by Lexie Ray
"You'll take care of her, won't you?" he asked me.
I was taken aback. "Sir, I'm pretty sure your daughter can take care of herself and would take offense if anyone suggested otherwise."
"That's what she would prefer everyone to believe, yes," he acknowledged. "But will you take care of her particularly in those moments when she doesn't seem like she needs anyone?"
I felt the hug was going on too long, that people would start whispering, that Paisley's father would smell the liquor on my breath, but I nodded.
"I'll take care of her. I promise."
Sam practically staggered to his seat and I turned to Paisley as the guitarist finished the song.
"Hi," she whispered as everyone took their seats. "Did I you like the song I picked?"
"I couldn't place it, but I know I've heard it before somewhere," I admitted. "It was ... nice."
She gave a small smile as the minister began his spiel. "I didn't think you would actually remember. It was from a homecoming dance way back in high school. It was the first time we'd ever slow danced. I bet if I tried really hard, I could still remember the way your hands felt on my back. You were so nervous."
"I'm nervous now," I said, searching my brain for the memory Paisley had somehow treasured. I remembered the dance, but only vaguely. Paisley had come with another guy, but she had pestered me all evening to take a spin around the dance floor with her. I'd done it then to get her off my back so I could focus on having fun with my friends -- and trying to impress another girl I was interested in hooking up with -- but it had apparently given Paisley the wrong idea, that I actually wanted to be with her. The thought made me feel strangely guilty now.
"Pay attention," she whispered, barely concealing a smile, and I jerked my head back toward the minister.
"Can you blame a man for being so enamored of such a beautiful bride?" he said to titters in the crowd, and I knew I had been so lost in guilt-tinged memories that I'd missed some essential moment of my own wedding.
"Sorry," I mumbled.
"As I was saying, do you, Avery Corbin, take Paisley Summers to be your wife?"
Had we already passed the part of the ceremony where people could object to this union? If so, why hadn't anyone done so? Would I have been able to if I'd been paying attention?
There was nothing left to do but say, "I do."
Paisley beamed at me, and repeated the same words when the minister asked her about whether she was ready to be my wife. She seemed a lot more sure of it than I had.
The minister had more words to wrap up everything -- platitudes about love and fidelity and faith -- and I turned back to Paisley.
"Why didn't you wear a white dress?" I asked quietly.
She raised her eyebrows in surprise. "Did you want me to?"
"No, I mean, I don't care -- you can wear whatever you want." I blinked rapidly, not sure if I had fallen into a hole or was digging myself deeper. "I was just wondering about the color."
Paisley leered. "White's a little too virginal for me, don't you agree?"
She actually made me blush at my own wedding. "Jesus, Paisley."
"Oh, stop," she whispered, her shoulders shaking from repressed laughter. "I wore green because that's what color I want the grass to be. Maybe our wedding will bring rain."
That was pure superstition, but I'd heard even the congregation at the church had been praying for it to pour each Sunday. There was nothing people could do to change the weather except wait and hope.
"You may now kiss the bride," the minister said, cutting across my thoughts once more.
Was this the moment I could run for it? Would the touching of our lips seal this contract? Even as the thought crossed my mind, I knew it was ludicrous. After the ceremony, we would be filling out and signing the real contracts -- marriage licenses and the stipulations for merging our family's ranches. There was so much damn work to do, and this was only the beginning.
Paisley lifted her face up to mine expectantly and I obliged with a peck on her lips.
"Oh, I think you can do better than that," she said loudly, eliciting whoops and laughter from the guests behind us.
I flushed even deeper before kissing her again, letting my mouth linger against hers. Everyone applauded, and the guitarist struck up that exact same song for us to walk out to.
"Don't you like any other songs?" I asked her, the reality of the wedding not yet sinking in.
"I've always sort of considered this one as ours," she said with a shrug. "Do you always have to drink whiskey to keep it up?"
I blinked. "Excuse me?"
"I know you're drunk," she said, continuing to wave and smile even though those words weren't anything to wave and smile about. "I get that this isn't what you want. But could you at least try and scrounge up some respect for me?"
Paisley had been nothing but a doll for the duration of our time together -- sweet and mindless and unrelenting in her affections. What was this new attitude she had? Where had she been hiding it?
"This is my wedding, too," I said. “This is what I want to do to enjoy it.”
“Need alcohol to enjoy life events?” Her words were so angry, but that smile was still firmly in place. “Sex, too?”
“You’re the one who suggested we wait until our wedding night,” I said, mystified as to how she had such a good poker face. “Is that what this is about? That we haven’t had sex since that night?” Because we hadn’t, not that I was lusting over Paisley, especially not now.
“This is about you being drunk for your own wedding,” she said. Out of sight of the crowd, she slipped her hand from my arm and looked up at me. “Do you hate me?”
“No, I don’t hate you.”
“Then act happy,” she said. “You looked terrified up there. Please don’t embarrass me.”
“I’m not doing anything on purpose,” I assured her. “It’s … natural for a person to be nervous ahead of their wedding.”
“Says who?”
“Says, um, Emmett.”
“What does Emmett know about it?”
“That’s what I said.”
“Come on,” Paisley sighed. “Let’s sign the contracts and get on with it.”
“Get on with it? Now who’s the one minimizing the wedding?”
“Oh, stop it.”
The lawyers we’d hired — well, Chance had to hire a lawyer; Sam was wealthy enough to keep one on retainer, apparently — met us at the DJ booth inside a tent set up for the reception. There it was, all spelled out for us, the marriage license and the contract for the ranch merger. I was literally signing my life away, and I was stubbornly thankful for the whiskey as I scratched my signature into the paper with the pen the lawyer supplied me with. Chance and Sam joined us immediately to also sign the ranch merger agreement.
“I feel like we should kiss again,” Paisley said, breathless with laughter. “That was the real marriage.”
I kissed her to oblige her, though it was chaste for Chance and Sam’s sakes.
Paisley held my face to hers for a moment afterward, and I stared deep into those hazel eyes.
“Do you remember what I told you?” she asked.
“You’ve told me lots of things.”
“About doing something for you. Repaying you.”
“Yes.” This was about the bully all those years ago. “I remember.”
“Your family’s ranch is saved,” she said. “The bank isn’t going to take it. The land our family owns and works has now doubled in size.”
“Yes, that’s right.” What in the world was she getting at?
“We are good for each other, Avery Corbin,” she said. “My debt to you is repaid, your ranch’s debt to the bank is repaid, and now we can go forward and make a good life together.”
“Okay,” I said uncertainly.
Chance and Sam had drifted away to find their seats for dinner, and Paisley let go of my face.
“It doesn’t have to be bad,” she said faintly.
&nbs
p; “What?”
“Our marriage. It doesn’t have to be bad.”
“I … don’t want it to be bad.”
“I understand if you don’t love me right now,” she said. “I understand that this whole thing was rushed. But I hope you’ll maybe grow to love me.”
“Paisley …”
But she walked away, laughing and waving as guests started to filter into the tent, radiant in that confounding green dress. It was a good thing. I hadn’t been sure what I was supposed to say to that. The truth was out, at least — she knew I hadn’t married her out of love. But that truth didn’t make this marriage any easier.
I grabbed a drink at the bar because I didn’t know what else I should be doing and went to try and find out where I was supposed to be sitting. I hadn’t had the stomach to eat anything today, and all of the whiskey I’d already had was starting to wear on me. Dinner sounded both good and not so good, my stomach doing a poor job of telling me what it wanted. I didn’t even know what I wanted.
“You’re supposed to be greeting guests with your wife right about now,” Emmett said, swooping by me at the bar. “Not a good time to grab a drink, Avery.”
“Shit,” I muttered, throwing it back and down my throat and wiping my mouth on the sleeve of my suit jacket. I’d forgotten that detail, one of what felt like thousands tossed at me during hurried rehearsals. Paisley was at the entrance to the tent already, beaming and accepting congratulations for marrying some idiot who couldn’t even remember what he was supposed to be responsible for at his own wedding.
“About time,” she said to me quietly through a tight smile.
“Sorry,” I muttered back, and started receiving handshakes and hugs and well wishes for something I didn’t feel good about at all. My smile felt sickly on my own face, so I stopped trying to match the wattage one Paisley’s face and simply nodded and thanked folks for turning out for the end of my life as I knew it.
“Don’t look so horrified,” Paisley said as we were finally able to sit at our own table. “I told you things didn’t have to be bad.”
“I’m not trying to look horrified,” I said, casting a look around, trying to find some outlet of escape. I could only see the bar.
“If you get through this reception without embarrassing either of us, I’ll make it up to you tonight,” she promised, biting her lower lip.
With divorce papers? That was the only thing that would make me feel better about any of this — an immediate escape.
“I’m not sure I know what you’re proposing,” I said, crooking my finger at one of the waiters drifting around the tent.
“We’re married, dummy,” she said. “I’m talking about sex. Good sex. Wedding night sex.”
But my cock didn’t so much as twitch. Sex with Paisley had been good, sure, but the fact that we were married now made all my worldly desires curdle and disappear.
“Don’t bother,” I said. “I’d never want you to do anything you didn’t want to do.”
“Who says I don’t want to have sex with you?” she asked, drawing her eyebrows together. “We’re married now. We can have sex all we want.”
“People don’t have to be married to have all the sex they want,” I retorted. “You and I had sex prior to tying ourselves together, remember?”
“Are you going to be like this for the entirety of the night?”
“Like what?”
Paisley almost threw her hands in the air but restrained herself at the last moment. “Like this. Angry. Embarrassing.”
“All I want to do is to enjoy myself for the sake of these people and then go to bed,” I said. “It’s been a long day, don’t you think?”
“I suppose it has.” Paisley looked out over the tent at all of the people finding their carefully organized seats — all my brothers were seated together, and her father was seated with a few of his remaining close friends — and I wondered if she was filled with just as many regrets as I was. Had all of this truly been worth it for her?
“Just don’t get too drunk to mess up our first dance,” she said, standing abruptly. “I’m going to go chat with people.”
“First dance?” I snagged her by her wrist, detaining her departure. “I don’t dance, Paisley.”
“Everyone dances at their own weddings,” she said, looking down at me. “I told you this. We’ll be dancing to the song — our song — I had the guitarist play at the ceremony. You agreed to it.”
I agreed to a lot of things, I was realizing, that I really didn’t like.
“The first dance better be sooner rather than later,” I said, gulping down another whiskey. “To get it over with.”
Paisley narrowed her eyes again. “I’ll have a word with the DJ.”
The rest of the evening was something of a whiskey-tinged blur, people stopping by my chair to yammer inanities, a constant stream of crap I forgot to do, numerous toasts and dinner tucked away in there. I got through the dance, Paisley smiling gently like she didn’t actually want to murder me, and returned to my drinks, wishing that everyone would just go home and stop staring at me. This was natural, right? That’s what Emmett had said. It was natural to have the jitters. Was it okay if they continued well after the deed had already been done?
“I’m feeling like it might be time to go,” Paisley said, much later, placing her arm gently on my shoulder. I shrugged her off.
“I’m not ready.” The bar was free, the liquor was flowing, and Sam Summers was footing the bill as a part of the stipulations of the contract I’d just entered into. I’d signed away my life for my family’s ranch. I wasn’t going to leave my own party until I was good and ready, and that meant shit faced.
“I hate to break it to you, husband, but you’re probably twice as drunk now as you were when I took you home that night,” she said, glancing around, trying to gauge whether we were about to make a scene.
“Just leave me alone,” I said. “All I want to do is sit here and drink. I’m not hurting anyone.”
“You’re hurting your reputation, and mine,” Paisley said. “You also look twice as miserable as you did when you were trying to drink away your sorrows at the bank’s foreclosure of your family’s ranch. People are going to start gossiping.”
Somehow, that option didn’t seem as bad anymore. Fuck the ranch. Fuck my brothers. Fuck this entire town. I didn’t care at all about my reputation or Paisley’s or anything else except where my next drink was coming from.
Paisley had to have sensed — or seen — my stubbornness.
“If you come quietly,” she said, leaning down, her lips brushing the shell of my ear and making me shudder, “I can pretty much guarantee that you will come very loudly when we get home.”
Now that I was so much drunker than before, that seemed like a much more tempting offer. I’d like to sink my cock into something as sweet — if manipulative — as Paisley, go to bed, and wake up tomorrow ideally with someone else’s life.
I swayed dangerously as I pushed myself up, and Paisley snaked her arm around my waist. I couldn’t help but feel like this had all played out before — that I was all played out — but I didn’t have the time or inclination to analyze it. The only thing I could focus on was staying upright, putting one foot in front of the other, keeping my eyes straight ahead instead of roving around at the numerous faces still at our reception.
“Best of luck to you two!” someone said, clapping me on the shoulder and nearly knocking the two of us down.
“Careful, looks like the groom has had a good time at his reception,” someone else joked.
“Not as good a time as he’s going to have on his wedding night,” Paisley fired back a little forcefully.
“Take care of yourself, you all. Take care of each other.” That one sounded suspiciously like Zoe, who was dancing with Chance, but that couldn’t be right. Chance wasn’t much of a dancer, and I knew I had to be seeing things.
“Trailer,” I mumbled at Paisley as she mostly heaved me into the passenge
r seat of her truck. It was the bar all over again, riding home from it, but this time, it wasn’t going to be anything close to a one-night stand. I’d never be rid of Paisley. We were married. My stomach contents sloshed around dangerously.
“Hell, no, we’re not going to your trailer,” she said, jumping into the driver’s seat. “We’re going home.”
“Home?”
“To my home. Well, ours, now.”
This was something I hadn’t thought about before. I’d just assumed everything would stay the same. If both of us accepted that this marriage was all about business, couldn’t we keep things as separate and sterile as possible? Paisley seemed to be taking the traditional aspects of whatever we’d just entered into a lot more seriously than I realized she would.
“But doesn’t your father live there?”
“Yes, but he’s living in the guest apartment, now.”
“Guest apartment? Just how rich is your family?”
“Rich enough to bail you all out,” she said, sharp and salty and full of sass. “You’ll like it there. I think you’ll find it’s a couple of steps up from what you’re used to.”
What I was used to was having a space of my own, apart from everyone else, and I’d apparently given that up upon marrying Paisley. I’d given everything up. For what?
“Avery Corbin, if you vomit in this truck, you will be sleeping in it.”
Paisley was glaring at me as she drove, angry I’d let myself get to this state.
“I won’t vomit in your truck,” I promised.
“Is this going to be how things are going to be?” she asked me. “Are you going to have to be drunk out of your mind all the time to make this work? Is that the future I need to prepare for?”
“It was our wedding,” I said. “Just having fun.”
“Some fun.”
The house loomed in the night, and Paisley parked. She helped me inside, and I kicked my own shoes off so she wouldn’t have to wrestle me out of them like the last time.
“So, where’s that promise?” I asked her, too drunk to even take stock of my surroundings, flopping hard on the bed and enjoying the bounce.
“I think you’d be better served by sleeping it off,” she informed me. “Good night.”
