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We headed to lunch and then spent the rest of the afternoon in the hotel, watching shows about terrible people buying houses, ordering too much room service, and procrastinating on packing up our shit.
My mom sent me a message and I said that we were still in Vegas but coming back to Boston that night. I had to work tomorrow because I only had so many vacation days and I’d used them all for this trip. C’est la vie. I needed a new job. I’d already been looking and was hoping I would have some interviews soon. Mom would flip if she knew I was leaving my “stable” job doing customer service at a hotel for something else. She was always after me to apply for promotions, but I would rather let rabid squirrels slowly devour me alive than work another year at the hotel.
“When’s our flight?” I called out, as I shoved the pile of my discarded clothes in my suitcase and then crammed the lid shut, sitting on it to get the zipper to close. I had folded and rolled everything to get it in there before the trip, but I wasn’t going to do that now since I was just going to dump everything in the washer when I got back.
“Hurry up, Callyn!” was the response from everyone who was already standing at the hotel suite door with their meticulously packed suitcases. Whatever, we’d get there in time.
I rolled my suitcase out and saw everyone breathe a sigh of relief.
“Let me do one last check,” I said. I’d left more than one item behind in a hotel room in my life. I rushed around the room as my friends tried not to be too annoyed. They should know me by now.
“Did you get it?” Emma asked, as I scanned the couch for any clothing item I might have strewn on it.
“Get what?” I asked, pushing the pillows aside.
“The marriage certificate? You had it last.” Holy shit, I’d forgotten about that for all of ten minutes. Marriage certificate.
“Right. I think I had it in the room.” I dashed into the bedroom where I’d been spending my time. It had last been on the dresser? The desk? Something like that. I didn’t see anything. I tore through the room and then came out to the living room and then tried the bathroom.
“I can’t find it!” I yelled after I’d checked the tub.
“Yeah, that’s because I have it,” Emma called back to me.
“What?” I shrieked and ran out to the main part of the suite. Emma was there, smirking and holding the marriage certificate in her hand. “Didn’t want to lose it.” I narrowed my eyes slowly and held my hand out for it.
“No way. I’m keeping this safe.” She went to the desk in the room and found a folder in one drawer, slid the certificate inside it, and then put that in the front pocket of her suitcase.
“There. Now we won’t lose it.”
“I wouldn’t have lost it,” I said, but there was definitely a chance I might have. I lost a lot of things; it was my nature.
“I know,” Emma said, her voice softening. “But you know what a control freak I am.” That was Emma’s nature, and I was used to it by now.
“Can we go,please?” Lara said, staring at her phone. “The van will be here in one minute.” We all hustled ourselves to the elevator and then out to the front of the hotel.
“Holy hell,” I said, instantly breaking out in a sweat. Boston could get hot, but not like this.
We all piled into the van and made our way to the airport. Thanks to Emma’s meticulous planning, we were there in plenty of time to get through the security line and be at our gate and chill for a whole hour before our flight started boarding.
“I’m tired as fuck,” I said, resting my head on Emma’s shoulder. I planned on crashing out and sleeping the whole way home. Emma shifted beside me.
“Stay still,” I whined. Her shoulder was the perfect height for me to lean on. There were so many reasons we worked as best friends.
“Sorry, my shoulder is sore.” I picked my head up and looked at her.
“Did you hurt it? Do you want me to rub it for you?” I wiggled my fingers. One of my many talents was a damn good deep tissue massage. If I didn’t hate making small talk and seeing random strangers naked, I might have gone into massage therapy.
“No, it’s fine,” she said, leaning away from me. She was being weird again, and it worried me. Emma didn’t hide things from me, ever. Emma knew the deepest darkest corners of my soul, and I knew hers.
“You okay?” I asked, hoping she would cave and tell me that she’d started her period early (we were on the same cycle and I wasn’t due for another few days), or that she was having stomach cramps from the airport sushi she insisted on buying earlier. Something told me it was neither of those things.
“Yeah, just tired,” she said. “Thinking about a lot.”
“You mean the fact that we got married and now we have to sort that out?” I asked. She winced just a little when I mentioned the getting married.
“No, I’d completely forgotten about that,” she said in a deadpan voice.
“This is one thing that isn’t going to stay in Vegas,” I said with a sigh. I hoped it wouldn’t be too hard to sort out. I hadn’t looked up what it would require to annul the thing because I was scared of the cost, and the amount of hoops we’d have to jump through. There was a girl at work who was in law school, so my plan was to ask her to look it up and explain the legal jargon to me so I could understand it. And that was if Emma didn’t figure it out before me. I had the feeling she would. Emma was always on top of things, unlike me. I wanted to show her that I could handle this, for once.
