stood there in stiff, mutual denial while Livvi whispered to Talon, “They’re going to be so weird about this.”
Talon whispered back, “They’re already weird about everything.”
Ridge chimed in, “I give it three days before they start fighting over who gets which side of the bed.”
I whipped around. “We’re not sharing a bed.”
“Yeah,” Ledger said quickly. “There are two bedrooms.”
“Sure,” Ridge said. “For now.”
When our friends finally left—after making us promise we’d text when we got to our married-housing apartment, as if newly married paperwork goblins might abduct us—Ledger and I stood on the courthouse steps alone.
The silence stretched.
Ledger ran a hand through his dark hair. “You okay?”
“Yep,” I lied brightly. “Totally fine. Normal day. Got up, had cereal, got married to a guy so he wouldn’t lose his housing and I could get my trust fund money. Classic Wednesday.”
He huffed out something that might have been a laugh. “I really appreciate you doing this.”
“Of course,” I said. “We’re helping each other.”
“Still,” he said quietly.
Something warm pressed against my ribs, but I shoved it away.
“So the housing went through?” I asked.
“They approved it this morning,” he said. “We can move in today—it’s already furnished.”
“Oh.” My stomach swooped. “Wow. That’s … soon.”
“Yeah. Married people get priority.”
Married people.
Us.
A wave of surreal unease washed over me. Maybe it showed on my face, because Ledger stepped slightly closer, not touching, just hovering like he wasn’t sure if comfort was allowed now that we were both pretending feelings didn’t exist.
“We’ll figure it out,” he said. “It’s going to be fine. We’ll just stay out of each other’s way.”
I nodded. “Yeah. Totally.”
But as we started walking toward the parking lot, our arms brushing by accident, our ringless hands swinging too close, the same thought hammered in my head so loudly it practically echoed:
What have we done?