"Really, sis, I am sorry about how things turned out yesterday. He was a fool for leaving you like he did. He'll never find anyone as awesome as you."
"Thanks. I'm relieved that it happened. Is that weird?" I ask the table in general.
Everyone shakes their heads.
"It's not weird. It just tells us that he did the right thing walking away from you. It saved you both a lot of heartache in the future." My dad reaches across the table and touches my hand.
I feel Zach's hand rubbing my back, and I lean in to him a little bit.
"Thanks. I don't know what I would have done if I didn't have all of you here with me." I rub Zach's leg. "When do you go back to work, Rafe?"
"The doctor said it'll be another couple of months. He said the accident took a lot out of me and I have to build myself back up. I'm on disability, so I'm good. I'm also staying with Mom and Dad until I'm completely back on my feet."
"Do you need any help?" I ask.
"No, I'm good," he says.
I nod.
We spend the remainder of breakfast discussing our trip and how long everyone will be in town. I go upstairs and pack my clothes, and Zach adds the clothes that he's taking to the pile. He changes his clothes, and we take an Uber to the airport after saying goodbye to my parents and brother. I promise to visit them the weekend after we get back.
The flight to Atlantic City is smooth and only takes about an hour. First class is great! The seats are larger and more comfortable. I don’t have the weird, smelly guy on the other side of me, trying to have a conversation. The snack is a lot better too. Instead of peanuts or pretzels, we get a choice of cheese knots or fresh fruit. I get the fresh fruit and Zack gets the cheese knots.
We check into our hotel and decide that we want food. We end up at the hotel buffet, and fill our plates with steak, shrimp, crab and veggies. The steak is tender, and the seafood is amazing.
"I don't want to keep dragging this up, but are you sure you’re okay with him leaving you like that?" Zach reaches across the table and links my fingers with his.
"I am. You know, it wasn't even my wedding. The only thing I really had a say in was you and the color that you were wearing. That should have been a sign for me. My wedding would have been completely different."
"How would you have done it differently?" He puts a fry in his mouth as I explain the white slip dress that I would want to wear, the princess-cut diamond ring I fell in love with while shopping for rings with Mark. We finish our meal, and he says, "Why don't we do it here? The only difference is that your family won't be here."
"Who will I marry? My fiancé left me at the altar."
"You can marry me,” Zach says, “I’m loads better than Mark.”
“What makes you say that?” I sit back and cross my arms.
“Well, for one, I would actually show up to our wedding,” he jokes. I pout playfully. “Too soon? I’m sorry.” The amusement in his eyes belies his apology.
“Thanks. Now I need to drink myself stupid. You in?”
“All the way.”
3
Rigby
This is new. My face is pressed against Zach’s chest. His heartbeat thumps in my ear as his chest rises and falls. There is hair in my eyes, and I lift my hand to move it out of my face before I notice something else.
He’s inside me, filling me up. I didn’t realize how much I missed his dick until now.
His hands slide down my sides until he reaches my hips, gently gripping them as he starts to slowly move inside me. I moan as my hips automatically start moving to meet his. I lift my head and press my lips to his chest, and I feel his growl move up his chest and out of his mouth. The vibrations make my already sensitive clit thrum in awareness. I lick him before sitting upright on him, taking all of him inside me.
I lift myself and let myself slide back down his cock, meeting him thrust for thrust. I throw my head back and let out a low moan, because he touches every sensitive nerve inside me. His hands grips my hips tighter as he thrusts harder inside me. He pounds into me from below, and I bounce on him harder, feeling all of him.
He slows his movements so he can sit up, allowing me to curl my legs around his back, then he starts to move into me from the new position. I curl my hips in to his, and he lifts my face to his, slamming his lips against mine. One of his hands reaches up, taking hold of my shoulder, pulling me firmly down in to him. His other hand grabs my breast, massaging and flicking the tip. As we move, his cock rubs my sensitive clit, taking me higher and winding me tighter.
He suddenly flips me over so he’s on top, pistoning himself in and out of me, his hips grinding into mine on every pass.
“Come for me,” he growls in my ear, causing me to come apart. My whole body seizes up as my pussy squeezes around him. He pushes deeply into me a few more times before he lets go with a deep growl.
He collapses on top of me, pushing me into the mattress while we both catch our breath.
“Damn. That was even better than I remembered,” he mumbles in my ear.
I kiss his shoulder. “It was. But it can’t happen again. We’re not supposed to be doing this.”
“Why not? We did this all the time before you met Mark.” He lifts his head and looks at me.
“I—” My mouths opens as I try to find an excuse.
“Come on, Rigs, just one more time. Please?” He flexes his hips inside me, and I hiss. He’s ready again and so am I.
“We can never stop doing this,” Zach mumbles into my chest.
“We have to. How are we going to have other relationships if we keep doing this?” I mumble into his hair. He pulls out of me and flops down on his back beside me. A feeling of loss replaces the fullness that I felt a moment ago.
He turns onto his side, facing me. “Just give me this week while we’re here, and then we’ll never speak of it again. It’s been two years since either of us has had sex with anyone, let alone each other.” He strokes my hip and kisses my shoulder. “Please, Rigs?”
My skin starts to heat again. I think I need this more than he does. Damn.
“Okay. Just this week, then it won’t happen again.”
A sexy smile comes to his face. “You won’t regret it.” He starts kissing down my neck, taking me back to where we’ve been all morning.
I swing my legs over the side of the bed, putting my feet on the floor. Zach reaches for me, trying to pull me back into bed.
“We’ve been here for three days. We only have three more, and we need to venture out and see some of the sights.” I jump away quickly, dodging out of his reach.
“Come back to bed,” he begs.
“Taking a shower!” I yell from the bathroom.
I go through my morning routine, stepping under the shower, loving the way the hot water massages my sore spots. I half expect him to join me, but he doesn’t, and I’m a bit disappointed. We’ve had a very satisfying couple of days, and I do want to stay in bed until we leave, but I have to start weaning myself off him.
I get dressed and walk back into the room. Zach is sitting on the edge of the bed, looking at some papers. There’s a look of concentration on his face.
“What’s up?”
He hands the papers to me. “We’re married.”
“No we’re not. We haven’t left this room.” I take the papers from him.
“We left the room the first night. We went to that bar and started drinking Patrón shots. Do you remember anything after that?”
I scan the papers. “I don’t remember anything after the third of the shots that one guy kept buying us. Next thing I know, I wake up in bed with you. Both of us know what happened next, and here we are two days later.” I come to a paper that says “Marriage License”. It has both our names and both our signatures. The next page says “Marriage Certificate”. It also has both our names and signatures, plus the name of the officiant and two witnesses. Witnesses? What the hell did we do?
“What the hell happened?” I look away fr
om the papers and at him.
He shrugs. “I know just as much as you do. We’re married.”
“How did this happen?”
“Don’t you think if I knew, I would tell you? We’re in the same boat. We drink Patrón all night, and two days later, we find out we’re married. It’s been two awesome days, but nevertheless, we are married.” He stands up.
“Where are you going?” I can’t help but admire his ass as he walks into the bathroom.
“I’m going to take a shower and get dressed so we can get to the bottom of this.” He closes the door behind him.
I straighten up some, then sit down to go through the rest of the papers. They’re just receipts and things. I look at them and put a timeline together from the timestamps on the receipts. Maybe we can piece together what happened after we got here.
Zach comes out of the bathroom a few minutes later, fully dressed. I show him the timeline of receipts, and we formulate a plan. We try to remember everything we did before we started drinking, and write it down. I happen to glance at my hand, and notice Mark’s ring isn’t on my hand anymore. I know I still had it on when we got here, because I hadn’t thought about it.
Looking in my purse, I don’t see it at first. I end up dumping out the contents, and I see a ring box. When I open it, a new ring and band fall out of it. Zach picks up one of the rings and inspects it, turning it from side to side. The princess-cut diamond is something I’ve dreamed about since I was sixteen. There’s a warmth in my heart that’s growing.
The matching diamond band is gorgeous. Zach bought this for me? At least I got my dream ring and band out of this. I’m actually looking forward to putting the pieces together from Monday night.
Zach has been quiet all this time. I wonder what’s going on inside his brain.
***Zach
When I come out of the bathroom, I watch her put the trays from the past couple of days outside the room. We really need to find the person who delivered our food so we can tip them. Since we didn’t want to put on any clothes, we had them drop off the food outside the door.
She walks over to her purse and starts digging through it, then dumping it out on the bed. A black velvet ring box falls out, and she picks it up. Opening the box reveals a two-carat princess-cut ring and a diamond band. She pulls them out and inspects them, leaving the ring Mark gave her in the box. It looks insignificant compared to the rings I’m assuming we used to get married. Just like him. I wonder why the rings are in the box instead of on her fingers.
I reach over and grab one, and inspect it. I have good taste, and evidently an excellent memory even when I’m fall-on-my-ass drunk.
I move the ring toward her finger. “Here, put this on.”
“Why?”
“We’re married.”
“So? We’re going to have it annulled. I don’t need to wear the ring.” She pulls her hand close to her chest, eyeing the ring.
“Just do it until we get to the courthouse, just for fun.” I reach for her hand.
She rolls her eyes again, sticking her hand out, letting me put them on her finger. “Let’s go.” Seeing my ring on her finger settles something inside me.
“Where are we going first?”
“To the courthouse. Where else?” She looks at me like I’m crazy.
“I thought we would figure out what happened and then go to the courthouse,” I tell her.
“First we need to figure out how to immediately get annulled, then we can figure out what happened Monday night.” She puts her things back in her purse, then grabs my hand and pulls me out the door after her.
We take the elevator down and go to the front desk to get directions to the courthouse. We decide to walk so we can soak in the nice May sunshine.
“When we get there, do not let them know what we spent the last two days doing. If we’re going to get this annulled, then we cannot let them know that we’ve been in bed for two days,” she instructs me.
We arrive at the courthouse and walk inside. Of course there’s a line. It’s probably full of people like us. Wanting to get an annulment, in spite of the sign above that says, “No marriages will be annulled for three months”. I’m sure she sees it, but she steps to the back of the line anyway, pulling me with her.
We wait quietly until our turn, and when we’re finally at the front of the line, they wave us over. We sit down in front of the clerk, and I sit back and let her speak.
“We just found out we got married, and we need it annulled please,” Rigby tells the lady.
“I’m sorry, but you must stay married for three months before we can annul or divorce you,” the lady states.
“But we don’t even know how it happened. We just need it to be annulled,” Rigs insists.
“Ma’am.” She looks at the paper. “Mrs. Hyde. It’s the law. You have to stay married for three months before we can annul the marriage. It says here that you were married on Monday. Why are you just getting here today?”
“I’m not Mrs. Hyde. I’m Ms. Grey.” Rigs looks at the clerk’s nametag. “Penny, please. We just found out this morning that we were married, when we were going through our papers. It was a mistake—is there anything you can do?” Rigs pleads.
Penny looks around. “Have you consummated your marriage?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
She looks at us. “Which is it?”
“Yes.”
Rigby hits me on the arm. “I told you not to say anything.”
“We’ve spent the time since Monday in bed. You think I would deny that?” She knows me better than that.
“That’s a breath-taking ring,” Penny says. “Since you consummated the marriage, it’ll be six months until we can give you a divorce. I’m sorry.” She stamps the papers and files them. Then she bestows a bright smile on us. “You two have a wonderful day.” She looks at the next people in line and waves them over.
I grab Rigby’s hand, and she pouts as we leave the courthouse. I find a place for breakfast and we sit down to eat, and she’s still silent.
“Okay, let me have it.” I sit back in my seat and cross my arms.
“The one thing I told you not to do, you did. Why? Why would you tell her that we consummated the marriage?” she demands. “She looked like she was about to grant us our annulment.”
I move my head from side to side, loosening the muscles in my neck. “Let me ask you a question. What is so wrong with being married to me? Am I that bad of a person?”
“I just got left at the altar. Why would I want to get married the next day? I have to figure that part out before I can get married again.” She sits back in her chair.
“So it’s not me, then?” I have to make sure.
“No, it’s not you. If I was going to be married to someone by accident, you’re the person I trust most in the world, so it’s not really a hardship.” She relaxes her posture a bit.
Good. Because I meant every word I said when I asked her to marry me. Since we’re married now, I plan for us to stay that way.
4
Rigby
We finish eating and go back up to our room, getting the receipts so we can make a plan of attack.
“We already remember the restaurant and what we did there, so I think we should skip going there and go directly to the bar. We’ll save time that way.” I hold up the receipt, showing it to Zach.
He shakes his head. “Even though we remember being there, we should still go to recreate the whole night. If we skip parts of it, we may miss something.”
He makes sense, so after making sure that we have all the receipts and they’re in order, we go to relive Monday evening.
We walk into the buffet and look around. “Let’s go sit in the seats we sat in Monday,” Zach suggests. We find our seat and sit down, waiting for the waitress to bring our drinks to us.
The same lady who waited on us on Monday sets our drinks down in front of us. “Hey! It’s the newlyweds! Congratulations!”
Zach blinks. “We came back in here Monday night?”
“You did. I worked a double that night.” She smiles at me and points to my ring. “You were flashing that humongous diamond ring and wedding band, telling everyone who would listen that you got married.” She points at the rings I’m wearing. “You were flashing your wedding band also,” she says to Zach. I’ve never seen a man’s ring like that one before, and I’ve worked here for a long time.” She nods at the ring on Zach’s finger. I look at his ring, just noticing it. It matches my wedding band exactly, except it’s bigger.
“We must have really thought this through,” Zach says, inspecting the rings on our hands. “What time did we come the second time?” he asks the waitress.
“It was about eleven-thirty p.m.,” she tells him. You had a big group of people with you. Some guy paid for everyone’s meals. Said he was you father.”
Zach and I look at each other and then at her.
“Was my mother with him?” Zach asks.
She shakes her head. “I think he said that she was back in the room sleeping or something. There was so much going on, I can’t remember it all.”
Zach hands her a fifty-dollar bill and his card. “If you remember anything else, please call me.”
“No problem. Congratulations again.” She walks away to the next table.
We sip our drinks in silence for a while, lost in thought.
“So we came back here and my dad was with us.” Zach looks a little stunned. He picks up his phone and calls his father, but immediately hangs up. “It went straight to voicemail.”
Why were his parent’s there? They were stuck out of the country for my wedding, but that night, there they were.
“Let’s go to the bar. Maybe they’ll have some more information for us,” I suggest.
Zach stands up, and I follow suit. We leave the restaurant and stroll down the boardwalk to the bar. We find that it isn’t open yet, so we decide to listen to the band that’s playing on a stage next door. I lean in to him as the jazz music flows around us and the rest of the crowd that’s formed. His arm comes around me and pulls me in front of him. He places his other arm around me as well, and sets his chin on top of my head. We sway back and forth to the music.
Married. Wait! What? Page 41