The ringing coming from the other side of the room goes straight from my ears to my pounding head. It’s the loudest thing I’ve ever heard.
I think it’s a phone. I don’t know whose it is, but they better fucking shut it off so I can sleep.
No one shuts it off. It continues to ring and ring until it finally pushes through to voicemail, only for another call to come through and the ringing starts again.
Someone at my side grumbles, voicing the annoyance I feel. My eyes shoot open. Someone is at my side . . . in my bed.
I slowly turn in that direction to find a woman lying on her stomach. What the fuck?
No, no, no. Regret churns in my gut. Eight months of waiting for— Kennedy.
Holy fuck. I recognize that hair curtaining the woman next to me. Kennedy Kay Auburn.
Kennedy is in my bed.
She growls when the phone rings again, covering her ears with her palms only to showcase her left hand . . . and her left ring finger.
Flashes of last night seep through my foggy memory. Her pulling me into a chapel.
Me asking her countless times if she was sure about this. Her being positive this is what she wanted.
Me only hearing the words that Kennedy wanted to marry me.
My last memory was that on the worst day of the year, I had the time of my life.
I suck a sharp inhale in realization because I vaguely remember slipping that ring on her finger, but I could’ve sworn that everything from last night was a fucking dream.
“What?” she asks on a gasp, sitting up.
It takes a moment, her sleepy eyes roaming over me, for her to put the pieces together of where she is.
“Isaiah?” She pushes the hair out of her face, her mascara smudged under her eyes and her lipstick smeared over her cheek.
I’ve never seen perfectly polished Kennedy so unkempt. She looks exactly how I feel.
“Why are you in my room?” “My room,” I correct.
Kennedy’s eyes move over the hotel room, only for her to realize it’s not hers. Then her attention falls to her clothes she’s still in from last night, Vans and all.
“Oh my God.” She jolts off the bed as if it were on fire. “Oh my God.
Did we? Please tell me we didn’t.” “Did we what?”
“Did we . . .” She gestures between us frantically, her other hand on her forehead. “Did we, you know . . .”
“Kenny,” I draw out her name. “We’re both adults here. You can say the word sex.”
“Please tell me we didn’t do that!”
Those brown eyes are pleading for me to say no, which is a bit of a hit to the ego, if I’m being honest.
“Judging by the fact we’re both still wearing all our clothes and I was far too wasted to get anything going on my end, I’d bet good money that no, we did not have sex.”
She exhales, her eyes closing in relief. Another blow to the ego.
Still sitting on the bed, I hold up my left hand. “We did, however, get married.”
Her eyes shoot open. “What the hell is that?” “Same thing that’s on your hand.”
Her right hand covers her mouth the same time she holds out her left for examination. “No, we didn’t.”
“We did.”
“We didn’t!”
“Volume. Jesus.” I grimace, fingertips circling my temples. “If I’m remembering correctly, there’s a piece of paper in here somewhere for proof. But I also don’t remember much of anything after the fountains in front of the Bellagio.”
She simply stands there in that denim jacket and white dress, shaking her head. Ironic that the dress she wore to her stepsister’s bachelorette is now her wedding dress.
I chuckle to myself. What the fuck did we do?
Kennedy scans my hotel room, frantically looking for said paper before finding it facedown and discarded on the floor as if it were one of those takeout menus they slide under your hotel room door and not a document that legally binds us together.
“Oh my God,” she breathes as she looks over our marriage license. “What the hell did you do?”
Wait. What?
“Me?”
“Yes, you! How could you do this, Isaiah?” Is she fucking with me?
I’m instantly off the bed. “This was your idea. You were the one who was adamant about doing this. I asked you countless times if you were sure.”
She shakes her head, not believing me. “I wouldn’t . . . I couldn’t do something this reckless. This has you written all over it.”
At that moment, it’s as if the rose-colored glasses get removed.
I’ve never once been mad at Kennedy. Never disliked something she said. Never disagreed with her. But this . . . her blaming me for last night . . .
For the first time since I’ve known the girl, I’m fucking pissed at her. “Do not put this on me, Kennedy. You asked me to do this.”
“No,” she laughs incredulously. “There’s not a chance in hell that I, of all people, asked you to marry me.”
“You begged me to!”
Her eyes are wild. “Then you should’ve told me no!” “When have I ever been able to say no to you?!”
Her jaw hardens, both our chests heaving in anger. “Take it off.”
“What?”
“The ring.” She gestures to the ring on my left hand, the same one the officiant at the chapel gave us. It’s so cheap, it looks like it’s from a vending machine. “Take that ring off your finger.”
“You take yours off.” “I told you to first.”
“Well, I’m not going to.” I’ve literally never stood my ground against this girl, but as I said, I’m pissed.
“Fine, I’ll take mine off.” She slips off the cheap plastic band and tucks it into the pocket of the oversized denim jacket I bought her last night. “It doesn’t mean anything anyway.”
“You’re right. It doesn’t. All it was for you was the perfect revenge for what happened with your ex. Well, you’re welcome, Ken. I hope it feels good when you tell him.”
Too much time passes, a thick tension suffocating us until Kennedy’s eyes soften with regret. “Aren’t they supposed to turn away drunk people at Vegas chapels?”
I don’t like other people being upset. Every fiber of my being is mad at her, but my instincts are screaming to make her feel better. I’d much rather see her smile than the hopeless, lost look she’s wearing now.
I find my wallet on the nightstand, empty of all the cash I had on me last night. “I’m fairly certain that I slipped the officiant a couple hundred not to.”
“I cannot believe we got married.”
“Cute story we’ll be able to tell the grandkids, huh?”
She grabs a discarded pillow and chucks it at my face, but I catch it before it can make contact. “There’s nothing cute about this. This was a drunken mistake.”
“I prefer the term ‘happy accident.’ ”
She shoots me daggers. “This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. I finally have some freedom, and . . .” Her entire body slumps, her eyes closing with a defeated sigh. “We’re getting this annulled as soon as we get back to Chicago.”
The word Chicago has those brown eyes going wide with worry, dainty hands once again covering her mouth. “Oh my God. I’m going to lose my job.” Her tone is frantic. “I’m going to lose my job. San Francisco is never
going to hire me with a termination on my record. What the hell did we do?”
A sheen begins to coat her eyes, so I swallow the distance to console her, but as soon as I open my arms to hug her, she flinches.
Shit.
I keep my hands to myself instead. “You’re not going to lose your job, Kenny. We’ll get the annulment papers drawn up as soon as we get home, and no one has to know about this.”
“As if you’re not going to go running to Cody, Travis, or Kai and tell them about this.”
“Oh, I’m for sure telling those three.” “Isaiah Rhodes.”
“Kennedy Rhodes,” I mimic.
She closes her eyes in frustration, hands finding her forehead. “Monday.
We’ll meet at my lawyer’s office.” “You have a lawyer?”
“Oh my God.” Head falling back, she exposes that pretty throat and lets out a whine that goes straight to my cock.
No. No it doesn’t because I’m mad at her right now. “We don’t even have a prenup.”
“Ken, c’mon. I know you’re not going to try to go after my money.” “Yeah, your money is not what I’m referring to.”
Before I can ask her what in the world that means, that blaring phone starts its ringing again.
She runs towards it, grabbing it off the ground. “Hello? Yeah.” She scans the room as if she were still in utter disbelief of what happened. “Shit. I’m on my way. Give me twenty minutes.” Hanging up, she folds our marriage certificate and hides it in her pocket. “I’m going to miss my flight back home if I don’t leave now. We’ll deal with this on Monday.”
Frantically, she scans the room again, looking for her belongings, but anything she came with, she’s wearing. Other than those white heels I carried with us all night. She grabs them off the dresser before looking back down at the sneakers on her feet that I bought her.
Her voice is small. “Thank you for keeping these.” “You’re welcome.”
Hand on the door, she’s halfway into the hallway before she turns back to look at me with pleading eyes. “Isaiah, I can’t lose this job.”
A job where she’s treated poorly. A job she’s overqualified for. But a job that will lead her to her dream one.
“We’ll take care of it.”
She nods, turning to leave again. “Hey, Kenny?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m pissed at you right now, but I had fun with you last night.”
She attempts to hold back a small smile. “Yeah, from what I remember, I didn’t totally hate hanging out with you.”
“Geez. Cool it, Ken. I get it. You’re into me.”
Those brown eyes roll before she closes the door on me, but still I project my voice for her to hear in the hallway.
“Does this mean the honeymoon phase is over already?” “I hate you!”
“See you at home, wifey!”
