Actually, I think it was the word ‘our’ that gave my insides gas.
“Everyone goes to Las Vegas to elope,” the big guy had added as if I didn’t know.
Obviously, I did.
“There’s no waiting to apply for a marriage license,” he had ended with as he’d polished off a sandwich.
Another truth.
How can you argue practicality? There wasn’t a point in having any of my few loved ones there, and honestly, I really wouldn’t have wanted them to be in attendance. This wasn’t some everlasting marriage built on love. I’m pretty sure I had told Diana more than once that I was going to have a beach destination wedding if the time ever came.
If the time came, that had been my plan. Maybe someday in the distant future, it’d be a possibility.
For now, for this, Las Vegas would work.
With his credit card in hand, the morning after I moved in, I reserved two first-class plane tickets, because explaining to Aiden that flying economy was cheaper was a pointless argument I’d tried once and failed at miserably. I also scored a two-bedroom suite at the hotel we’d stayed at in the past. We’d fly in Sunday evening and leave Monday afternoon. In and out, we would sign some papers, maybe take a picture, and then head back.
On the day before we were supposed to leave, I was at the grocery store when I spotted the customer in front of me wearing a wedding band, and it hit me.
Was Aiden going to need a ring? Was I going to need one?
He’d never said anything about engagement rings or wedding rings, and I wasn’t sure if that was something we’d need to pull off the believability factor. Would they check that out at the interview? Would they care? I remembered Diana’s cousin Felipa had worn a wedding ring way before things got serious between her and her husband. But I’d also met couples before who didn’t bother with rings.
So…
I looked online to see if there was anything about whether agents checked that kind of thing or not, and I knew The Proposal wasn’t a good example of how immigration issues actually worked. What was I supposed to do?
Chances were, he wouldn’t wear it. But….
Get one anyway, my brain said. I could worry about one for myself when the time came, but it would be months until then.
I’d learned to trust my instincts, so that evening when he was running drills after hours by himself at the Three Hundreds’ training facility, I fought the nagging feeling in my belly and snagged his College National Football Championship ring from the drawer where he kept it. Holding onto it for dear life, I headed to a small jeweler I’d visited in the past to get my favorite pair of earrings fixed when I’d messed them up.
The jeweler had a lot of rings to choose from, but not much in sizes large enough to fit Aiden’s fingers. Luckily, he said he could get something resized for me in record time, and I chose a basic fourteen-karat white gold band. It was nothing remotely fancy or even eighteen karat, but… no one likes a picky bitch, and I was paying for it out of my own pocket, so he better not complain.
I was buying my soon-to-be fake husband a wedding ring that he may or may not wear.
After all, we had to make it believable. So even if he didn’t wear it, at least he’d have it, I figured.
It only made me not want to get it more.
“Are you ready?” Aiden called up the stairs.
I was never going to be ready. Ever.
I’d been up since four in the morning, waking up to find my heart pounding, and a hundred million thoughts going through my head one after the other. We were leaving. We were going to Vegas to sign paperwork that would legally make me able to change my name to Graves if I wanted to.
That was another thing we hadn’t talked about, but I didn’t see a point in bringing it up. Plenty of women didn’t change their names when they got married nowadays, right? If he didn’t ask me to, I sure as hell wasn’t going to bring it up. That just seemed like a nightmare waiting to happen at the social security office.
“Vanessa,” he hollered. “We need to go.”
With a nervous sigh that bordered on a growl, I got off the edge of the bed, where I’d been sitting for the last fifteen minutes while I waited for the nausea and the nerves to go somewhere else, and grabbed my duffel bag. We were only staying one night, but I didn’t know what to pack or what to wear to… do it… so I brought a casual dress I’d worn ten times before, dressy jeans and a blouse, and two T-shirts to be on the safe side, along with one of my favorite pairs of heels. Underwear, socks, a toothbrush, travel toothpaste, a hairbrush, and deodorant rounded out my bag. I was wearing my tennis shoes on the way. For one day, it was definitely more than I really needed, but I hated not being prepared, so I’d live with what I’d packed.
Packed to go get married.
It was just as big of a deal as I was trying not to make it out to be.
“Vanessa,” Aiden bellowed, not impatiently, more just so I could hear him. “Come on.”
“I’m coming. Hold your horses!” I yelled back from the top of the stairs, before hightailing it over to Zac’s room real quick. Knocking on the door, I pressed my ear against it. “Zac Attack, we’re leaving!”
The door opened a few seconds later. His dark blond head peeked out, a big smile already plastered to his face. He had been teasing me nearly nonstop since he’d gotten home right after I moved in, apologizing for not making it home in time and not needing to hint that he’d stayed over at a woman’s house. The first chance I had with him alone, I’d asked him again if he was really fine with what was going on. His response: “Why wouldn’t I be, darlin’? You’re the one marryin’ him, not me, and I like havin’ you around.”
And that was that.
With them being away from the house so much, it wasn’t like we’d been inconveniencing each other or anything.
“Gimme a hug then, bride-to-be,” Zac said, already holding his arms wide.
“Ugh.” I scowled even as I leaned into his embrace.
“Vanessa!”
“Your future hubby is waitin’,” Zac said before I reached up and pinched his lips together.
“We’ll be back tomorrow.”
“Vanessa!”
I sighed and took a step back. “Wish me luck.”
Zac waved his hand in a dismissive gesture, an ornery smile taking over his tan face. “I sure will, Mrs. Graves.”
He was so full of shit, but I knew if I didn’t get downstairs, Aiden would probably come up here and drag me down—he hated being late—so I let Zac’s comment go and ran down the stairs. At the bottom, Aiden’s expression was his typical exasperated one. He was dressed in jeans and a black V-neck that stretched across the wide width of his muscular chest. His favorite hoodie dangled from his fingertips.
He gave me a look as I jogged down the steps, nerves making my knees weak. Aiden didn’t wait for me to make it down before he was on his way to the garage. I hauled ass through the kitchen, closed the garage door behind me, and carried my bag to his SUV.
“You got everything?” he asked with a curt look once we were both buckled in as he turned his head to back out of the driveway.
I ran my fingers over the small lump in the front pocket of my jeans and felt the flutter of nerves remind me they hadn’t gone anywhere. I took in his face quickly; the stern line of his mouth, the hard jut of his chin, and the constant tension creasing his eyebrows. Reality flowed over me. I was marrying this guy.
Oh, brother.
“Yep,” I squeaked.
The trip to the airport went well with the sports talk show on the radio keeping us company; luckily, they were only discussing professional baseball. Aiden parked his car in one of the covered lots. From there, we took a shuttle to the terminal. I eyed him a few times on the way over, my hands getting sweatier by the second. Just as the mini-bus rolled up to the drop-off, Aiden slipped his hoodie on despite the ninety-something degree weather in Dallas, and pulled the zipper all the way up to his throat.