Page 12 of Axe-identally Married
What came next was hazy, but I closed my eyes and willed images to the surface.
Ah. The gondola ride through the canals at the Venetian.
She dared me to zipline over the strip.
I dared her to play drag queen bingo.
We had dinner after that. She went up to change first, and then she came down into the lobby wearing that dress.
It was green, and it dipped and clung and draped in the most tantalizing ways. The instant I saw her, I was lost.
We met Bob and Phyllis and chatted the night away, all while hitting the tequila. That was when all my honorable intentions went out the window.
Swallowing thickly, I studied her drawn face. “We got married, Doc.”
“I know we did,” she said, still studying the note, frowning. “I wasn’t blacked out, just out of my effing gourd.”
With a sigh, she stood, picked up the silver coffee carafe, and attempted to pour herself a cup. As she tipped the carafe, she spilled it on the white linen tablecloth, leaving a good-sized stain.
“Shoot.”
“Let’s sober up,” I suggested. “Then we can go get it annulled. People get stupidly married in Vegas all the time. I’m sure it’s easy.”
“You’re missing the point,” she said, pinching the bridge of her nose. “We’ll get it annulled, of course. The problem is that everyone already knows.”
“Who?” I popped a piece of croissant into my mouth and had to bite back a moan. Damn, that was good.
Her lower lip wobbled as she settled beside me again. “The town.”
“Impossible.”
She shook her head and pulled her phone from the pocket of her robe. When she unlocked the screen and slid a thumb down it, there were dozens of text messages.
She opened one from Bernice, who owned the diner, and then from her friend Becca, who owned the salon. Both included a blurry photo. The image was of us. I was carrying her through the hotel lobby. She was still in that gorgeous green dress, but she was wearing a white veil.
A buzz like the ones I’d been dreaming about vibrated through me then. I hopped up and dug under the couch cushion, finding my phone lodged there, along with my key card, just as the device buzzed again.
When I caught sight of the screen, my chest tightened. Dozens of texts and missed calls. And as I scrolled through them, bile rose in my throat.
“Apparently, Gail Thomas saw us in the lobby and took that photo.”
My stomach plummeted. Fucking Aunt Gail.
She was Debbie Hebert’s overprotective sister and the town gossip. She’d come to Vegas with Debbie, and she never resisted the urge to glare at me.
She was loyal to a fault when it came to her sister and her nephews. Thus, she despised me. As if it had been my fault my asshole of a father cheated on his wife with my mother and broke her sister’s heart. She taught Sunday school, delivered meals for the food bank, and had worked at the bank for years. But behind her pious façade, she was pure evil.
Shit. If Aunt Gail knew, then she’d surely already made a scandal out of it.
Willa curled up against the armrest, attention locked on her phone and tears streaming down her face again.
Sniffling, she looked up at me. “My parents,” she said softly. “What am I going to tell them? They will be ashamed of me.”
My heart sank. They were the kind of loving, supportive parents any kid would be fortunate to have, and it was a well-known fact in town that they were proud of their daughter and all her accomplishments. Of course they’d be horrified by all of this.
Eyes closed, I cursed myself. Fuck. I had to fix this. I’d been on a downward spiral for months. I couldn’t drag Willa down with me. Not bothering to question where this protective instinct came from, I put an arm around her and pulled her close.
“Blame me,” I said. “I got you drunk and took advantage of you.”
