How much did we drink last night? Did I pack any aspirin?
I crack one eye open, squinting against the brutal sun. The ceiling is unfamiliar. Where the hell am I? This isn’t my hotel room. The sheets beneath me are impossibly soft, the thread count probably higher than my credit score.
I turn my head slowly, and my breath catches.
Duke is sleeping beside me. One muscled arm flung over his face, his dog tags resting on his shirtless chest as it rises and falls as he sleeps. The sheets are pushed down to his hips, and I can see the hard planes of his stomach, the trail of dark hair disappearing beneath the fabric.
I’ve seen Duke shirtless before. But this is different.
I’m suddenly very aware that I’m only wearing my bra and underwear. That we’re in a bed together. That something happened last night, but frustratingly, I can’t remember.
I haven’t been that drunk in I don’t know how long—possibly since college. I rub my hand over my face, wondering just how much we had to drink last night, and then freeze when I feel a ring on my finger.
My stomach drops through the floor. We had a pact in high school that we’d get married if we never found anyone else, but it always seemed like a joke. Neither of us has mentioned it in more than ten years. I certainly never thought we’d go through with it, even if I’ve sometimes wondered if Duke and I would even work as a couple.
“Duke.” My voice comes out as a croak. I clear my throat and try again. “Duke.”
Nothing. He doesn’t even twitch.
I sit up way too fast, and the room tilts violently. I grab his shoulder to steady myself and shake him.
“Duke.Duke. Wake up.”
He groans. “Why are you yelling?”
“Look!” I exclaim, holding up my ring finger, the sunlight bouncing off it.
His arm drops from his face. His eyes fly open, and he stares at the ring on my finger, then lifts his eyes to my face and stares at me.
Then, slowly, he looks at his own left hand.
A matching band glints in the sunlight.
“Holy shit,” he breathes.
I’m already lunging across him, reaching for the nightstand where a piece of paper sits on top of a heart-shaped box of chocolates, next to an empty champagne bottle I don’t remember drinking. My chest brushes his arm as I grab it, and even through my panic, my skin prickles at the contact.
Marriage certificate. State of Nevada. Our signatures at the bottom—mine loopy like it is when I’m drunk, his barely legible. A heart drawn next to my name in what is definitely my handwriting.
Official. Legal.Real.
“How did this happen?” The words come out strangled.
Duke sits up and pulls the top sheet up over his waist.
He runs a hand over his face and through his hair. He looks as wrecked as I feel—shadows under his eyes, jaw rough with stubble, expression caught in a state of shock.
“I don’t—” He shakes his head. “I don’t remember.”
I stare at the certificate. At our names printed side by side. Duke Coleman and Riley Walsh. Husband and wife.
I just got out of a relationship. I swore off men.
And now I’mmarried. To my best friend. In Vegas. This is like waking up in a romcom movie, only this doesn’t seem funny right now. Yet at the same time, a tiny voice in my head is saying, “Well it’s about damn time!”
Ignoring the voice, I hug a pillow against my body. “This is fixable. We can get an annulment. We can pretend that it never happened. It was a drunken Valentine’s Day mistake,” I say, chattering a mile a minute.
Duke is quiet. When I look at him, his jaw is tight, and he’s just staring at me.
