“Maybe a little,” I allowed. “But I’m fine.” The office was spinning again, whipping around and around, and I grasped the top of the glass screen and held on lest I be flung backward. “Really.Fine.I’ve had two.”
She shrugged one shoulder. “I’ve seen worse.” And then she turned to my bride. “ID and divorce papers?”
My little vanilla cupcake handed over a small card. “No previous marriages.”
The clerk entered my bride’s name (which I still didn’t know, and that fact was amusing the hell out of me, so I wasn’t going to ask) and frowned as she stared at her computer. “It says herethat you applied for another marriage license to someone else last week.”
My bride rummaged around in her purse and magicked up another piece of paper. “We didn’t use it. You can see here that it’s not signed by any of us and not notarized. Can you cancel it or something?”
An unused marriage license?Interesting.
“Sure, I can do that for you.” The clerk examined the paper that my little woman slipped through the tray to her, typed something on her computer, and then stampedcanceledacross my bride’s old marriage license in tall red letters.
My bride drummed her fingers on the counter. “Can I get a refund for that one, by any chance?”
The clerk raised her eyebrows. “I’m sorry. The fee is nonrefundable.”
She sighed. “Okay.”
The clerk frowned at my little bride. “That takes care of that, I guess. This is kind of unusual. Are you sure you want to try this again so soon with someone else?”
My sweet little bride shrugged. “Even if we do manage to find a priest tonight, which wewon’t,I’m not going to sign this thing until tomorrow morning. This isn’t valid until it’s signed bybothof us, right?”
“Both of youandthe officiantanda witness, and then notarized and registered.” The clerk leaned forward and peered at where I slumped against the glass, which was cool against my cheek. “Are you sure he’s in a state to do this?”
“It was his idea. I keep trying to talk him out of it.”
I nodded emphatically to assure this minor civil servant that I was, indeed, in full charge of my faculties. “It’s definitely my idea.”
The clerk peered at my bride, even lowering her glasses for a harder look. “Are you being coerced? Do you need help?”
“I’m fine. It’s not like that.” My bride and soon-to-be wife bit her lower lip for a second. “There’s obviously something going on with him right now. He’s adamant. I’m just making sure he doesn’t get taken advantage of. There were other people around who seemed scammy. A couple of them would’ve signed this marriage license right here in front of you to make sure it was legally binding right away.”
“Oh,”the clerk said.
“Really, I’m just doing whatever it takes to get him back to his hotel and pour him into his bed without screwing up the rest of his life. If I bring this unused license back here tomorrow, can you just cancel it like this one?”
“Of course. That’s what we’re here for, canceling inadvisable marriage licenses.” Her dry tone indicated sarcasm. “Well, it’s irregular, but this is Las Vegas. Irregular marriages happen all the time. There’s no rule against getting dead drunk and signing a binding lifelong contract here. Heck, we’d be cutting off one of our major sources of revenue. Congratulations, you two crazy kids, and good luck.”
That is the last thing I remember.
CHAPTER 18
russian orthodox
LEXI BYRNE
There wasno way on God’s green Earth that we were going to find a Russian Orthodox priest willing to marry us in Las Vegas at midnight, so I wasn’t worried. My plan was to drive Nico around until he passed out or forgot his plan, and then figure out what to do.
Once Nico had demanded that we had to be married by a Russian Orthodox priestand onlya Russian Orthodox priest, I’d been fine with carting him around.
While we were driving around, I could pry information out of him to figure out where he was staying and dump him into bed after he collapsed.
And if I couldn’t figure out where his hotel was, then I would pilfer a little bit of that ridiculous wad of cash I’d stuffed back in his wallet and get us a roach motel room for the rest of the night to let him sleep it off.
In the morning, surely he would be absolutely mortified, and this strange adventure of ours would be over. But he was definitely buying me breakfast after all this.
I drove Nico around Las Vegas.
