“We don’t have to,” I say, because he needs the out, and because a part of me is good. “We can just watch strangers make the most Vegas choice of their lives and eat cake that tastes like chalk.”
“Or,” Eli stage-whispers, “you could make the most Vegas choice ofyourlife, and we can eat chalk-cake atyourwedding.”
I should be embarrassed that my friends can see right through me. I’m not. I take Ollie’s hand. The room drops away. “Marry me.”
He does a literal double take. Then he laughs, shocked and wrecked and too happy, and hauls me in by the shirt and kisses me like we already saidI do. “You’re out of your mind,” he says against my mouth.
“Deeply,” I say. “Three alarms on your phone. A 10:20 a.m. flight. No one needs to know until we decide they do. But we both know this isn’t the part we’ll regret.”
He goes still, like a coin on its last spin. Then he nods once. “Okay.”
The word tears a sound out of my throat that I’ve never even made on a stage.
“Okay,” I repeat, just to taste it.
The bride is being shepherded into a side room when Miles drags us back outside, taps the driver’s window, and says, “Bureau. Now.”
The driver grins, like he’s heard weirder things tonight, and we scramble back inside and are moving again, night folding around us like we’re a secret everyone knows.
The bureau is fluorescent and beige. People in club clothes and tuxes that cost less than my boots fill out forms with hands that shake from too much adrenaline. A woman at the counterdispenses pens and smiles like she’s babysitting chaos and is fond of it anyway.
We show IDs. We say our ages. We spell our names. We pay a fee that feels like buying a firework. My hand shakes once when I sign and then steadies. Ollie writes so neatly I want to kiss his knuckles for it. The clerk stamps something and hands over the paper like a priest giving communion. “Congratulations,” she says, and for the first time, the word doesn’t feel like something that belongs to other people.
Back to the chapel. Our group is split now—half disappeared into Room B with a woman in a rhinestone stole, the rest loitering in a lobby that smells like gardenia and copier toner. There are three chapel doors, three bells, three Elvis portraits in three different levels of heartbreak.
Drew grabs my shoulders and shakes me, grinning like he’s going to cry. “You sure?”
“Yes,” I say, and it’s the easiest truth I’ve ever said out loud.
Eli presses a miniature bottle into my hand. “Liquid courage,” he says, then snatches it back. “No, never mind, you don’t need it.”
Miles squeezes the back of my neck once, gentle, like a brother. “Remember to breathe.”
We flash the license. The coordinator—deep tan, headset, efficiency that could cut diamonds—points us to Room C. “An officiant will be right in. Witnesses?”
“We’ve got three,” I say, and our idiots lift their hands like they’re volunteering for skydiving.
The room is all fairy lights and fake flowers and a white runner that looks like it’s seen everything and learned not to judge. There’s a little arch and two microphones on stands, which I pointedly ignore, because if I see a mic right now, I’ll turn this into a concert and we’ll never get out of here.
Ollie and I stand at the front, close enough that our shoulders touch. He looks from the arch to me, to the paper in my hand, to me again. “We’re actually doing this.”
“Apparently.”
“You’re not going to wake up tomorrow and decide this was a mistake?”
“Only if you do,” I say, and he shakes his head so fast the motion blurs.
A woman in a suit slides in with a leather binder and a smile that could calm a hurricane. “Ready?”
I look at him. He looks at me. We both nod.
The officiant begins with words I’ve heard in movies and never believed belonged to me. I don’t remember all of them. I remember the way Ollie’s thumb finds the inside of my wrist and stays there. I remember Eli crying with no shame and Drew laughing every time he sniffles and Miles just standing very still with his jaw tight like he’ll break if he moves.
“Vows?” she asks.
We didn’t write any. There wasn’t time. There doesn’t need to be.
“I’ll go first,” I say, and feel my voice steady itself because it knows how to carry a room and how to carry a heart. “Oliver Marshall,” I start, and watch him flinch at his full name like I meant to tease him, which I did, but also because I want to say it right once before I spend the rest of my life saying it soft. “I don’t believe in fate, but I do believe in timing, and the second you looked at me with that ridiculously perfect blush, something in my chest decided to make room.” I swallow. Miles sniffs. “I promise to make noise with you and for you. I promise to be the person you can be messy with. I promise to be proud and loud and quiet when you need quiet. And I promise that if any scout, manager, governor, or god tries to tell you who you are, I’ll bethe one who stands in the door and saysfuck no.” I swallow hard and finally say, “I love you so fucking much.”
