He leans down, lips brushing mine in a hungry, messy kiss, and I feel him start to let go, spurting deep inside me. I feel every drop, quivering around him.
We collapse together, bodies slick with sweat. The room is quiet, except for our breathing.
“Wow,” I mutter, my voice barely working.
“That…that was…” He can’t finish, just pulls me closer, draping my arms around him. Our legs tangle, and his forehead presses to mine. “Best wedding night ever?”
I laugh softly, my chest still heaving. “Best wedding night ever.”
We lie like that, tangled and spent.
Through the floor-to-ceiling windows, the city lights glitter. It has to be close to 8:00 AM by now. The sky is getting lighter, that pale gray-blue that comes before sunrise. We’ve been awake all night—the club, the casino, the chapel, this.
My head is still spinning, but I can’t tell if it’s the alcohol or him. Probably both. The tequila from Murphy’s feels like a lifetime ago, but I can still feel it in my system. My thoughts are slower than usual, disconnected.
I should be panicking. I just married a stranger. A man I met on a plane.
But I’m not panicking. I’m lying here in his arms while his hands stroke my hair, slide over my back, over my hips, keeping me close like he’s afraid I’ll disappear.
Maybe I will disappear. By tomorrow—today, technically—I won’t remember most of this. The wedding will be fuzzy. The sex will be gone entirely, just a blank space where memories should be. That’s how it always works with my condition.
I’ve woken up in hospital beds, strangers’ apartments, my own bathroom floor, with no idea how I got there. The voice memos help, but they only tell me what happened. They don’t let me feel it again.
This feeling—this safety, this rightness—will be gone by morning.
The thought makes my chest ache.
Yesterday morning, I woke up in my mother’s house. The job offer from New York sat on the counter, and I couldn’t decide if leaving Chicago meant abandoning her memory or honoring it.
Then I came home early and found Mason with his face in Lizzy’s ass.
Everything I thought I knew about my life shattered in that moment. My boyfriend. My best friend. Both of them gone in an instant.
And now? Now I’m Mrs. Volkov. Married to a man with a Russian mob name and tattoos peeking out from expensive suits. A man who got down on one knee in a boutique at 6:00 AM and slid a diamond ring on my finger like it was the most natural thing in the world.
What happens tomorrow?
Will he look for me? Will he even remember my name?
Or will this be like everything else in my life lately—here one moment, gone the next?
“Sleep?” he asks finally, his voice low and rough.
“Sleep,” I agree, even though I know I should run.
I rest my head on his chest. His heartbeat is steady beneath me, strong and sure. The sunrise is painting the sky pink and gold now, Las Vegas waking up below us. People are starting their days while I’m ending the strangest night of my life.
My mother would have loved this story. She would have laughed and told me I was crazy and hugged me tight. She always said life was too short for regrets, that taking chances was the only way to really live.
I took a chance tonight.
Even if I forget, even if this disappears like smoke, at least I’ll have the voice memo. At least I’ll know that once, for one perfect night, I was brave enough to say yes to something completely insane.
My eyes finally close, heavy and impossible to keep open. The last thing I feel is Ledger’s hand in my hair, gentle and possessive at the same time.
Then sleep takes me under, and everything goes dark.
5
