“Thank you?” one of the women says, looking to Julia with a comical expression.
Tyler doesn’t seem to notice. He pulls out a card. Right, one of his “sexual professional but-not-in-a-gigolo-way” cards. He hands them out to all potential bed partners. I don’t know how he ever manages to get laid. There used to be a picture of him on the back, with his shirt off and his skin tanned. I’m glad he removed it. Ruins the class factor of giving women your “come fuck me” phone number.
“Call me anytime,” he says. Julia looks at me with wide eyes.
“Someone’s a go-getter,” she murmurs out the side of her mouth. “Hope Meredith doesn’t mind.”
“Um, baby, this isn’t you,” the woman says, scrunching up her face in amusement and handing the card back to Tyler. “Unless your last name is Presley.”
“Oh shit,” Tyler says, laughing as he takes the card back. “Sorry. Where the hell’d I get this from?” He whistles. “Must’ve found it in my room.”
Wait a minute. “Presley as in Elvis?” I ask, snatching the card back from Tyler. Julia looks it over with me, and there it is, plain as daylight. Viva Las Vegas chapel, just down the Strip.
“That place looks awesome for anyone who wants to be my baby mama tonight,” Tyler says, grinning as he tries to slip his arms around the two women. They each carefully dodge out of the embrace. Right now, his friendly douchebaggery is the least of my problems.
“Let’s go,” I tell Julia. She nods, grabbing my arm and dragging me away while Tyler protests.
“I already texted for an Uber,” she says, starting to sprint down the hall. “The game is afoot!”
Not sure this mystery is quite Sherlock Holmes level. But as I chase after her, I have to admit something to myself: I don’t want to let her go.
Fuck.
20
Julia
I have never been so conflicted about an answer before in my life. At least, not since Bobby Carmichael sent me a note in sixth grade asking to be my boyfriend, and I had to decide if him having a Sega Genesis made up for the fact that I thought he smelled like applesauce.
All right. Maybe preparing to discover whether I’m married to a guy I’ve known less than twenty-four hours isn’t exactly the same as “Segagate.” But it’s close.
The cab pulls up right outside of a kitschy little chapel at the very edge of the Strip. It’s a cute little place, one story, painted white with pink, heart-shaped shutters by the windows. A plastic garden with Astroturf waits inside a little white picket fence. There’s a glowing neon sign at the front, complete with Elvis himself, in glorious glittery lights, gyrating above a sign advertising to Viva Las Vegas in matrimonial bliss.
“Does your mouth taste like dust?” I ask Nate. He looks a little sweaty, like he’s not sure he wants to get out of the car.
“A little, maybe. I thought that was because of the desert,” he says, getting out and handing me out after him. Who says chivalry is dead? My possible-maybe-husband is a true gentleman.
We walk into the chapel, and I have to ask myself: would it be so bad being married to this guy?
Okay, leaving aside the fact that we don’t know each other and Mom will flip the hell out, we’ve got the sexual chemistry thing under control. Like, it’s very under control. It’s in a safety deposit box at the bank under control. I have the key to it in my bra, tucked right up against my left breast.
Okay. Stop stalling, Julia. In we go.
We walk into a blast of air conditioning so frigid it freezes the sweat on my body, creating a really uncomfortable sensation. Around us, enough bouquets of pink and white roses have been arranged to supply three Italian funerals. Organ music blasts over speakers. It takes me a minute to realize that the music is a bunch of Elvis hits refigured for pipe organ. How nice. There’s Hunka Hunka Burning Love; never thought I’d hear it as composed by Bach.
“Are you sure this is the right place?” Nate asks, looking around with a tight expression on his face.
I’m sure we’re where we need to be, studly perhaps-husband. I hold up the card; the name is right there, in perfect gold foil.
“All right, let’s get some answers,” I say, and push open a pair of white painted doors . . . right into the wedding chapel, where two guys are in the process of getting married. They’re in matching powder blue tuxedos, and one of them is weeping. With joy, I hope.
“Ah now pronounce you—” Elvis stops in the middle of his pelvis-thrusting wedding officiation to look up at us.
He’s 1970s Elvis to the max, with a sparkly white rhinestone suit and a wig of perfectly coiffed, jet black hair. He takes off his gold-rimmed sunglasses.
“Can I help you?” he asks, dropping his voice to its normal register and looking like he’s been on the clock for way too damn long. He pulls a hip flask out of his suit and takes a quick swig.
Everybody’s working for the weekend.