He laughs again, more naturally this time. “No, nothing like that. I just don't believe in putting anything in my body that might mess with my performance as an athlete.”
“Wow,” is all I can manage. I’m genuinely impressed. In a city where decisions are made on liquid courage every day, he’s been navigating this entire whirlwind with total clarity.
It only makes me want to ask more questions. This man married me, sight unseen, and he did it completely sober—like he knew he wanted me before he even met me. And the terrifying part? I think I did, too.
As we navigate the sidewalk back toward the hotel, a familiar, high-pitched scream pierces through the noise.
“Aspen! Lucas!” Mylene slurs, stumbling toward us.
“It’s Luca,” he corrects gently, reaching out just in time to catch Mylene as she nearly collapses into his arms.
“We have been looking everywhere for you!” Liberty screams, appearing behind her. She looks frazzled, her hair a bit wilder than when the night started. “We bolted from the club when your phone pinged that you were on the way to Mexico! We were convinced you’d been kidnapped and were on our way to file a police report and call your cousin Jamal!”
“Uggh. Julie the grifter,” I explain the night’s events quickly, trying to calm them down. “She took everything. But thank God we found you. Do you have the room key?”
“I have everything!” Liberty shouts over a sudden burst of music.
The sidewalk, already packed, suddenly begins to swell. A localized parade—a vibrant, deafening explosion of feathers, sequins, and towering drag queens—erupts from a nearby plaza, spilling directly onto the Strip.
“We have to move!” Luca yells, his hand finding the small of my back.
The crowd turns into a riptide. A troupe of performers on stilts wedges between my friends and us, and the spectators surge forward to catch a glimpse. I’m shoved to the right. Luca is pushed to the left by a group of tourists wearing matching “Bride Squad” shirts.
“Luca!” I scream, reaching back for him.
“Aspen!”
I see his hand for a split second before a wall of pink tulle and a glitter cannon blast obscures my vision. The music is so loud I can’t hear my own thoughts, let alone his voice. I’m swept toward the entrance of a nearby casino by the sheer force of the mob, while Mylene and Liberty pull me by my arms in the opposite direction, thinking they’re saving me.
“Wait! He’s back there!” I yell, but my voice is swallowed by a chorus of “It’s Raining Men.”
By the time the parade passes and the crowd thins enough to breathe, I’m standing two blocks away from where we were. I scan the street, my heart sinking into my stomach.
The tall, broad-shouldered man with the protective gaze and the top-tier kisses is nowhere to be found.
I realize, with a sickening jolt of clarity, that I don’t know his last name. I don’t know which hotel the production crew moved him to for the night. And he doesn't know anything else about me.
In a single night, I fell in love with a man who called me Ms. Mysterious. And now, I have no way to call him back.
Chapter Eight
Lawyers, Longing + the "FUCK HIM" Bouquet
Aspen
Present Day.
The conference room is too quiet.
Too sterile. And it feels like grief has wiped down every surface and told us to keep our voices low.
I sit still, spine straight and hands folded in my lap, while our lawyers exchange hushed words. Across the room, Chelsea Raymond, the producer-slash-handler fromSightUnseen, stands at the head of the table. She carries herself as if this were just another scheduled wrap-up meeting, a routine box to be checked instead of this being the exact moment my marriage ends.
I barely process the legal jargon being rattled off—bits and pieces about mutual consent, NDA terms, and final footage edits. They explain that once the paperwork hits the judge’s desk, the tie is severed. We will no longer be married.
No longer a couple.
No longer anything.
