"Hey, everyone," Maya said, loud enough to get everyone's attention. "It's all good. We're going to stay married."
"There's no annulment. No divorce." I stared straight at Elliott. "No scandal."
Emily, Angela, Elliott, and Finn said nothing for entirely too long. They all just blinked in near unison.
Finn laughed like we'd told an exceptionally funny joke. No one else laughed. The defensive stronghold of Maya's girlfriends…and Elliott…didn't find this amusing.
"So, you planned this whole thing and didn't think to loop me in?" Elliott asked.
"No, we didn't plan it," I corrected.
"I mean, if we’d planned it, don't you think we'd have invited you all?" Maya asked, her fingers still tangled with mine. "We don't even remember getting married."
"But that doesn't mean we're getting an annulment," I clarified.
"Or a divorce," Maya added.
"You're standing here telling me this wasn't planned, and you want us to believe it?" Elliott asked me at the same time Finn asked Maya, "You don't remember marrying him?"
"Bits and pieces come back to me here and there," Maya said.
I said, "Yes, you're supposed to believe it."
I looked up at the ceiling where the cherub Elvis-in-a-diaper held a violin. "For the first time in my life, I think drunk me made a decent decision."
"You just got married on accident?" Elliott asked, still disbelieving.
"Yes." I nodded. "And you can keep asking the same questions, but I've got the same answer."
"Pretty sure it was the margaritas we bought on the sidewalk," Maya added.
"They had to be spiked with something other than tequila," I agreed. "We could get some tests done."
"But I'd have to pay cash," Maya said.
"Because she's got shitty health insurance," I added. "I'll get you added to mine first thing."
Elliott wiped his thumb across his bottom lip like he did when he was about to say something that would piss me off. Then he continued to stare at me as though trying to read a playbook in French, but he didn't speak French.
"Man, what is your deal?" I asked Elliott instead of keeping my trap shut. "You wanted a distraction. I got us a distraction."
"That's not what I would've led with," Finn said, rubbing his temples. "But you do you."
"A distraction? Maya is a distraction now?" Emily asked, and the pulse in her neck was now thrumming just like her brother's.
"A questionable decision and a distraction?" Angela asked.
"That isn't what I meant. You're not only a distraction," I assured Maya with a squeeze of her hand and a sweep of my thumb along the inside of her palm.
"And you aren't only my ticket to being TikTok famous," Maya agreed, squeezing right back.
"If you hurt her." Emily pointed at me. "I'm going to ship your nuts in an unlined cardboard box to a small European country with no physicians, and I promise you, Sloan, you won't be attached to them when I do, and your health insurance will not cover the damage."
I squeezed my legs together involuntarily at this extremely specific threat.
"If you hurt her, I'll help," Angela added.
I didn't frequently encounter the consequence of castration, but I had never married Maya before either.
