Page 10 of Dearly Unbeloved
Sierra pushes the waiting room door open and stops so suddenly that I walk straight into her.
“What the hell are you—” I look over her shoulder, and the words die in my throat. There have to be a hundred people in here.
We’re a little busy today. I’d hate to see what really busy looks like to Cherry. Jesus.
I follow Sierra, and we find two seats in a corner. There’s a screen above the door showing the next number to be called: 13.
“What number are we?” I ask, and Sierra holds the clipboard up: 68.
6
SIERRA
They’ve taken eleven couples in an hour. At this rate, we’re going to be here for at least four more hours, and we need to be at the airport in six.
Rose filled in the paperwork while I texted the group chat with Jazz and Maggie to make excuses for our absence at breakfast. As far as they’re concerned, Rose and I had such a good night with the twins—whose names I can’t even remember—that we’re seeing them for brunch, and we’ll meet up at the airport.
Neither of us charged our phones last night, so we have to reserve what little battery we have. Which means sitting in silence.
Ordinarily, people watching in a room full of people who got drunk and married on a Sunday night in Vegas, and now regret it, would be fun. It’s less fun when we are those people.
The irony of the fact that just a couple of days ago, I was promising Kyo that I still had time to find a wife to get mystupid inheritance, and now I’m waiting to get divorced. Or annulled. Whatever.
I snort to myself, and Rose’s head snaps in my direction. “What about this could possibly be funny?”
If I wasn’t so exhausted, so hungover, I might have a witty comeback, but I don’t. Instead, I tell her the truth. “My mom’s parents left me a really big inheritance, but I have to be married to claim it. If I’m not married by thirty-one, I lose it. Kyo lost his, and I have nine months to get married to claim mine. I’ve been trying to find a wife for three years with no luck, yet here we are.” I don’t mean to sound as bitter as I do, but god, what are the odds?
Rose raises her brows. “Seriously? What happened when Kyo lost his?”
“It was donated to charity. I don’t know which, but based on how my mom talks about my grandparents, I probably don’t want to know. Let’s just say if they were alive, they’d have written my mom out of the will the second she married a Japanese man.” And I hate to think how they’d have reacted to two biracial, queer grandkids.
Rose scrunches up her nose like she always does when she hears something she doesn’t like, except she’s wearing her glasses, and the movement causes them to slip down her nose. If it wasn’t Rose, I’d think it was cute. She huffs and sits back in her chair.
“They sound awful,” she says, shaking her head. We’re quiet for a moment before she continues. “Do you want to hear something else funny?”
“What about this couldpossiblybe funny, Rosie?” I repeat sarcastically, and she scowls at me.
“You know how I had my review with my boss earlier this week?”
“Yeah.”
“There’s a promotion opportunity coming up. I want it, and although my boss is happy with my performance, she’s concerned that I’m not a team player.”
“You’re not a team player. You hate working with others,” I point out, and she doesn’t argue.
“Apparently, the team wants to get to know me. They want me to be sociable. So I figured I’d just pretend and lie my way through it. But my boss saw the quiz answers you wrote on my papers, and I panicked and said you were my fiancée, and that the reason we were coming to Vegas was to elope.”
I clap a hand over my mouth, trying to hold back the laugh and failing miserably. She didn’t laugh at me and my inheritance-issues—it’s shitty of me to laugh at her thing, but I can’t help myself. “Shit, you really manifested this, huh?”
“Shut up,” she groans, but there’s no heat in it. We might not like each other, but, for once, we’re both in the same sinking boat.
“Far be it from me to pay you a compliment, Cannon, but you being introverted isn’t a personality flaw,” I say, and she eyes me with suspicion. “Don’t get me wrong, you have many, but that’s not one of them. It’s just who you are, and that’s… fine, I guess. Sure, you could maybe stand to be more sociable, but anyone trying to get you to change that much, your boss included, is a red flag.”
Her suspicion fades, confusion replacing it, like she can’t understand me saying something semi-nice to her. Which, given the past year, is understandable. She sighs. “That’s easy for you to say when your boss is Cal Michaelson.”
I can’t argue with that. I’ve had awful bosses before, and I know how lucky I am to be where I am now.
Rose drums her nails on the clipboard, like she can’t bear to sit still. She flips open the wallet and pulls out the papers from the chapel. Neither of us looked beyond the information sheet and the temporary certificate, but there are a bunch of travel coupons, and even a flyer for a divorce attorney. Lovely.
