He hands me a cup of coffee, heavy with the cream and sugar, and raises an eyebrow at my bare feet.
I hold up my shoe. "The other one is MIA," I explain, sipping on the hot and divinely good java.
He appraises me and smiles. "You look like you got good and tumbled last night."
"You have no idea."
"Do tell," he says, gripping my shoulder and guiding me into the living room, where Vi is lounging on the couch, reading a thriller.
"I didn't know you'd be here." I shove her feet off the couch and sit next to her.
"I crashed here last night. Where did you end up?"
I hand her the manila envelope I've been carrying. "Doing this."
Tate looks over her shoulder as she pulls out the paperwork. Her jaw drops. Tate almost spits out his coffee.
"What the actual fuck?" Her eyes are wide. "You married him?"
"Apparently."
Tate pushes me into the middle of the couch and sits next to me. "Honey, we need to have a talk about sex. You don't have to marry the guy just because you fucked him."
I punch his shoulder. "I don't even remember doing it. I drank. A lot."
"No shit." Vi hands me back the license. "What's he like?"
"He's a surgeon who saves the lives of children. So he's pretty much perfect. From what I can recall. He's gorgeous and sexy and amazing in bed. I remember that much. I just don't know how we got from hot sex to ‘I do’ in the course of a night."
"He must have been some lay," Tate says. "When are you going to see him again?"
"I'm not." But God I want to. This man has ruined sex for me, at least with anyone but him. "This is over. We're getting it annulled. It's the best thing."
"Do you like him?" Vi asks.
"What do you mean?"
She rolls her eyes. "I mean, do you like him? I know you liked the sex. Sounds like the man could seduce a nun and live to tell the tale. Plus, he's a modern day super hero who saves little kids. So, the only other question is, do you like him as a person?"
I think about it a second, but I could have answered right away. "Yes." Even though I don't know him very well, or at least can't remember knowing him, I like him.
She pats my arm, a knowing smile on her lips. "Then, honey, don't blow this. Marriage might have been a bit… extreme on your first night. But that doesn't mean you can't keep dating the man. You don't meet many like him in this world."
Chapter 4
From Different Worlds
I groan, letting my head flop back against the couch cushion. "My head is going to explode. I'm dying. It's likely a tumor."
Tate scoffs, and Vi jumps up. "Time for my Super Secret Hangover Cure All!"
"Oh God, no! Not that!" I whine. "Anything but that. I thought you were my friend. I thought you loved me."
She darts into the kitchen, ignoring my pleas, and comes out a few minutes later with a glass full of red... something.
"It's tough love. Here you go!"
The first thing you'll notice about Vi's hangover cure is the smell. The fumes alone could kill you. The second is the unnaturally bright red color, like Hollywood blood. But it's the taste that really does you in.
She's never told us the ingredients, but Tate and I made a list once. It included such delicacies as innards of beetles, lava from an active volcano, ash, vomit from a dog that's been poisoned and ate its own shit, and the tears of dying children.
"Drink up. Don’t miss a drop, or it won't work."
"I hate you."
But I drink. I drink as I feel it eating through my esophagus and trying to claw its way out of me like an alien. I drink as the taste makes me want to cut out my own tongue. I drink until there's nothing left, and I shove the glass back into her hand.
"Never again," I growl, grabbing Tate's water bottle to wash the taste out of my mouth.
"I love you too," she says, sauntering back into the kitchen.
The phone rings, and it doesn't send shooting pain through my brain. The drink is already working. How and why we'll never know. Vi is probably a witch in her spare time.
She comes out to answer it, nods briefly and puts the caller on hold. "It's Joey?"
"He's a regular. Good guy. Lawyer with a lot of friends. He ends up best man to many of them and is always looking for new bachelor party ideas. He got tired of the same old strip clubs, so now he uses us."
She puts him on speaker, and Joey and I exchange pleasantries before he gets to the reason for his call.
"So my buddy's getting married for the third… no, fourth time, and we need to do something really over the top."
I flip through my mental Rolodex and land on something fun and unique. "How about skydiving?"
"That could work. Keep it as a plan B. But I kind of had my heart set on a tank."
"A tank?" I can't keep the surprise out of my voice. Vi rolls her eyes, and Tate looks a bit panicked.
"Yeah, a buddy of mine said he knew a guy who went to Russia and got to ride a tank. You know how to set that up?"
No. We're in Las Vegas, not Russia. Holy fuck. But of course, I don’t say that. "I'll look into it." Though in my mind I'm already working on that plan B. "How many guests?"
"Twenty-three."