“Let’s get you something to eat,” he said.
“I’m not hungry.”
“I need a drink, and you need food. Or did you forget you have diabetes? Part of why we’re doing this, remember?”
My stomach clenched. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Means you’re so selfish, you don’t care if you drop dead and leave your husband here all alone.”
“News flash—you’re not my husband. And we all die eventually. Also? Pretty bold giving a health lecture while smoking a cigarette.”
He chuckled, shaking his head. “We’ve been married twenty minutes and already fighting.”
“Just trying to make this feel authentic,” I said, spinning on my heel and tossing my bouquet over my shoulder.
When I glanced back, he caught it effortlessly, wearing that smug, wicked grin.
“Wipe that look off your face,” I said. “You’re not getting lucky tonight.”
13
NICK
Iwatched her sleep like it was the only thing tethering me to reality. Blonde waves spilled over the edge of the bed like a halo gone crooked, her limbs sprawled every which way—careless, vulnerable. She looked like a fallen angel who didn’t even know she’d hit the ground.Her arms clutched a pillow tight against her chest, like it was the only shield she had left. The only sign of life was the slow, steady rise and fall of her chest—each breath a small mercy. Proof she was still here. Still breathing.
She was still in her wedding dress.
I didn’t have the heart to wake her last night when she passed out in the car, slumped against the window like her bones had given out. We’d stuffed her full of food after the chapel, wandered the Strip under neon lights, and I’d ordered us a couple of drinks—mostly for me. I hadn’t slept through the night in months. Not since Afghanistan. Not really.
Alcohol helped. Temporarily. Enough to blur the edges.
But Melanie… she drank until she blacked out. And I recognized the way she folded in on herself, the vacant way her eyes stared at nothing, the slurry confessions that made no damn sense. I remembered being that far gone. When the only thing scarier than being awake was falling asleep. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the worst of it. Heard the screams. Felt the sting of phantom burns whenever the shower turned too hot.
Six months ago, I didn’t want to be alive. I drank to survive sleep.
But therapy cracked a window. The kind that lets air in just enough to breathe. CBD. Melatonin. Chamomile tea—yeah, fucking tea. But I was tired of hating mornings. Tired of running a business with my head fogged over and my gut churning. I barely knew what the hell I was doing sober, let alone hungover.
She stirred.
A soft sound escaped her throat, and I froze, watching as she rolled toward me, her face still slack with sleep. No idea I was watching. No idea how many times my gaze had wandered to her lips, full and pink and parted slightly. The kind of lips that did dangerous things to a man’s restraint. She looked like a damn Barbie doll, but not the kind that sits on a shelf. She had sharp cheekbones, wide eyes, a face sculpted for trouble. A face that could lie through its perfect teeth and still make you say thank you.
And yet, she’d let herself fall apart last night. That control she always clung to with white-knuckled fists? Gone, spilled out somewhere between the champagne and her broken muttering as I carried her down the hotel hallway.
She could’ve been taken advantage of. Anyone else- any other man—and she’d have been a story on the news. But not with me. Never with me. I’d die before I crossed that line.
Still… she said things. Strange things. Scattered thoughts, like pieces of a puzzle she’d never admit she was holding.
“I like motorcycles. I wish that were the only type of transportation invented. Cars are evil. They disguise. Trap. Trick.”
“Promise me you’ll never love me, Nick. Love’s a weapon. Just like women. And I don’t want you to hurt me.”
Her voice echoed in my head, haunting and fragile, like it didn’t belong to the fierce woman I’d married yesterday.
Did she even remember?
She hadn’t stirred when I checked her blood sugar or gave her an insulin shot an hour ago. Not a twitch. Not a wince. That kind of exhaustion—that kind of escape—was deeper than sleep.
I stared at her, the words looping again and again.
