Not That Kind of Guy

by ANDIE J. CHRISTOPHER

  At first she’d assumed that he was just taking a shower and/or throwing up in her bathroom. But the entire penthouse had been eerily quiet. On the one hand, she was tempted to go find him. She’d thought better of it when she realized she had no idea what to say to the guy she’d drunkenly married the night before.

  Obviously, they would be getting an annulment. Obviously. And they could talk about that after several well-muscled young men gyrated their nuts in her face over Bloody Marys and massive amounts of bacon. She would be in a much better state of mind after that.

  They’d been seated at the Magic Mike XXL live breakfast show venue for long enough to order drinks, and Bridget hadn’t missed the looks between Sasha, Hannah, and their friend Kelly—who had flown in early that morning. Ah, this morning—the blessed time before Bridget woke up married to her former intern.

  Bridget had elected to say nothing of her drunken nuptials to the other women in hopes that they didn’t know or couldn’t remember her getting married the evening before. The ragged edges of her mind didn’t hold any snippets of anyone but Matt, her, and Elvis, and the fewer people who knew about the wedding, the better.

  “Sex? What sex?” Answering a question with a question was how criminals answered questions, but the time that Bridget spent with them had to help her at some point. She even added a coy shrug. She was being honest about the no sex, but she was still hiding something.

  Hannah just threw her head back and laughed. Kelly piped up. “Don’t try to lie to the sex psychic here.” She pointed her thumb at Sasha, whose steely gaze was still trained on Bridget’s face so hard that she wanted to enlist her in interrogations. “She once guessed that I had received cunnilingus from the varsity coxswain at a party. And she wasn’t wrong.”

  Bridget took a sip from her Bloody Mary, wishing she hadn’t overimbibed the night before so she could have ordered extra vodka. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “That bad?” Bridget was going to figure out an undetectable way to murder Hannah. She loved her future sister-in-law, but she had to die.

  “I’m too Irish to have this conversation with you.”

  Sasha rolled her eyes. “It’s written all over your face that it was good sex. Even your trapezius muscles are more relaxed than they were last night. Not that it would take much . . .” Sasha trailed off, realizing too late that Bridget wouldn’t want to talk about the big abortion reveal from dinner earlier. However, now that it was out in the open, she was much happier to talk about that than the fact that she’d gotten married instead of getting laid.

  “Not that you have to talk about it, unless you want to,” Hannah said. Maybe she could live.

  Still, Bridget felt better talking about her abortion than all the complicated pants and hearts feelings she was starting to have for Matt. Sleeping with him always would have been a mistake, but now it would be really bad because it would prevent them from getting an annulment.

  And maybe she was more relaxed because she wasn’t carrying a heavy secret around anymore—just a really stupid one. After the scene Chris had thrown at dinner, she knew she’d made the right decision terminating the pregnancy. He didn’t want her, and he didn’t want the baby they could have had. He just had a hard time knowing that she didn’t want him, either. Sometimes she thought he’d never really intended to break up with her. He’d really just wanted her to settle for something less than what she’d thought they’d had together. He wanted to live the ordinary life that his parents had lived until his mother’s death.

  Where she’d thought their love story was epic because they’d known each other all their lives, he’d thought it was inevitable. He’d never even had to try to win her—she’d decided on him because he was there and constant, and he’d gone along with it. It was like the sweater from a great-grandparent at Christmas—two sizes too small because their memory didn’t have room to account for growing children. Their relationship had been frozen in amber in high school, and it just took a while to realize it.

  She could admit to herself now that—before the trip—she’d been harboring residual resentment for Chris. Somewhere, in the corner of her mind, she’d felt like he should have suffered more.

  He’d made it clear that he’d been harboring a similar level of resentment. Even more.

  “I mean, one in four women have abortions.” Bridget knew she didn’t need to justify herself to these women—hell, Sasha and Hannah had the local Planned Parenthood as a regular client on a reduced rate. But she still had a niggle of Catholic guilt about the whole thing. She could have been more careful.

  “I’ve had one,” Kelly said.

  Sasha said, “I haven’t, but I’ve had an IUD since sophomore year.” She pointed at Hannah. “This one drove me to the clinic to get it.”

  “I didn’t have sex for a couple of years there and have always been militant about condom usage,” Hannah said.

  Kelly snorted. “Hannah drove me to Chicago to the clinic for my appointment.”

  Hannah smiled. “As the only public school girl in our group, I was the only one who had comprehensive sex ed. Add that to my hippie mom, who sent a condom bowl for my freshman dorm room, and I took up the mantle of women’s health.”

  Bridget knew they were just trying to make her feel better, and she wished she’d known Hannah back when she needed a friendly ride to the clinic. She had girlfriends, but her relationship with Chris had been the foundation of her social life for so long that she hadn’t had anyone who didn’t know both of them.

  “I feel fine about it. Maybe not as callous as I might have seemed last night. But it wasn’t the right time.”

  Hannah said, “That’s good.” She reached over Sasha’s lap and grabbed Bridget’s hand. “As long as you’re okay.”

  That’s what did it. The unconditional support and the fact that her mom had elected to skip out on the male strippers to spend the day with her dad was what made Bridget tell them. “Matt and I got married last night. By an Elvis. While drunk.”

  Never in a million years had she thought she could render Hannah speechless. Even when she was pissed off at Jack, she couldn’t manage the silent treatment for too long. But all three women just gaped at her.

  “We’re going to get it annulled.” As long as they avoided sleeping together—which she wasn’t so sure they could do after last night. But she absolutely could not get a divorce. Something about that scarlet D on her record would make her too much like her mother. She should probably check on the legality of an annulment in Illinois after a marriage was consummated. Or she should check on getting a room where she wouldn’t have to know how good he smelled or look at how good he looked.

  “Can you get it annulled now that he did that thing that I’m guessing he did?” Sasha asked, with the closest thing to a shit-eating grin that the normally very staid woman could manage.

  “Nothing happened.” Her skin heated even though she was telling the truth. Nothing happened, but she wanted a lot to happen. But wanting wasn’t doing.

  “Listen, I don’t know you very well.” Kelly leaned in. “But it doesn’t seem like something you would do based on how Hannah has described you.”

  “So, you think I’m boring?” Bridget wanted to deflect some of the attention and maybe blame someone else for how weird this whole situation was. “I mean, it’s the craziest thing I’ve ever done, but I’m fun.”

  “It’s very Britney Spears circa 2004.” Except that time, Brit had married her high school flame. Bridget had married someone entirely new. Someone she didn’t even know.

  The lights started to go down, and Bridget sat back in her chair. “I really wish we could have gotten tickets to that show instead. I’m not really in the mood to have a sweaty dude grind on me in front of a bunch of people.”

  “Don’t knock it until you try it,” Kelly said.

  “Brit’s show was sold out,” S
asha said.

  “You can totally leave and go have a sweaty guy grind on you in the penthouse,” Hannah said right before the music started.

  * * *

  • • •

  MATT HAD ONLY AGREED to go see an early-in-the-day Cirque du Soleil show with Jack, Michael, and his friend Joey because Chris had been excommunicated from the bachelor party—and the wedding party. And because Matt felt that he was partially at fault for the dinner confrontation from the night before just because he’d shown up—he doubted Chris would have had his shit fit had he not been there—he agreed to use the ticket.

  After, of course, he called his family’s lawyer to figure out how big of a mess he’d gotten himself into.

  As long as Jack didn’t find out that Matt had drunkenly married his sister, everything would be fine. Perhaps the only people whom he dreaded finding out more than his parents were Bridget’s big brothers.

  They didn’t seem like cavemen, but they treated Bridget like gold and had been plenty irked when it became apparent that their (former) friend had treated her as anything but. He valued his face too much to risk it by making her brothers think that he was anywhere near as disrespectful as Bridget’s ex-douche.

  He didn’t think that Bridget would want him to say anything to her family, but they hadn’t spoken since she sprang out of his bed to go throw up. Of course, they’d be on the same page that their marriage was temporary, something that shouldn’t have happened in the first place.

  He still hoped that she wanted to do what they should have done last night—more kissing and maybe more than that. And he wanted to convince her that maybe they could date when they got back to Chicago.

  But he could do all that without staying married to her. They could date—and just maybe forget that the whole Vegas wedding thing ever happened. It wasn’t as though a marriage between the two of them could actually work. They were at completely different places in their lives, both coming off big, heavy relationships. Even though they had great chemistry, all they would ever be was a fling.

  An annulment—a legal action making a marriage disappear as though it had never happened—was the right answer here.

  His parents wouldn’t have to know. Bridget’s family wouldn’t have to know. It could be a funny story that he and Bridget could share a knowing look over before they amicably parted ways in a few days.

  Sitting in a darkened theater for an hour, watching human bodies doing things that human bodies were clearly not intended to do, was probably a good cover for all the thoughts roiling his normally pretty even-keeled psyche.

  At least it was until Jack slapped the back of his head. “You married Bridget last night?!”

  Oh shit. Bridget must have told Hannah. They definitely should have talked about this before leaving the room. “Uh . . .” He had no clue what was going to get him out of this situation alive and unmaimed.

  “They got married?” Michael looked at Matt quizzically. Given the fact that his wife was currently divorcing him, he seemed confused as to why anyone would get married. “Fucking weird. I swear that I was switched at the hospital.”

  “Shut up, Mike,” Jack said. “Just because you hate love doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t embrace it.”

  Before he could think better of it, Matt said, “Listen, it’s not a love thing. I just . . . we just . . . had too much to drink and I think we thought it would be fun to get married by an Elvis.”

  He was trying to minimize it, but he knew how this would look to her family—profligate, poor little rich boy marries their sister for shits and giggles and drops her as soon as their dirty weekend is over. Given Bridget’s previous taste in men, they’d be pretty justified in being skeptical of his intentions. Plus, there was the little detail that he’d worked for her until about twenty-four hours ago.

  Not the most auspicious way to start a fling.

  “You know, I’ve learned a lot about my sister in the past twenty-four hours,” Jack said.

  Matt braced himself to have Jack kick his ass. If he said anything shitty about the revelation from the night before, he would have to punch him in the face. But Jack surprised him. “She just keeps shit so locked down. I had no idea what a total prick Chris was because she never told anyone. I feel like such an asshole.”

  Michael grunted. “If I see him again before I leave Vegas, and I’ve had several more of these”—he held up his beer—“I will bareknuckle box the stupid little prick.”

  Matt was relieved that they both seemed more pissed at Chris than him. “You guys aren’t mad?”

  Jack patted him on the back and grabbed his shoulder in a fraternal gesture. “You fuck with my sister, I’ll let Hannah fuck you up. And you should really be more scared of her.”

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  IT FIGURED THAT BRIDGET would run into the only person she wanted to see less than her new husband playing blackjack—her mother. She didn’t want to see Matt because he hadn’t been in the suite when she’d returned after the strip show. Fully over her hangover and having spent a few hours away from him, she didn’t quite know what to say. Other than “Where do I sign?”

  Seeing her mother alone at the blackjack table oddly reminded Bridget of when she was little and her parents had been together the first time; her mother had always gotten up earlier than anyone else. Not because she wanted to; Bridget had the impression that her mother would have liked to spend all day in bed with a novel if she didn’t have three small children to look after and a man like Sean Nolan to keep house for.

  As much as she loved and appreciated her father for everything he’d done—everything he’d sacrificed—for her, Sean Nolan was old-school. She was lucky that he didn’t expect her to start cooking and cleaning after the divorce. Instead, he’d thanked her when she hired a housekeeper and made sure the grocery lists included plenty of food that could be made in a microwave.

  But a housekeeper and microwave had never been up at six thirty humming in the kitchen and looking out over the backyard with a cup of English breakfast tea balanced in her fingers. Bridget had often come down and read quietly with her own cup of tea—mostly cream—not because she was naturally an early riser, but because she hungered for more time with her mother.

  Michael and Jack were loud and boisterous—socialized the way that young boys had been for decades in America. As sort of a bookworm, Bridget had often felt lost in the shuffle.

  But during those mornings with her mother, she’d felt a sort of peace. As though she belonged to a club with two members.

  All of that had gone away, and she hadn’t really gotten it back until Hannah had hooked up with Jack. Bridget had always had Chris, but she’d often felt alone in her own family.

  Running into her mother, just as the hotel staff was putting out the lunch buffet, brought everything back—the feeling she’d had during those mornings and the loneliness after those mornings went away.

  She was surprised to see that her mother seemed similarly haunted. They were both still for a second, and Bridget wondered if her mom was also thinking about fleeing.

  “Join me for a game.” Her mother’s words weren’t a question, and Bridget was tempted to refuse just because she was a grown-up now and she could. She could decide simply not to allow her mother back in her life. That decision would be complicated by the fact that her parents were back together. But she could make it work if she tried really hard.

  Oddly, for a person who always tried hard, she didn’t have it in her to do that now. “Fine.”

  They quietly waited together while the dealer laid down two cards each. And they were still silent as they both considered their options. The din of slot machines and drunken revelers filled the space.

  “I heard you got married,” her mother said. Bridget was going to kill Jack. She hadn’t even decided whether she should hit or stay, but now she was going to have to defend her poor ch
oices to a woman who probably had a PhD in making bad ones in addition to her degree in art history.

  “It’s not like that.” Bridget struggled with how to explain herself without giving her mother any insight into who she was. Her petty bit of revenge since her mother had left was to show up when her mother wanted to see her but give her nothing of herself. Like, her body would be there when necessary, but her mother didn’t get to know her. That was for people who had shown her she was worth the trouble. “We’d been drinking.”

  Her mother laughed but stopped when Bridget gave her a hard look.

  “I’m not staying married to him.” She sneered. “We’re getting an annulment. I’ll still be behind you and Michael on the divorce leaderboard.”

  Her mother gasped. Bridget was usually very careful to keep her disdain under wraps. She kept the hunger for love and affection from her mother, but she also kept her antipathy to herself. She’d always aimed for careful neutrality. But with a couple of cocktails on board, she just didn’t have it in her to pretend that she respected her mother.

  “Don’t hurt my dad again, Molly.” If she was going to speak the truth, she might as well speak all of it. “You broke him the last time, and there was nothing I could do about it. You hurt him again, and I won’t even pretend that you’re my parent anymore.”

  Her mother paled. Her gray-blue eyes got glassy. “I’m sorry.”

  “You think that’s enough?” Bridget struggled not to yell. “My whole life is fucked up because of you!”

  “Oh. Come. On,” her mother said. “You are a fully employed adult and the only one of your siblings who does not rely on your father for money or employment.”

  “That doesn’t mean my life isn’t utterly fucked,” Bridget said as she motioned for the dealer to hit. “And don’t you dare lecture me about my language. You lost the right to do that the second you fucked off for grad school.”