by Noir, Roxie
Kirsten panicked. Ignoring the pounding in her head, she stumbled off of the bed, her white bridal garter still on her left leg, and practically fell on the floor, next to her dress.
I can’t believe I’m still drunk, she thought.
I also can’t believe I got married to two shifters whose last names I don’t know.
WOLF shifters.
Oh my God.
“Come back,” one of them murmured, though she couldn’t see which one.
Kirsten’s hands started shaking.
“Just a minute,” she whispered, grabbing the silver dress and her shoes.
“Okay,” he mumbled.
Then Kirsten sneaked out of the bedroom, throwing her dress and shoes on, and left their suite.
In the elevator, she leaned her cheek against the mirrored wall, feeling like she could barely stay upright.
This is the worst I’ve ever felt, she thought. That was the dumbest thing I’ve ever done, and now this is the worst I’ve ever felt.
With every foot that the elevator dropped, she thought she might puke, pass out, or both. She hadn’t even zipped her dress all the way up, and it gaped open over her upper back, but Kirsten didn’t care.
You lied to them, she thought. They don’t know that you just got divorced. And now you’re married to them, and you’re practically a bigamist, and what the fuck is everyone going to think?
She swallowed hard as the elevator doors opened, then held her head up and walked through the casino floor, out the front, flagged down a taxi, and went back to her own hotel.
That elevator didn’t feel any better on her stomach, and she had to share it with two young men, both wearing board shorts and flip-flops, both pretending not to leer at her.
You can get it annulled and no one will ever have to know, she thought. It’s Nevada. There are practically no laws.
She glanced at the silver ring on her finger, a spike of sadness going through her, but she took it off and stuck it in her pocket. The doors opened and the two dudes got off, leaving her alone on the elevator.
Annul it and get back to your life, she thought. You just got divorced. Get a new dog, start dating regular people, go to that job interview in Cascadia —
The elevator doors opened, and for a moment, Kirsten stared at them before walking into the hall.
What if I get the job, and then I move there, she thought.
Then she shook her head.
How do you know they don’t do this all the time? She reminded herself. If they did it with you, they’d do it with anyone, probably.
Snippets of their conversation from the night before came back. Kirsten remembered herself, asking about other women.
There have been a lot, she realized, coming to a halt in the hallway.
Look, just forget about it. They’re pussyhounds — literally — and you got divorced two days ago. What happens in Vegas and all that. Let it be a really, really fun night and that’s it.
She took a deep, shaky breath, and slid her key card into the door.
Besides, I’m pretty sure you begged them to both fuck you at the same time. How can you even look them in the eye again?
Just remembering that made Kirsten’s face burn, and she pushed the door to the room open.
“Oh my god, THERE you are!” said Lily, already wearing jeans and a tank top, hair and makeup done.
Slowly, she took in Kirsten.
“So, you had a good night?” she said, grinning slowly.
Kirsten told her a heavily edited version of the story, leaving out key parts. Like how there had been two of them, or how she’d gotten married, or the fact that she was pretty sure that the sex had broken her forever and she would never be satisfied again.
Lily raised her eyebrows.
“I thought Peyton said there were two of them,” she said.
“Oh, one sort of left after a while,” Kirsten lied. “Look, I gotta shower.”
Lily grinned.
“Right, of course,” she said. “I’ll go get you a bucket of coffee.”
“You’re the best,” Kirsten said, and she meant it with every fiber of her being.
When she got out of the shower, there was the biggest cup of coffee she’d ever seen next to three Advil, as well as a note that said:
Got late checkout. I’m next door. You up for brunch?
She gulped half the coffee, and took the Advil, and began to feel human again.
You’ll be okay, she thought. Nothing is so bad that you can’t undo it.
Another flash of memory: Houston holding her hand, walking through a casino. Jack’s arm around her in the booth. The look on their faces when Elvis had pronounced them married.
What if this is real, she thought, guzzling more coffee.
It can’t be, she thought. You don’t even know how to contact them.
She walked to the next room over, steeling herself for another litany of questions.
Chapter Ten
Houston
When Houston woke up, he was still on top of the covers, both arms over his head, sunlight streaming in.
He was also hungover as fuck and still a little drunk, but despite all that, he grinned, remembering the night before. Then Jack stirred, next to him, pulling his head out from under his pillow to look at Houston.
Houston frowned.
“Where’s Kirsten?” he asked.
“Probably in the bathroom or something,” Jack said, plopping his head back down on the pillow, blinking slowly.
“I feel like hell,” he admitted.
“I’m paying for it,” said Houston.
Jack took a deep breath and pushed himself up, looking over his shoulder at the door to the next room.
“Kirsten,” he called. “Come back to bed.”
No answer. Jack and Houston frowned at each other, and Houston felt a small germ of worry start, deep in his chest.
“Kirsten?” he called.
Nothing.
Houston heaved himself up, ignoring the pounding in his head and the roiling in his stomach. He walked naked into the next room.
No Kirsten.
He checked the suite’s two bathrooms, but they were both open and empty, and he stood in the middle of the living room, hands pressed over his eyes, trying to reason it out through his remarkable hangover.
She went to get coffee or something, he thought. She’s coming back. She’s here somewhere, just hiding, and she’s going to jump out and prank us, and it will all be fine.
He knew he hadn’t given much thought to what was going to happen today, or tomorrow, or how the hell they were going to navigate this. He just knew that he wanted to.
“Her stuff is gone,” said Jack from the bedroom. “Her dress and her shoes and everything.”
Houston stumbled back in. The only thing left on the floor was a clip-in veil, and his stomach lurched.
“We didn’t get her number,” he said, the horror slowly sinking in. “I don’t know her last name, or where she lives, or anything.”
“She signed the marriage certificate,” said Jack. “Right?”
“I thought she’d be here,” said Houston, rubbing his temples. “I thought... I don’t know. I thought we’d do that today.”
Jack just nodded, a hollow look on his face.
“She could be anywhere,” he said.
Houston took a deep breath and tried to think, wading back through the night before: Kirsten between them, riding him. His thumb in her mouth as he talked dirty.
Before that. Come on.
The limo. Elvis. Not riding the bull, karaoke, the club.
Seeing her for the first time, walking up to the bar, and her turning them down.
“The place with the Eiffel Tower,” he said, suddenly. “I think she’s staying there.”
Without another word, they both pulled on t-shirts and jeans, then ran down fourteen flights of stairs, not bothering to wait for the elevator.
The other casino wasn’t far, but by the tim
e they’d gotten there, Houston was covered in sweat and very seriously thought that he might throw up. He waved Jack in, the other man sweaty and pale, as he stood right outside, trying not to dry-heave.
Puke or don’t, just get it over with and find her, he told himself.
Another deep breath, and he walked in through the doors. Jack paced back and forth, his eyes combing through everyone on the casino floor.
“Okay, we need to do this right,” said Houston, his head swimming. “One of us should stay by the elevators, and the other should patrol the doors and the checkout desk,” he said.
“What if she already left?” Jack asked.
“Then we find out what the last possible checkout time is, then go find our marriage license,” said Houston. He thumbed his wedding ring with an ache deep down. Having a backup plan always helped him feel better.
What if she doesn’t want you to find her? he thought. What if she thought this was all a joke, and now she’s somewhere with her girlfriends, laughing about these two guys who she got to marry her?
He didn’t think it was true, but he couldn’t keep himself from spinning out the worst possible scenario.
“I’ll do the elevators,” said Jack, and he jogged off, leaving Houston to pace from the doors to the checkout desk and back, each step more and more nerve wracking.
After five full circuits, Houston thought hotel security was starting to get suspicious, so he changed it up and went to the elevators, where Jack was pacing back and forth, fiddling with his ring.
Jack just shook his head when Houston walked over.
“What if it wasn’t real?” he asked, sounding despondent.
“It was real,” Houston whispered, taking Jack’s hand. A couple of people shot them nasty looks, but Houston couldn’t have cared less.
Jack just sighed, and over his shoulder, Houston looked up at the elevator banks. A group of women rounded the corner into a hallway, one of them short and curvy, her long honey-colored hair in a ponytail.
Houston ran.
He dodged around other patrons, getting dirty looks from families. Security shouted after him, but he kept running.
“KIRSTEN!” he shouted.
She turned, her eyes wide, and he came up to her, stopping short, Jack two steps behind him.
The other three girls also turned and stared, mouths open.
“There you are,” Houston said, warmth flooding through him. Objectively, she looked awful: a shower hadn’t gotten all her eyeliner off, and she had rings under her eyes, her hand clutching an enormous cup of coffee.
She was still the most beautiful thing Houston had ever seen.
She seemed surprised to see them.
“Hi, guys,” she said.
They just stared at each other for a moment, before one of her friends spoke up.
“So...” the girl said. “Our reservation is in five minutes.”
“I’ll catch up with you guys later,” Kirsten said, turning and nodding her head at them. “I’m, gonna, um, take a minute.”
The other three nodded and walked off, looking over their shoulders every couple of feet, and Kirsten led them to an empty bank of slot machines, slumping against the side of one.
“I’m so fucking hungover,” she said.
Houston and Jack just nodded.
“I’m sorry about last night,” she said, quickly. She wouldn’t look at them, just at the floor. “Listen, it was really fun, but we were really drunk and getting married was probably dumb, so it’s totally fine with me if we just get it annulled and sort of pretend this all never happened, right?”
Houston was dumb struck, and next to him, Jack was standing with his mouth open.
“What?” Jack finally said.
“We got married by Elvis?” Kirsten asked, her voice hushed.
“I know,” said Jack.
“I don’t even know your last names,” she said.
Houston pointed at himself. “Twist,” he said, and pointed at Jack. “Marr.”
Kirsten didn’t seem to know what to do with that.
“Don’t annul it,” Jack finally said. “Please.”
“What are you talking about?” Kirsten said, tears starting in her eyes. “People don’t just get drunk married and then have it work out. This is a crazy thing you can tell your grandkids someday, not the start of something real.”
“Why?” said Houston. A tear fell from Kirsten’s eye, and without thinking, he reached over and wiped it off.
“Fuck,” she whispered.
“Why can’t we tell our grandkids about how we met?” he asked.
“I’m the one who got divorced,” Kirsten said suddenly, her wide eyes looking from Houston to Jack. “I didn’t want to tell you, because — oh, god, I don’t know why. But it was me. It became final Friday.”
Houston looked over at Jack, and Jack looked back, his eyes narrowing.
“That actually makes a lot more sense,” Jack admitted. “You seemed to know a lot of intimate details about Katie.”
“Katie’s the dog,” Kirsten said, miserably.
“The dog he took?”
She nodded.
“I don’t care if you’re divorced,” Houston said, stepping closer to her, moving a strand of hair out of her face. “I don’t care if you had a party for it. That’s all just... things that happened before us.”
“What did you do before?” Kirsten asked, her eyes big and shiny.
Jack and Houston exchanged a look. Houston had known they’d have to tell her, that it was totally unfair not to. But he’d hoped to do it on a couch, somewhere nice, not as she was crying by the slot machines.
“We slept with a few hundred women,” Jack said.
Kirsten blinked.
“Hundred?” she said. She almost sounded impressed that anyone could do that.
“Hundred,” Houston confirmed.
She didn’t answer for a moment, simply looking baffled.
“Like with two zeros,” she said.
Houston and Jack just nodded.
“Wow,” she said, staring at them for a long time before she spoke up again. “How do you even do that?”
“Never sleep with anyone twice,” Jack said, shrugging. “Go out of town, meet girls. We can be pretty charming.”
“That’s what you were doing when we met,” Kirsten said, as if the realization was finally dawning on her. “With those other girls.”
“Usually insisting that we buy someone a drink works,” said Houston. “But then, you had to show up, and we had to track you down at a dumb nightclub because you wouldn’t give us your number.”
“I was starting to think you weren’t gonna show up,” said Jack. “We were there for hours.”
Kirsten frowned.
“You were?” she said.
Jack nodded, then looked at Houston. Houston laughed awkwardly.
“We went over there right after you left the bar,” he said. “It didn’t even open for two more hours, so we hung around.”
“I didn’t think you’d be there,” she said, half-smiling. “I was really surprised when you showed up.”
“I’m not gonna lie to you,” Jack said. “The night before last, there was a girl. And a girl the night before that, and the night before that, I think.”
He looked up at Houston, and Houston shrugged. He didn’t really remember, either.
“But you’re it,” Jack said. “You’re all the girls. Every night. We’re done, whether you stay with us or not.”
Kirsten sighed.
“I don’t care if you banged a lot of women. Everyone’s done stuff,” she said. Then she blushed. “I mean, you were suspiciously good in bed.”
“You did keep pressing us for details,” Jack murmured.
She turned bright red and couldn’t look him in the eye.
“Sorry,” she said.
Jack just laughed.
“Don’t be sorry,” he said. “Not even a little.”
Houston remembered her
for a split second, riding him slow, saying that she wanted them both, and he swallowed hard.
“Give us your number,” he said, trying to get them back on track. “We don’t have to be married at first. We’ll take it slow, date like regular people. Reno’s not that far from Rustvale. It’ll work out.”
“I have a job interview Thursday,” she said. “In Granite Valley. I wanted to move away from my ex.”
Houston’s heart leapt. Granite Valley was right next to Rustvale.
It’s fate, it has to be, he thought.
“Thursday night,” he said. “Dinner in Rustvale. Please?”
Kirsten finally cracked a smile and nodded.
“Okay,” she said. “Give me your phone, I’ll put my number in.”
As Houston handed it over, he could see Kirsten’s eyes on his ring, but she didn’t say anything, punching her number in, then calling it so she had his.
“There,” she said, looking from one to the other, like she wasn’t quite sure what to say next.
“You guys, I’m so fucking hungover right now,” Kirsten said, closing her eyes. “I was still drunk when I got up. I was afraid I’d puke if I even looked at brunch.”
“Let’s get coffee,” said Jack. “Normal coffee. Like people on a date.”
Kirsten smiled.
“I’d like that,” she said.
Chapter Eleven
Jack
One Month Later
In the deep shadows behind a toolshed, on the outskirts of a suburban housing development, Jack and Houston disrobed, carefully stashing their clothes in a dark nook.
“Ready?” asked Houston, his skin puckering slightly in the cool air.
“3614 Sandstone,” said Jack. “Let’s go.”
They shifted, the ground rushing up. Jack stood there for a moment, sniffing the wind and listening, taking in all the information that he understood best as a wolf. A couple dogs in the neighborhood, mostly friendly and neutered. The house to the left had just gotten pizza delivered. About a mile away, someone had forgotten to take off the parking brake before leaving their driveway, and the scent lingered in the air.