“It’s fine,” I said, knowing full well from the way that tendon was straining it genuinely bothered Aiden. “So… what’s the next step with your green card thing?”
Aiden had his attention on his arm. “We should go ahead and get the paperwork over with first.” Paperwork. He was going with paperwork to describe what we were doing. Was I nauseous or did I suddenly get heartburn? “Soon.”
“How soon?” My voice sounded more cryptic than what was really necessary considering I knew exactly what I was getting myself into.
Those thick eyebrows kind of quirked, his jaw slightly twitched. “Before the season. I don’t want to wait until bye week,” he said, referring to the week off the team got during the season.
He still wasn’t answering my question. “Okay…”
“I have an early preseason game next week. Let’s do it then.” I choked and he ignored me, barreling straight through into his explanation. “We can’t file the petition until the paperwork is done. You should change the address on your license as soon as you can, but you need to have mail coming here. ”
What could I say? Let’s wait? What he was saying made sense. He really didn’t have more than a day off after each preseason game, and from what I remembered, most of them were always in the evening. That probably would be the best chance we had of getting it done.
But it still made the part of my personality that liked to plan things in advance and mentally prepare cringe.
Next week. We were ‘doing it’ in a week.
It was that easy. We needed to live in a house together, sign some papers, maybe take some pictures—was that even necessary?— and then… live the next five years of our lives.
I almost expected him to give me spirit fingers and say “Ta-da.”
That simple. It was that simple apparently.
I took in the man who was sitting across from me—the biggest man I had ever seen, the most restrained, who was for all intents and purposes, technically my fiancé—and let nausea and nerves roll around in my belly like puppies.
“My lawyer said it’ll be several months between you filing a petition for me and having my status adjusted until I get a conditional green card. We’re going to need a lot of paperwork; they’re going to ask for your bank statements. You’ll have to go with me once everything is approved to have someone at the Immigration office interview us. Will that work?” he asked, eyeing me warily, like he wasn’t positive how I was going to take his plan.
I swallowed my heart. I’d already read all of that stuff online in the days between when he’d showed up at my place and when I came to his and agreed, so I was mentally prepared. Mostly. “Yeah.” But the smile on my face was pretty damn faint.
What in the hell had I just agreed to?
Chapter Ten
The weekend came way too quickly and way too slowly at the same time. I’d woken up each night sweating profusely. I was going to commit a felony. I was getting married. And of all the people in the world, it was Aiden I was doing this with and for.
It didn’t matter how many times I reminded myself that what we were doing wasn’t real, my body couldn’t be fooled. All these changes—the moving, the living in a different room, sleeping in a different bed—they were all battling my brain for attention at all hours of the day, giving me a case of insomnia.
The only thing that eventually managed to lull me to sleep was the knowledge that I knew exactly what I was doing, what I was getting out of the hoax of a lifetime. Debt freedom and a house. I reminded myself of that repeatedly.
And we were going to Vegas to get it over with.
“It will make more sense if we do it there. We’ve gone twice together already,” he’d explained to me after I’d agreed with him that speeding into it was fine. “If we did it here, we’d have to go to the courthouse to apply for a marriage license and get a Justice of the Peace to perform a ceremony.”
He was right. We’d gone to Vegas twice. Once for a signing and the other time for a commercial he shot. Plus, I completely understood where he was going with doing it in Dallas. Someone would recognize him the instant he got out of the car at the courthouse. I could already picture a crowd if we tried to get our marr— the word gave me indigestion. License. There’d be a crowd if we went to get our license.
Actually, I think it was the word ‘our’ that gave my insides gas.
“Everyone goes to Las Vegas to elope,” the big guy had added as if I didn’t know.
Obviously, I did.
“There’s no waiting to apply for a marriage license,” he had ended with as he’d polished off a sandwich.
Another truth.
How can you argue practicality? There wasn’t a point in having any of my few loved ones there, and honestly, I really wouldn’t have wanted them to be in attendance. This wasn’t some everlasting marriage built on love. I’m pretty sure I had told Diana more than once that I was going to have a beach destination wedding if the time ever came.
If the time came, that had been my plan. Maybe someday in the distant future, it’d be a possibility.
For now, for this, Las Vegas would work.
With his credit card in hand, the morning after I moved in, I reserved two first-class plane tickets, because explaining to Aiden that flying economy was cheaper was a pointless argument I’d tried once and failed at miserably. I also scored a two-bedroom suite at the hotel we’d stayed at in the past. We’d fly in Sunday evening and leave Monday afternoon. In and out, we would sign some papers, maybe take a picture, and then head back.
On the day before we were supposed to leave, I was at the grocery store when I spotted the customer in front of me wearing a wedding band, and it hit me.
Was Aiden going to need a ring? Was I going to need one?
He’d never said anything about engagement rings or wedding rings, and I wasn’t sure if that was something we’d need to pull off the believability factor. Would they check that out at the interview? Would they care? I remembered Diana’s cousin Felipa had worn a wedding ring way before things got serious between her and her husband. But I’d also met couples before who didn’t bother with rings.
So…
I looked online to see if there was anything about whether agents checked that kind of thing or not, and I knew The Proposal wasn’t a good example of how immigration issues actually worked. What was I supposed to do?
Chances were, he wouldn’t wear it. But….
Get one anyway, my brain said. I could worry about one for myself when the time came, but it would be months until then.
I’d learned to trust my instincts, so that evening when he was running drills after hours by himself at the Three Hundreds’ training facility, I fought the nagging feeling in my belly and snagged his College National Football Championship ring from the drawer where he kept it. Holding onto it for dear life, I headed to a small jeweler I’d visited in the past to get my favorite pair of earrings fixed when I’d messed them up.
The jeweler had a lot of rings to choose from, but not much in sizes large enough to fit Aiden’s fingers. Luckily, he said he could get something resized for me in record time, and I chose a basic fourteen-karat white gold band. It was nothing remotely fancy or even eighteen karat, but… no one likes a picky bitch, and I was paying for it out of my own pocket, so he better not complain.
I was buying my soon-to-be fake husband a wedding ring that he may or may not wear.
After all, we had to make it believable. So even if he didn’t wear it, at least he’d have it, I figured.
It only made me not want to get it more.
* * *
“Are you ready?” Aiden called up the stairs.
I was never going to be ready. Ever.