Page 18 of Love Beyond the Illusion
The bottles of water fall from my grasp as my arm goes limp, quickly rolling in separate directions across the floor.
Fuuuck.
“What’s wrong?” I see Piper appear fully dressed and standing in the door frame to the bedroom.
“We got married last night!” I yell, pinching the terrifying piece of paper in the air in front of us.
“What?”
“We. Got. Married. Last. Night,” I repeat, emphasizing each word. Still in disbelief, I take a few steps closer to hand her the certificate. With her pupils dilating, Piper reluctantly takes the paper from me and holds it up to read.
“Piper Bradley!Oh my god. I took your last name?” she shouts.
Is that what stuck out to her? Not that we got married in Las Vegas while completely intoxicated and that the witness signature is from someone who I am fairly confident we both don’t know. That was not the reaction I expected.
“Of course you took my last name. Why wouldn’t you?” I quip, somewhat offended.
She shrugs her shoulders. “I don’t know. I guess I never thought about it before.”
“I always knew I’d give my future wife my last name.”Why the hell am I upset?
Piper raises her arms in the air with her palms up in front of us. “It’s shocking seeing my name—but written differently, I guess. Why do you care?”
“I have no idea. I don’t care.” Flustered, I rake my hand down the front of my face, feeling the small beads of sweat that have appeared. “But what I do care about is the fact that this is insane. How could this have happened?”
My mind spins with the stress and pressure that I have going on with my father passing and staring down a narrow tunnel that my life will soon become. Not to mention that the community thinks I abandoned them and doesn’t want me back in it.This is fucking insane.
Piper rubs her temples with a forced grin on her face. “Look, it was a mistake, but I’m sure this happens in Vegas all the time. Let’s do some research to figure out how we can get it annulled. That’s all.”
“Yeah, you’re right.”
“I guess the marriage certificate explains where this came from.” She hands me what looks like a tiny rolled-up piece of paper in the shape of a ring.
I hold it between my index finger and thumb to get a better look. “It looks like a rolled-up wrapper from a straw,” I say.
“I had it on my ring finger when I woke up this morning.”
My body flushes with warmth. “I grabbed the wrapper off the table in the wedding chapel lobby. I vaguely remember making that for you.”
“It was a very sweet gesture,” she says, slipping it back on her finger.Is she keeping it?
“I hope you don’t like it too much because I’m sure it won’t last long.”
Piper rolls her eyes. “Probably as long as our marriage.”
“That’s true.” We stand in silence for a minute, quietly smiling. Both of us stare at the floor while tension swirls between us. This situation is so fucking awkward. “I’m going to hop in the shower, too, and then we should probably make our way downstairs to get something to eat. Or we can call for room service if you prefer?”
“Grabbing breakfast sounds great.” Piper kneels to retrieve one of the water bottles from off the floor.
Before I shut the door to the bathroom, I turn to her. “I intended to bring one of those to you.”
She grins before screwing off the cap. “It’s the thought that counts.” I watch as she brings it to her lips, and I remember our intimate kiss last night.
A few minutes later, I stand alone in the shower, surrounded by the tiled walls. The hot water falls like thick raindrops pelting the stiff muscles of my back. On the bright side, if I was going to get married in Vegas to a woman who I barely know, at least it ended up being a fun, sexy, and adorable one.
I’m unsure of what came over me when I asked Piper to marry me. It may have been another attempt at making my own choices in life, or it might have been the fact that something inside of her speaks to something inside of me, and I didn’t know what the hell to do with that information. But here we are.
I feel only semi-normal when I get out of the shower, but I still need breakfast. Coming from the bedroom, I see the back of Piper’s long hair as she sits with her knees up in one of the tufted chairs in front of the large window overlooking the strip. I want to spend more time with her, and I hope that our drunken choices don’t ruin that for us.
