“Your feet hurt,” he said. “I’m tired of hearing you whimper in pain with every step.”
I blinked at him. Swayed on my feet. He wasn’t wrong. Every step I took was like getting stabbed in the balls of myfeet with dull knives. I shuffled forward and put one hand on his shoulder. “Okay, but don’t drop me.”
“I won’t.”
I leaned against him. “Just tell me if I’m too heavy, though, okay?”
He reached to curl his palms around the backs of my thighs, then hitched me up onto his back. My arms wrapped around his neck automatically, squeezing across his collarbone as he straightened his legs and started walking. “You’re not.”
“I’m not calling your masculinity into question. You’re a very tough, strong man, with manly muscles.”
“Aw, thanks for noticing.”
“But if you face-plant—”
“Will you relax?” He did a little hop to adjust his hold on me, which did not help me relax. “I’m not going to drop you.”
By the time we made it back to my hotel lobby, my muscles were loose and my face was smooshed into the crook of Adam’s neck, right where his cologne was strongest. I was too drunk to decipher any of the specific scent notes, but I remember liking the way he smelled. Warm, and a bit spicy, and very nice. He had to pat my thigh to get me to release my octopus hold on him.
Realizing how long I’ve been frozen in thought, I quickly shift to look out the window and pray my sunglasses prevented Adam from noticing my stare. I don’t know how to reconcile that memory—or him bringing me not one, buttwodrinks this morning—with the fact that he came to Vegas with the obvious intention of ruining my day.
“There was probably somewhere you could’ve bought new shoes back at your hotel,” I say, because despite his olive branch, I’m still in a vindictive mood.
“I tried,” he says shortly. “My credit card was declined. I think my account’s frozen. I have to call them.”
I shake my coffee cup. “How’d you pay for this, then?”
“Company card,” he answers, eyeing my shirt like he’s trying to come up with something insulting to say about it. It’s vintage, from David Bowie’s Serious Moonlight tour. It belonged to my mother, but after the third time I stole it from her closet back in high school, she gave it to me.
I cock an eyebrow and wait.
Adam’s lips purse and he huffs through his nose, wisely choosing to keep his mouth shut. He sulks in silence for the span of five blocks. I can’t tell if he’s genuinely distraught over our current predicament or just grumpy about his shoes, but I’ve always pegged him as someone with the emotional depth of a birdbath, so I would not be shocked to hear it’s the latter.
“Can you silence your phone?” he grouses when yet another text comes through. “That buzzing is driving me nuts.”
I roll my eyes and dump the phone into my bag without silencing it—Iris will run out of things to text me eventually. Besides, the driver is playing some great music.
“Would you mind turning that up?” I lean forward to ask.
He twists the volume dial, and Joe Cocker’s “With a Little Help From My Friends” blasts through the speakers, plenty loud enough to drown out my phone. I face Adam and pointedly sing along. When he ignores me, I lean closer and sing louder, until finally Adam cracks and belts out the chorus along with me.
“Greatest cover of all time,” I say as the cab pulls up to the curb outside the chapel and the driver turns the volume back down again.
“Debatable,” Adam argues. “It’s great, but best ever? What about Jimi Hendrix’s ‘All Along the Watchtower’? Or Aretha’s version of ‘Respect,’ for that matter.”
“Fair,” I say as I swipe my debit card. The payment goes through, and I try not to think about how close I am to overdrafting.
Adam gets out first, and I scoot across the back seat after him. Once on the sidewalk, I pause to grimace up at the neon sign.
I am not someone who has spent a lot of time fantasizing about my dream wedding. But like anyone who readTwilightat an impressionable age, I’ve imagined getting married in the lush forests of the Pacific Northwest. I’ve also had the passing thought of getting married in the backyard of the house I grew up in, despite the fact that my mom sold it when Iris and I graduated high school. My last serious relationship was with Griffin, and the only time marriage came up was when we were visiting a vineyard in Napa. A bride and groom were having their photos taken nearby, and I made some innocuous comment about it being a nice place for a wedding, and then Griffin had scoffed and sipped his wine and said that when we got married, it wouldn’t be in a place as overdone as Napa.
The point is, never once did I picture my wedding taking place in a squat building just off a major road, with a sign that buzzes if you listen hard enough.
Resentment swarms inside my chest because I hate thinking about Griffin, and I wouldn’t have to if Adam hadn’t come to Las Vegas. I wouldn’t be remembering that day in Napa if I hadn’t come to this chapel with a different music executive I had no desire to marry. I’ve worked hard to banishthese kinds of memories, and Adam being here is forcing them all to the surface.
I cut a sidelong glare at Adam and discover he looks as miserable standing here as I feel. Good.
“Let’s get this over with,” I say with a scowl.
