"Too soon," Paisley sings.
"Tread lightly, KleinTheWriter," I retort, using his social media handle. Grabbing my phone from the nightstand, I mentally prepare myself to do damage control.Please tell mePaloma is the only other person I texted that photo. Taking a quiet breath, I open my messages app. I don't want to look, but I have to face it.
Oh no. Oh no no no.
"Dammit." This is so much worse than I thought.
It gets Dom's attention. "What's wrong? Other than the obvious."
"That picture of me and you under the Just Married sign? Apparently I wanted to share our newlywed bliss." It's so unbelievable it feels like it should be happening to someone else.
Dom's head shakes in confusion. "Who else did you share it with?"
If I weren't already hungover, what I did would make me sick right now. I meet Paisley's gaze as I answer, because she's the only person in this room who will grasp the gravity of what I'm about to say. "Myentirefamily."
Paisley's gasp is sharp. She knows what my relationship with them is like, tense and strained, a powder keg of hurt feelings. Kerrigan and my grandma are the only family members I talk to regularly.
The group chat, unused for months, now shows unread messages. I'm not looking. Not yet. Reading those messages is a job for future me. Current me can only handle so much at one time. Kerrigan is going to kill me. Duke, my older brother, will criticize like always. And my parents, well, it's a toss-up between who will notice I exist.
"Why did I do that?" I'm looking at Paisley when I ask, but really I'm asking myself, the universe, anybody who will answer. "Why would I text all of them? Why not just Kerrigan?"
"Intoxication has a way of bringing feelings out of their hiding spots." It's Dom speaking.
"Apparently so," I say meaningfully. "I thought I hated you, but it looks like I can stand you enough to marry you."
"Last night it looked like you could do a lot more thanstand him." It's Klein again, with that teasing tone. And Dominic, smirking.
These damn cousins.
"I like to dance," I say defensively.
Klein stands, placing his hands on his knees and shaking his rear end.
"What are you doing?" Paisley asks.
"Dropping it low," Klein answers.
Dom's laughter fuels Klein's charade.
"You should bring it back up," Paisley says, but I know she's repressing laughter.
Klein sits down, grinning at me like he's waiting for me to say something.
"Thanks for the demonstration," I say dryly.
"You're welcome. It was like hitting replay on the night."
I roll my eyes. Even drunk, I look way better bumping and grinding than whatever Klein just did.
"I'm going to need everyone in this room to get serious," Dom announces, attention on his phone again. "It says here we can't request an annulment until Monday. They are not open on the weekends, which makes sense."
I groan. Loudly. "It's Saturday. And I don't know about you, but I'm supposed to fly out tomorrow afternoon."
Dom's back is to me, but he's nodding. "It says we can petition a court in the state in which one of us resides." He swivels around on the bed to look at me. "Lucky for us, I'm going from here to Phoenix to visit my parents. As long as you're free, we can go together on Monday."
"Great," Klein says, clapping once, loudly, and making my head throb. "Who's hungry? I'm starving, and if Paisley doesn't get a bucket of coffee soon, she'll turn into a chupacabra."
"He tells no lies," Paisley confirms solemnly.
