Page 26 of The Marriage Blunder

Another perfect pause. “Ken, anything I should be worried about?”

“No.”

He waited. Miles always waited.

I ended the call before he could deploy his follow-up. I set the phone down on the counter, next to the cold cup, and braced both hands on the polished quartz. It should have been a relief—sixty days, clean and simple. All it would take was a signature and a fee, and the problem would vanish.

The problem wasn’t the paperwork.

It was Jude.

It was the way he touched everything with the tips of his fingers, as if memorizing the texture for later. The way he watched people—everyone, not just me—as though they were an equation he could balance if he just waited long enough.

It was the way he looked in the hotel suite, hair a mess, glasses at an angle, marriage certificate in both hands like it was evidence in a crime scene he was planning to solve.

It was the way he’d laughed in the elevator, two a.m. and the scotch not yet worn off, face open and unguarded, the sound so sharp and clear I’d felt it in my teeth.

It was the fact that nothing about last night, or the morning after, could be explained away by Vegas or by alcohol or by accident.

I wanted it. I wanted him. I wanted to keep the goddamn certificate, and the ring, and the story that came with it.

I stood in my kitchen, the city stretched out below me, and let the admission settle in.

It wasn’t a legal problem.

It was a person problem.

And I’d never had one quite like it.

* * * *

At 1:12 p.m., the first pretext fell into my lap like a fortune cookie with the warning baked in: “Major Las Vegas Wedding Chapel Loses License Over Clerical Error; Hundreds of Marriages in Legal Limbo.”

I found the article on the homepage of the Times. The statistical probability that this story would break within forty-eight hours of my own legal catastrophe was so low I briefly considered whether the universe was trolling me on purpose.

I scanned the article. The chapel in question was three doors down from the one Jude and I had stumbled into, and the photo—a washed-out, sun-bleached awning—looked exactly like the one I remembered, minus the bachelorette parties and the guy in the chicken suit.

I debated forwarding the link to Jude. On one hand, it was the sort of dry, procedural news he would find hilarious. On the other, I didn’t want to imply buyer’s remorse, or, worse, invite him to consider the possibility of annulment.

But the urge to see his name light up my phone won out.

I copied the link and pasted it into a text: “I think we dodged a bullet. See attached.”

I hovered on the send button, then added: “Or maybe we’re in the bullet. Hard to say.”

Send.

I waited. I told myself I was going to set the phone down and go about my day, but instead I watched the screen, thumb hovering, the way people do in movies when they’re expecting bad news.

Forty seconds. That’s how long it took.

“Ours was licensed. I checked. The certificate was in triplicate.”

I laughed, surprised at how much relief the text delivered.

“So we’re stuck with each other,” I texted back.

His response came so fast I could see the bubbles before I finished reading my own: “Apparently.”