"Oooo, that's new," Darla purred. "But you're not really married, are you?" Guilt lacerated my gut, and I pulled my hand back quickly, removing the ring and shoving my hand in my pocket.
"Not really, just... can I get my coffee please?" Annoyed, I scowled at her, and she stomped off pouting. I didn't have a single second to myself to wrap my brain around this thing when Gavin strutted up.
“God, not you too," I grumbled as he leaned on the counter.
"Sheesh, buddy, lighten up." He glanced around and then leaned in. "Look, I just wanted to tell you that everyone saw you with that bridezilla and?—"
“Bride, you mean? Because she most certainly was not a bridezilla." My body was on edge. I felt angry that people knew my business, but even angrier that I was having to defend my choice of sex partner.
"Okay, calm down, Kade." He straightened and held both hands up in a surrendering posture. "I'm just telling you, she was wasted. People are talking." Gavin studied me for a second. "Are you okay?"
It shocked me, too.
I wasn't one to defend people. I was the jokester, the one cracking jokes about other people. I wasn't the man who was chivalrous and stood up for women. It felt like I was living in the twilight zone or something.
"I'm fine," I grumbled, spying Darla returning with the drinks. "Thanks for asking."
"Just sayin', a hoe that fine could milk me any day." Gavin smirked and made his eyebrows bounce a few times, but I almost decked him.
"I said, don’t talk about her like that." If word got out that I got married overnight, I was screwed in so many ways. But even more so if people heard my friends talking about her like that.
"Here ya go!" Darla announced, ending the tense staring contest between me and Gavin. I took the two cups without leaving a tip or paying and stomped off toward the elevator.
Lainey was so sheltered she didn't even know what a blowjob was, or at least she said she'd never given one when I asked her to do that to me. And after what her ex did, I felt sorry for her. Call me the Grinch, but my heart felt like it’d expanded to be a better person last night. It didn’t feel right standing around listening to my friend trash her.
I jammed my finger into the button for the elevator and stood there stewing. Everything happened so fast last night I didn't know what to think. If I hadn't suggested marrying her, maybe she never would've gone that route. She just wanted to be a wild girl and make a few crazy choices, right? But that didn't have to involve marriage. I was the one who brought that up.
My brain hurt.
My dad would flip out.
My mom would lecture me to no end, and my friends would humiliate me. I let a depressed, distraught runaway bride corner me into a wedding because I was wasted and I went along with it willingly.
It didn’t matter that I was thirty-six and old enough to know better. If I didn't fix this, Dad would cut me out of his will and probably take away my access to his accounts, which meant me facing the reality that I had to grow up at some point.
But marriage wasn't in my plan—not for at least five or ten more years.
4
LAINEY
If my head wasn't pounding I wouldn't have remembered that I drank more liquor than a sailor last night. The loud thump sounded like an explosion, but I knew better. My eyes popped open as my back arched upward in a stretch and jarred me farther awake.
It was early still, the Vegas sun barely peeking in the windows of the hotel room as the foggy moments of a dream rolled through my mind. Me screwing Kade Kingston and getting married to him. It was so vivid I'd have thought it was real if not for the silky sheets I lay in and the scent of Brandon's aftershave on the pillow.
The bed was cold though, and my head was spinning badly enough I didn’t know if it was a hangover or if I was still slightly drunk. All I knew was I had to pee so bad and my side hurt.
My hand brushed over my ribcage, expecting to find a blemish or a bug bite, but the whole side of my body burned like fire, like I'd been sunburnt. I tried to crane my neck to see it, but when I bentthat hard it made my vision swim and the nausea roll so badly I thought I'd throw up.
So I thrust myself out of bed, noticing a distinct lack of male items in the room. No shoes, no tux, no wallet on the night stand.
"Bran?" I rubbed my eyes and the minute I did, I got a rude wake-up call. My eye felt like I was trying to dig it out as something hard as a rock ground against it, and I pulled my hand back quickly to see the massive rock mounted on a silver band.
"What the..."
Throat constricting, I stumbled toward the mirror staring at the diamond the size of Texas on my ring finger. A horrifying sensation made goosebumps rise over every inch of my skin, even the parts that burned.
"Holy..." I gasped as my eyes tracked up my body in the full-length mirror mounted on the back of the closet door. My whole side was inflamed, bright red and covered in black ink. "Oh no... no no no," I gasped, turning to lift my arm as I read backward the scrawling signature of Kade Kingston tattooed onto my side.
