28. It Had to Be You
28
IT HAD TO BE YOU
Gage
Fake engagement. Real marriage. Both have an expiration date, so what’s the difference? This next legal step is just more of the same.
That’s what I tell myself to keep my focus narrowed on the mission today in Las Vegas—getting hitched. That’s the one goal I have. I’m not going to linger on what’s next. I’m not going to think about how much I like spending time with this woman. How often I think about her. How deeply I want to protect her from anything and anyone. Most importantly, how hard it will be for me to pretend my feelings for her aren’t fast becoming real.
I’m going to stay lasered in on the goal like I’ve done all morning so far. First at the airport in San Francisco, and now as our Lyft arrives at The Extravagant Hotel on the Strip. I thank the driver, then step out of the sedan, marriage license in hand.
Our flight landed right on time so we cruised over to the Clark County Marriage Bureau, striding in the second the doors opened at eight. Now, it’s eight-thirty, and our I do appointment is in one and a half hours.
With no luggage and no room to check into, I figure we’ll grab a bite to eat, maybe brainstorm the Special Edition menu for next weekend over eggs and coffee. We head through the revolving door into the opulent hotel, its lobby glittering with a huge chandelier that’s dripping with faux gemstones. I picked this hotel for one reason only—its chapel had the earliest opening in the city for a no-frills wedding. But as I walk past a fountain that’s sparkling with imitation sapphires and rubies, I wonder if I made a mistake with the all business strategy. I glance skeptically at my clothes—boots, jeans, a long-sleeve shirt, cuffs rolled up.
“I should go get a sports jacket or something,” I say, plucking at my white button-down.
Elodie stops in front of a roulette game, the wheel spinning, as she gestures to her shoes. “Don’t you dare. I’m wearing jeans and sneakers. You said casual last night,” she says sternly. “So I followed orders.”
“Right, right,” I repeat. “Just a no-big-deal wedding. Like we agreed to.”
Hell, this quickie wedding is more shotgun than my actual shotgun wedding more than a decade ago. I suppose there’s no point in dressing up. We’ve got a two o’clock return flight, which should give me just enough time to make it to Eliza’s karate class this afternoon.
Still…
Something nags at me. I should look good for Elodie. That’s what she deserves. A man who shows up. “We could shop for something fancier since we have an hour and a half free.” I remember the website for the chapel and the list of extras. “Come to think of it, we can rent tuxes, dresses, and flowers at the chapel.”
Do I sound as jittery as I feel? I hope she can’t tell.
With a curious tilt of her head, she asks, “Is that what you want?”
I want to make you happy .
She has to want more than a no-big-deal wedding, even for a fake real wedding. Back in Felix’s office the other week, she provided a road map, didn’t she? Elodie detailed all those romantic venues. Even though this is a temporary tying of the knot, I need to try harder. “Do you want me to take you shopping? For a dress or something? And I can rent a suit.”
Before she can answer, her phone buzzes. She lifts a finger. “Hold on.”
She checks her texts, then meets my gaze with something like delight in her irises. “It’s the chapel. The nine a.m. wedding ceremony was canceled so they’re offering us the slot. Want to get married early and see if we can catch an earlier flight?”
She sounds…ecstatic.
It was ridiculous of me to think she’d want all the trappings. This is an arrangement, and she’s always been a smart businesswoman. I’m not even upset. Not one bit.
“Let’s get hitched, baby.” I take her hand, and I’m strangely eager to get to the chapel.
Just to get a move on, I’m sure.
That has to be it.
* * *
But the velour burgundy jacket is irresistible to Elodie.
The second the officiant, a bald white guy with a pro wrestler’s physique and name, Hitch Malone, shows it to us in the foyer of the chapel, she turns to me, eyes glittering, mouth wide with excitement.
“Gage, you would look so good in this on social. So handsome,” she says, advancing toward me. “We could rub Sebastian’s face in it.”
And that’s irresistible too. “How are you even hotter when you go for revenge?”
She smiles coyly. “It’s one of my many charms.”
“There’s a dress for the lovely bride too,” Hitch adds, then swaggers to a mirrored door, swings it open, and gestures to a wardrobe full of gowns. “The missus and I stocked it with all the sizes.”
Elodie rubs her palms and marches straight over, flicking through choices, then picking. The matching dress for the bride is stunning—it’s cut short and it has all sorts of cleavage.
“Sold,” she says, then waggles her credit card and presses it into his beefy palm. “The clothing rental is on me.”
I smile privately. She did want the trappings. I was right. I pat myself virtually on the back for knowing my woman.
Not gonna lie—I’m pleased, too, that she wants some frills.
Because I do.
Ten minutes later, I’m tugging on the cuffs of my wine-colored jacket that makes me look like a lounge singer. I wait at the head of the chapel while Hitch Malone sets the rings I bought from him on a white satin pillow on the altar.
A woman with the attitude and dress of a burlesque singer fiddles with the music. She’s his wife, and her name is Matrimony Maven.
“You want ‘It Had to Be You,’ right, hun?” she calls out to me.
I picked that one, figuring it was one of Elodie’s favorites since she named a line of chocolates after the tune.
But a coil of doubt winds tighter in me. Is this tune sending the wrong message? Will she think I’m making more of this match than I should?
I wish relationships came with recipes, like cocktails. Or rules, like baseball.
But…in for a penny, in for a pound. “Yes,” I answer.
I tug on my bow tie as Matrimony Maven cues up the music and Hitch Malone pats me on the shoulder. “It’s all right, kid. I was nervous before I married Maven,” he says, nodding toward his wife. “Nerves are good. They mean this matters to you.”
“That’s not why?—”
But I swallow my denial when the music begins and the door opens. Elodie strides in, and my nerves simply vanish, like smoke in the fog.
I can’t take my eyes off her. Her hair is twisted up in a clip, blonde tendrils framing her face, her cheeks rosy, her lips the color of cherries, her blue eyes bright and playful, but also…hopeful.
I think.
Or maybe I want to think it’s hope I see in the tilt of her lips, the softness of her smile, the tenderness in her eyes. The burgundy velour dress hits at her knees, accentuates her waist and full hips, and hugs the curves of her breasts. Her engagement ring from Grams shines on her right hand today. She switched it so she could put the band on her left hand. She’s still wearing her Converse, and somehow the incongruity of my dressed up woman in sneakers makes my breath catch.
And my heart beats faster.
Clutching a bouquet of yellow roses, she’s walking toward me, dipping her face, then meeting my gaze, then looking away, and holy shit, is she truly nervous? Or is that excitement?
I don’t even know. I just feel right now. I feel…tingles as she walks past empty chairs and the romantic song swells, the crooner’s lyrics filling the corners of my mind.
It must have been that something lovers call fate.
I’m not a fate guy. Don’t believe in it one bit. Not after the way my life has gone. But in this moment, I believe in something bigger than me. I believe Elodie came into my life for a reason.
The reason is the partnership, surely. That’s what I tell myself. But I can’t seem to hold that idea in my head. It falls away like sand as Elodie closes the distance between us while Maven clicks, clicks, clicks on her phone, snapping photos.
For a brief, dangerous moment, my imagination runs wild. Maybe that’s inevitable, even when you’re playing pretend. But when I’m with Elodie, I don’t feel like I’m faking a thing. With her I don’t feel like I’m constantly racing toward the future. I feel like I’m living in the moment, and each moment with her is the only place I want to be.
It had to be you.
When she reaches me, Maven fades the song into the background, and I lock eyes with my bride. “Hi.” It comes out rough, like sandpaper.
“Hi,” she says and it’s bright, bursting with sunshine.
“You look…” I stop, like I can find the best word for her. But in the end, I return to the simplest. “Beautiful.”
“You look so handsome,” she says, her tone surprisingly vulnerable.
It’s like we’re saying more even as we compliment the surfaces. Or maybe I just want to believe that.
Out of the corner of my eye, Hitch Malone seems to be fighting off a smile. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today,” he begins, and he wastes no time moving through the script he must know by heart, then saying, “And do you, Gage Reginald Archer, take this woman to be your wife?”
Electricity crackles through my bones. “I do,” I say, holding tight to her gaze.
“And do you, Elodie Calliope Starling, take this man to be your husband?”
There’s no hesitation as she says, “I do.”
“The rings please.”
Maven hands Hitch the $129 wedding bands we picked out online last night. I slide hers onto her ring finger, staring at the sight of the metal hugging her skin.
She slides mine onto my finger, and I savor her touch.
“I now pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride,” he says.
I cup her cheeks and drink in our first kiss as a married couple like it’s my favorite wine. The softness of her breath, the silk of her hair, the sweet cherry scent of her skin. I kiss her deeper as the scent goes to my head. But really, it’s her.
The way she is. The hold she has on me. How she makes my heart hammer.
I’m going to have to be seriously careful because I could fall for my wife. When we break the kiss, she looks up at me with heat in her eyes, and something more.
Something like gratitude.
Like safety.
Like…calm in the midst of chaos.
Then she whispers, “Thank you,” and I can hear how much this means to her. But there was never any question for me.
After we sign the marriage license and return our clothes, Maven says she sent the pictures over via email. We thank her, then leave the chapel. Elodie nods toward the casino, promising hours of entertainment. “Our flight doesn’t leave till two. Want to play the slots?”
I shake my head then haul her against me in the middle of the hallway outside the Vegas wedding chapel. “I have another idea.”
She shudders, her voice trembling as she asks, “What is it?”
I press a possessive kiss to her lips. Passionate, and a promise too. This is not a fake engagement anymore. This is a marriage, and I want something badly.
Deeply.
So much I can feel it in my marrow.
I pull back. “I want to fuck my wife.”