“I…” He trails off. “I guess I’d marry her. I don’t know. I’m not sure something like that would have ever occurred to me, but I’m not you. You’re always the hero. The good guy. It’s who you are, so I get it. But what happens if the marriage falls apart before the two years, or if you meet someone and fall in love, or worse yet, you fall in love with Skylar and she’s not there with you or the reverse of that happens?”
“Then…” Now it’s my turn to trail off as I rub a hand over my bleary eyes. “Then I don’t know. I’m fucked. We’re fucked. I worry about all of that.”
“But I guess that’s anything, right?”
“How do you mean?”
“You had a one-night stand with a woman, and she got pregnant. You did the honorable thing by dating her and marrying her, and you even fell in love with her. It was as it should be until it wasn’t. That’s kind of life, though. Unpredictable. So you’ll marry Skylar for the right reasons and hope it works out despite all the potential complications.”
I stare at my closed door. “Skylar is about ten feet down the hall from me. I could go in there now, wake her ass up, and tell her to forget it. I feel like that’s what I should do.”
“You don’t, and you won’t. Not if she’ll help Zoey and you’ll help her with her ex and her baby.”
“But what am I risking by helping her?”
“Hopefully nothing, but potentially everything. That’s the gamble. But if you don’t do this and Skylar moves out and Zoey struggles with that and Skylar has problems with her ex and the baby, will you ever be able to forgive yourself?”
My eyes close as a heaviness sinks in my chest. “No. I won’t. So, I guess I’m getting married.”
16
SKYLAR
“Hey.” Michaela nudges me in the back as I get to the Pyxis to pull out some meds. “What are you up to tonight?”
I keep my head down as I punch in my code and the patient’s info into the machine.Oh, you know, just getting married to my brother’s best friend. Typical Friday stuff. “Not much,” I reply evenly. “What about you?”
I start to draw up morphine, pushing air into the vial from the syringe and then pulling back on the plunger.
Sunday morning, I came downstairs to find Aston sitting at the counter drinking a lot of coffee and looking resolute. We spent the following two hours talking and working out logistics and even discussing our worries. We only fought, like, three or four times, which I considered a win.
Since then, I haven’t seen him much, and he’s avoided me. It seems easier that way.
But we did go and fill out and file our marriage license on Monday, and this evening at four thirty, we have an appointment with a judge at city hall to marry us. Alden is coming because Aston told him, and because he did, I have Braelyncoming to be on my side of things and hold me up or help me make a run for it should I come to my fucking senses. Our plan is to tell our families after it’s done.
I didn’t want a million voices in my head about it, and I think Aston felt the same. The marriage is a decision we made together that benefits both of us, and that’s that.
I finish filling up the syringe and go to cap the needle when Michaela hits me with, “I was thinking of asking Aston Hughes out.”
The cap goes flying out of my hand and hits the floor before it skitters away, and I nearly drop the uncapped needle of morphine. That bitch would have gone right into my foot. Good thing I have clogs on. But what the absolute fuck?
I glance at her, the needle in my hand like a weapon, before I set it into the plastic bin. We don’t use the needle anyway to push the morphine. We only use it to draw it up, and then it gets disposed of since we twist the syringe into a port on the IV.
“Um. Really?” I try to smile. I try for nonchalance. I’m not sure I’m pulling it off.
Michaela laughs at my reaction. “Yes. Bad idea?”
“Oh. No. I was surprised.” Yes, it’s a bad idea. The man is about to be my husband, and now my friend wants to date him. Just awesome.
“He’s hot. And I think he likes me.”
It feels like I swallowed a frog. “Why do you think that?” I croak.
She shrugs. “I don’t know. It’s a feeling I get. I’ve had a lot of his patients this week, and he spends extra time with them and with me. And yesterday he touched my shoulder.”
“Wow. Concrete evidence there.”
Shit. I said that out loud.
