The chef, whose knuckle tattoos spelled outStay Gold, tossed a spatula in the air and looked Lainey right in the eye as he caught the handle between his teeth. “Congratulations on your engagement,” he said in a strong Yooper accent, grabbing the spatula from the air in its descent from his mouth. “New to Benihana? For our first-timers, I recommend the surf side. Now, Hawaiian Shirt,” he called out, pivoting his attention away from Lainey. “Want to catch a piece of shrimp in your mouth?”
Isaac opened wide and snapped his teeth around the shrimp like a dog snatching a Frisbee. “Benihana rules,” he hollered between chews, honest to god pumping his fist. “This is awesome. I can’t believe you’re getting married here. And to Lainey Davis! I didn’t even know you knew her.”
“You met each other inmycar,” she said, bewildered.
The blood drained from her face and sank into her toes. What was she doing? She was marrying a near stranger in a Benihana. This was the kind of scene people described when relaying rock-bottom moments to therapists. She pictured herself on a leather couch ten years in the future, confessing it all to a woman in an alpaca knit shawl.
It wasn’t until I was exchanging vows at a hibachi table with a man who’d threatened legal action against me one week prior that I truly understood I needed to change.
“Do you want to catch a shrimp in your mouth, too, miss?” Chef Nemoto offered.
“Lainey,” she corrected. “No. I’m not—I, uh…”
Bree was going to kill her. Gran was going to laugh at her, but then Bree was going to murder her in cold blood.
She could still leave. She hadn’t yet done anything she couldn’t take back.
“Hey.” Elliot turned toward her. His attention was warm on her face, but that might’ve been residual heat from the grill. “If you’re having cold feet, we don’t have to do this. We can just have lunch.” His face was so serious and yet tremendously kind.
“I don’t mean to put pressure on you,” Chef Nemoto interjected. “But my shift manager, Anthony, just walked out for his fifteen, so if we want to do this, we’ve gotta do it now. I get written up when I do these in the dining room, and I’m kind of in a three-strikes situation with corporate.”
“Can we go somewhere and talk? Two minutes?” she asked Elliot.
Elliot nodded fiercely. “Of course. Let’s…” He took her hand and led her to the bathroom hallway out of earshot of their party. “Is this not the way you pictured it?” he asked, his voice sincere.
“No, I’ve always dreamed of a guerrilla wedding in an Asian-fusion chain restaurant under the gun of Anthony’s smoke break.”
“Fair point,” he agreed, raking his hand through his hair, undoing whatever fussing he’d done to it that morning. “It’s just that it’s almost the end of the month, and if we wait two weeks to do this at the courthouse, you won’t be on my insurance until May.”
“Oh.” She hadn’t considered all the red tape involved. She was grateful he’d taken it on.
“This was kind of our best option. You look…great, by the way. You don’t look like I caught you by surprise at all.” His gaze dropped down her body. Her skin prickled everywhere his eyes roamed, a feather sweeping across her as her insides tightened into a fist.
This is a transaction, she reminded herself. A contentious one. No one was looking out for her in this arrangement, especially not the man passively ogling her beside a communal sink.
Lainey inhaled deeply, tuning out the low din of spatulas on steel. Her focus was entirely on Elliot. “If we don’t get married today, are you going to sue me for my house?”
“No,” he assured her, with a quick rise and fall of his chest. “I won’t. And you know that’s true because I don’t have enough money to sue you. That’s why we’re in this mess.” He laughed, and the sound of it was a soothing tonic to her nerves. “Plus, I can’t stand my lawyer.”
“I hate my lawyer, too,” she replied in a relieved whoosh of air. “It’s a mutual hate thing. He thinks I tried to kill him. Twice.”
He raised his eyebrow. “Did you?”
“Not the second time.”
He smiled, one corner of his mouth higher than the other. Then a gray cloud of worry drifted over his face. “If wedoget married, are you going to screw me over? Sell my truck on craigslist or sign over my resort to a crime syndicate in exchange for five thousand dollars and unlimited wishes?”
“Are you under the impression that the mafia operates like the genie fromAladdin?”
“Lainey.” He groaned.
“I don’t know why you’ve cast me as this deceptive villain who’s always working an angle, but I’m just a normal person trying to get by in a world where I’ve gotten one lucky break in my entire life.”
She grabbed his hands, looking him dead in the eyes. If they were going to do this, he’d have to believe she was capable of sticking to her word. “I’m not going to screw you over,” she promised, squeezing his hands tighter as though the pressure could be enough to convince him. “And I don’t know if you can believe that, but it’s the truth. I swear on my grandmother, contraband ice cream bars, and our very good friend Katie.”
He smiled despite himself as his eyes darted between hers like a lie detector needle. When he found whatever it was he was looking for, he took a deep breath in and said, “Okay.”
“Okay,” Lainey repeated, dropping his hands. “Then I guess we’re getting married. In a Benihana.”
