She waggled my hand to get my attention, but little did she know that she already commanded my full attention. Every strand of her hair waving in the warm wind was a ribbon tying me to her. “Yes, my bride, my love?”
Her dark eyebrows dipped. “Okay, that’s alot,sweetie. Maybe we should go to John Boy’s bachelor party and find your friends. Your cousin-ish person might be worried about you.”
“The main party is tomorrow at Omnia. Tonight is a small gathering for school friends.”
“Oh, well, we could go there. Small gatherings are good. You could talk to your friends at a small gathering aboutmajor life-altering decisionsbefore you do them.”
“All right.”
“Good.”Her voice was firm, like I’d pleased her. “Now, where’s this small gathering at?”
“But we have to be married first.”
Her dubious gaze up at me was disconcerting. “Or we could get marriedafter.We could go and find your friends, and you could ask one of them to be your best man. And talk to him. About this plan of yours to get married. Wouldn’t that befun?”
Her emphatic nodding seemed like she was trying to get me to nod along with her as if I were a toddler.
She continued, “Wouldn’t it begreatto go find this John Bourbon guy and ask him to be your best man? And maybe you couldtalk this whole insta-marriage plan over with him?”
Her mispronunciation of John’s surname was adorable.Burr-bunlike the liquor, instead of Boar-bohn. “Nope. Definitely not. No one else can know.It’s a secret marriage.We’re in Las Vegas. Let’s find a priest, andit has to bea Russian Orthodox priest, and become man and wife.”
She squeezed her eyes shut and grabbed her forehead like she was in pain.
“Do you have a headache?” I asked her. “I know just the thing for that.Vodka.”
She scoffed, “Vodka, huh? That explains a lot. I’m worried about you, Nico. Let’s go find your friends.”
I reached behind me with one leg and began to descend to one knee to ask her to marry me. It had worked the first time. I might as well try it again.
“Nope!” She caught my arm and hauled me back to my feet. “No more of that. You look too pathetic, and it breaks my heart. Okay,fine.Let’s go find a minister?—”
“A Russian Orthodox priest,” I clarified.
“Okay, fine. We’ll find your particular flavor of clergy and see if they’ll marry us right away. And I’msurethere won’t be mandatory counseling or publishing of the banns or whatever. A priest probably wouldn’t talk you out of it, either. As a matter of fact, I think finding a nice, sober priest of your favorite church who has a vested interest in your long-term welfare is agreatidea.”
“But we need a marriage license before that.”
Her heavy sigh actually pressed her into a curve as she cringed, biting her lip.“Dang,I was hoping you wouldn’t know about that part.”
“John told me that the marriage bureau is open twenty-four hours a day here, so we can go directly there and procure a license.”
“Yep,” she sighed again. “That is how it works.”
I turned and stepped onto the curb, bobbling, and she grabbed my elbow and steadied me.
Her hand on my arm was comforting as all hell. No one ever steadiedme.
I loved it. I wanted her to steady me forever.
“I will hail a cab,” I announced.
I knew how to hail a cab. I’d seen it done in movies.
Raising my arm, I stood beside the street and waved.
And nearly fell off the curb just as a car whooshed toward me on the street, the occupants speeding to get to the next casino to empty their wallets on the roulette table.
I was leaning, falling, bright double-circles of traffic headlights rushing toward me and my face in the Vegas-sparkling dark, when my bride latched onto my arm and yanked,hard,and I was stumbling backward over the cement with her.
