Page 5 of Wilder’s Mistake

I say “I do” anyway. We are both too many drinks in to realize just how dumb this is.

CHAPTER 2

WILDER

Lucy is awake beside me, naked under one white sheet and staring at the ceiling like she plans to force it to undo the night. I opened my eyes to a hotel room that looks as though we fought our way through it. Her blue dress hangs from the television. One silver shoe lies beside the bathroom door and the other near the window. My shirt is looped over a lamp with two buttons missing. A room-service tray sits beside the minibar, surrounded by torn sugar packets and plastic roses stolen from the wedding chapel arch.

My head pounds with the air conditioner, and I lift my left hand to look at what feels different. A cheap silver band circles my finger. Lucy sees me looking and pulls the sheet to her chin.

“Don’t look at me.”

“Bit late for that.”

Color rises from her chest to her face. Even hungover, I like knowing I can still do that to her.

The chapel comes back first. Lucy’s hand in mine. The officiant pronouncing us husband and wife while she laughed against my mouth. Her dragging me toward the elevators afterward because the room suddenly felt too far away.

The rest arrives out of order but it’s coming back to me. Her dress sliding down, her teeth in my shoulder. Lucy above me, the ridiculous stone on her finger flashing while she planted both hands on my chest and told me to watch. I know what happened. I just can’t quite put every minute in the right place.

“How bad’s your head?” I ask.

“Feels like I’m dying.”

“Water’s beside you.” She finds the bottle and drinks. The sheet slips enough to show the curve of one breast before she catches it.

Lucy has been Nora’s best friend for six years. Six years of family dinners, careful dresses and men who looked nothing like me. I stayed away because she kept showing up beside somebody respectable, and because one night would never have been enough. I still said things that made her blush. A man needs something when he is trying not to touch the woman he wants.

“Shit. We got married,” she says.

“Yeah, seems like we did.”

She turns her head. “How are you not panicking?”

“Wouldn’t make us less married, would it?”

“Wilder!” she snaps as I sit up slowly. The sheet falls to my hips, and her attention drops before she looks hard toward the window.

“You saw everything last night.” I shrug.

“I could have lived without that reminder before coffee.”

My wallet is beneath my jeans. The marriage certificate has been folded around it, both names printed beneath enough county seals to make the truth legal.

I hand it to her and Lucy reads the first line twice. “This cannot have happened.”

“Looks convincing to me.”

“We were drunk,” she protests.

“Yeah, very.”

She presses the heel of her hand to her forehead. “I remember the chapel. I remember saying yes. I remember kissing you outside and pulling you into this room.”

My body responds beneath the sheet. Her gaze catches the movement. “Do not even.”

“Not doing anything.”

“Tell that to your…” She stops short of saying the word dick.