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Chapter10
HARPER
Her friends started talking at once, and a verbal explosion hit the covered patio like a sonic boom.
“What the hell, H?”
“Is this for real?”
“You guys are married, actually married!”
“When were you guys going to tell us?” Charlotte exclaimed. Usually, Char opted for pervasive gentleness over outright force. But the redhead could turn up the heat when she wanted to.
“Dude, you can’t go and marry your nanny on the first night,” Rowen exclaimed.
“Yeah, there’s a process, mate,” Raz added. “You’ve got to have your arse handed to you a few times before you get the girl.”
“It wasn’t like that,” Landon replied, gaze darting all over the place like he’d woken up on an alien planet. “We weren’t matched up officially.”
Mitch took a sip of his beer. “You guys have to be the last match.”
It was time to shut this down, Harper Presley style.
She took a slow breath. It was as if she were back in grade school, where every lesson felt like the information was coming at her through a fire hose.
“Time out,” she cried over the flurry of conversation, and the buzz of rapid-fire questions stopped.
She took a second to order her thoughts. “This marriage was an impulsive, spur-of-the-moment decision. When we got double-dog dared, everyone around us was hammered and partying. The atmosphere was surreal, like nothing counted, like a crazy dream. And we got caught up in the fervor and excitement, right?” she finished and turned to Landon.
He met her gaze, but he didn’t say a word.
What did his silence mean? Did he view it as a stupid mistake—a terrible error in judgment—or not?
“But you really got married, H. You said ‘I do.’ You spoke vows to each other,” Libby remarked with a Zen master grin.
“Yeah, I legally wed L. Bartholomew Paige seven days ago.”
“Bartholomew?” Raz repeated.
“Landon Bartholomew Paige is my full name,” her heartthrob husband added.
“I wondered what those half-naked dudes on the video were trying to say,” Rowen murmured.
“Why were you going by your middle name?” Penny asked.
“So they wouldn’t suspect I was Landon Paige, the musician,” he answered.
“And it worked?” Mitch asked, skepticism coating the question.
“Like we said,” Landon continued, “the people we were with were smashed. The bride, Katrina, almost outed me, but Harper made up a story on the fly and started calling me Bartholomew,” he finished, then gifted her with the sweetest grin.
And here come the butterflies.
Her emotions were all over the place.
She held her breath.
Do not go into swoon mode.
