by Leanne Tyler
Chapter Fifteen
Sue stirred in bed and stretched, turning over feeling the luxurious coolness of satin underneath her. A vision of her dancing with Alex flitted through her mind again and she sighed wanting to stay in her slumber a little longer, but she could hear her phone buzzing somewhere in the distance. Slowly she opened her eyes and pushed herself to a sitting position. She didn’t recognize her surroundings. Blinking she tried to clear her vision but that did not change the fact that this wasn’t the hotel room she had shared with Kimberly and Audra. It was much larger and the bed where she lay appeared to be circular. And she was definitely on satin sheets.
Out of the corner of her eye she noticed something stirred beside her. For a split second fear engulfed her that she wasn’t alone and she swiveled in its direction. She swallowed a gasp when she saw it was Alex still asleep and in bed with her. In the next second, panic over took her and she scooted on the sheets toward the edge almost falling off because of its rounded side.
Somewhere in the room she heard the buzz of her phone and Alex stirred. She ran her left hand up and down her face, noticing something gold encircled her finger. Apprehension inched up her spine as she pulled her hand away and her vision focused in on it. She saw the gold band on her finger and let out a cry.
What had they done last night?
Jumping out of bed, she felt like Doris Day in Lover Come Back except in the movie Doris had at least been wearing Rock Hudson’s pajama top when she leapt from the bed instead of being in her birthday suit. She squealed again and jumped back under the sheet, pulling it up to her chin to cover herself.
A deep rumble of laughter came from the other side of the bed as Alex turned over and smiled at her. “Good morning, beautiful.”
She stared at him and shook her head as a flash of memory of them kissing in front of the water fountain returned. They’d walked down the strip enjoying being alone for once since arriving in Vegas. But then it began to rain and they’d rushed for cover in the nearest establishment. A wedding chapel.
Her head began to hurt and she recalled that last round of jello shots the waitress had brought that had been intended for Kimberly and Phil.
“Please…tell me…we didn’t…”
He sat up, pulled his knees up and wrapped his arms around them. “Get married?”
She groaned and nodded.
“Yes, we did. You were totally for it last night…or this morning when we entered that chapel. Don’t you remember?”
She swallowed hard.
“Are you sorry?”
“No…I—I don’t know…” She looked at him as the implications of what they had done sank in and a sense of joy swelled up inside her when she thought about what this meant. It was what she had secretly been wanting even if it came about without her being able to remember it clearly. She slowly smiled. “No. I’m not sorry.”
“Good.” He reached out his hand to her and she scooted toward him. “Because I’d do it again today and every day after if I need to prove to you how much I want to be with you.”
“Oh Alex.” She leaned into him and he kissed her, cupping her face with his hand. She covered it with her own as he laid her back on the bed and they continued to kiss.
It wasn’t long until the buzzing of another phone could be heard and Alex groaned this time. He pulled away and reached underneath his pillow for the phone. She could see Phil’s picture flashing on the screen of the smartphone. Instead of answering, he rejected the call and slid it back underneath the pillow.
“Don’t you think you should have taken the call?”
“No. I know what he’s wanting. They’re at the airport getting ready to board. And they’re wondering where we are.”
She sat up and covered her face with her hands. “Oh Lord. Kimberly and Phil.”
“What about them?” Alex asked.
She dropped her hands and turned to face him. “We can’t tell anyone what we’ve done.”
“Why not?”
“Because I can’t upstage my sister so close to her wedding. This is her time. Not mine. Do you understand? She’d never forgive me.”
He pulled her to him and kissed her temple. “Does that mean we can’t live together once we return to Knoxville?”
“I’m afraid so. We must return as if nothing happened.”
“You mean what happened in Vegas, stays in Vegas?”
She grinned at his use of the slogan. “You can say that. Only until after they return from their honeymoon. Then we can tell everyone.”
“And if I protest?”
“I guess I’ll just have to persuade you otherwise.” She leaned into him and nibbled kisses at his mouth until he returned them. She giggled as he pulled her down on the bed and they snuggled.
He kissed her shoulder. “If we’re going to pull this off we’ll have to come up with a good story as to what happened last night. Why we didn’t sleep in our rooms and catch our flight.”
“We should stick to as much of the truth as possible. We got drunk from those shooters and ended up staying at a different hotel.”
“I think that should work.”
Sue turned to face him. “And even though we can’t move in together it doesn’t mean I can’t stay over occasionally at your place or you stay with me. We’ll just need to be extra careful around Kimberly and Phil.”
“And Brandon.”
Alex’s phone buzzed again and he answered it this time, putting it on speaker. “Hey.”
“Where are you?” Phil asked. “And where is Sue? Kimberly is in hysterics. The flight is about to leave. Are you coming?”
“No. I don’t think we can make it. We’ll catch a later flight out.”
“What happened?”
“It’s a long story. After you left the bar last night, the waitress brought by four more shooters. She said they were paid for so we did them. We went for a walk and it started to rain. Neither of us remembers much after that.”
Sue could hear Brandon’s laughter in the background. “Why’s he laughing?”
Alex shrugged.
“You idiot,” Phil said and then they heard muffled sounds as if he’d covered the phone so they couldn’t hear what was being said.
“Phil, what is going on?” Alex asked.
“Sorry. Brandon said he ordered those for us and they were triples. He did it as a joke so we’d get drunk.”
“That wasn’t funny. Not at all.” Kimberly’s voice came over the line mingled with the sound of whacking.
“Listen, I gotta go and stop Kimberly from killing him. She’s hitting him with her purse. We left your luggage at the front desk in case you returned.”
“Okay. Bye.”
The line went dead and neither of them spoke. Finally, Sue crawled out of bed and headed to the bathroom. “I’m going to shower. I won’t take long. I guess we need to go retrieve our luggage and get to the airport if we want to get a flight out today.”
Alex nodded. “I’ll order room service.”
She stopped in the doorway of the bathroom. “Why would Brandon be so cruel? Kimberly had already had a little too much to drink, but to order her a triple shot like that. That is downright mean.”
Alex agreed, but he suspected his friend had done it to get back at her for spoiling his plans for this weekend. Brandon had given in to the girls coming along because that is what Phil wanted, but he’d not been happy about it. His motive behind the little impromptu party last night was clear now. What didn’t make sense was the salt and pepper shakers and the speech.
Reaching for the hotel phone, he punched the button for room service and ordered breakfast before getting up. He pulled the sheet off the bed and wrapped it around him so he could gather his clothes off the floor. He picked up Sue’s dress, bra and lacey panties and laid them on the bed for her. Then he began searching for her shoes. She’d kicked them off as he carried her into the room last night. He found one in a potted plant.
“Bathroom’s all yours.�
�� She came out with a towel wrapped around her looking refreshed. Her skin glowed and he was tempted to delay their departure, but he thought better of it.
“Thanks.” He handed her the shoe. “I can’t find the other one.”
“I’ll look for it.”
He grabbed his clothes and went into the bathroom. While he showered, he wondered if Brandon’s confession changed anything between him and Sue. She’d seemed cool toward him after that phone call, but surely she realized he had nothing to do with what Brandon did. He’d downed the shot just like she had. Being under the influence of the alcohol did not change the fact that he loved her and he wanted to be with her.
Turning off the water, he reached for a towel and dried off, wrapping his around his waist. He grabbed a hand towel and ran it vigorously over his head to remove most of the water from his hair. Thankfully the hotel supplied a disposable razor and shaving cream along with a travel size spray deodorant. He did a quick touch up on his facial hair and then got dressed. When he stepped out of the bathroom, Sue was standing over at the large wall of windows that overlooked the city.
“I bet the skyline is beautiful at night from here.”
“Too bad we won’t be able to see it on this trip. Maybe we can come back next year for our anniversary?”
“About that…maybe we rushed into this.”
“What are you saying? I thought we’d already established there are no regrets.”
“There aren’t.”
“Then what?” He walked over and pulled her into his arms. “Are you worried about what part the alcohol played in this? If you are then don’t.”
“But if we hadn’t—”
He kissed her before she could finish that statement trying to prove to her there was no doubt in his mind that they belonged together. She returned his kiss with as much heated passion. When they broke apart, there was a blush that crept up her cheeks and she shyly looked away.
“You make my blood boil, Mrs. Jones.”
She smiled and bit her bottom lip, tilting her head to the side and looking at him through thick lashes. “Say that again.”
“Mrs. Jones?”
She nodded, closing her eyes and reached up to touch the charm around her neck. The same charm he could have sworn had glowed when they were in bed last night.
“I like the sound of that.”
“I’ll try to remember that.”
“Oh, I found my shoe. It was between the throw pillows on the sofa.”
“That’s good.” He reached for her hand and pulled her over to the sofa with him.
“Room service came.” She pointed to the service cart that he’d overlooked earlier. “There’s plenty of juice and coffee left as well as bagels, cream cheese and fresh fruit. Would you like something?”
“I’ll get it. Did you already eat?”
“I had half a bagel, some fruit, and juice. My stomach isn’t feeling so great this morning.”
He left her and went over to the cart, glancing at his watch. Picking up the other half of her bagel, he smeared cream cheese over it. “We’ve got time before check out. Is there anything you’d like to do before we leave?”
“No. Other than find out when the next flight out is. We don’t want to miss it.”
“I’ll call down to the concierge and see if they can help with that.”
She laid her head back against the leather cushion and kicked off her shoes, letting them drop to the floor before curling her legs up on the couch. “I wonder what Keely will think when she finds out what we’ve done.”
“She’ll love it. Don’t you worry about my sister. Maybe I should be worried about your parents. What will they think of me?” He sat down beside her and she leaned against him.
“Daddy won’t approve of course. He’d have wanted to meet you first. He’s very traditional in that sense. Kimberly took Phil down to meet them before he even popped the question.”
“Strike one against me then.”
She giggled. “Mom will love you. Of course she’ll be upset with me for spoiling her getting to plan my wedding. But I’ll remind her she wasn’t around to plan Kimberly’s so she shouldn’t hold it against me.”
“So strike two.”
“And after helping my sister with her list of last minute things she still needed to do, I think not having a big wedding is just fine. Though it will mean I can’t heap payback on her for that list.” She leaned up and looked at him. “And I was so looking forward to that.”
He stuffed the last of the bagel into his mouth and chewed trying to read between the lines. Was she really saying she wanted a wedding? He wrapped his arm around her and pulled her onto his lap. “Are you sure? We can do the whole church wedding if you want.”
She shook her head. “I’m fine with it. Really I am. I just wish I could remember more of the ceremony. You know. Other than the rings, the marriage certificate I found with my purse and waking up in bed with you this morning really is the only proof I have that we did it.”
“So you don’t remember anything of last night?”
She shook her head. “That last thing is when we ran for cover when it started raining.” She leaned forward and kissed him. “I’ll be right back.” She scooted off his lap and hurried out of the room.
The bagel he’d eaten weighed heavy on his stomach as he walked over to the bed to use the phone. He couldn’t believe she didn’t remember last night. She’d seemed lucid to him, but then he’d been a little loopy himself. Did that mean she hadn’t meant anything she’d said to him? Anything she’d done with him?
He ran his hand through his damp hair feeling like their marriage was a lie. He heard the water running in the bathroom so he picked up the phone and called down to the concierge desk to ask about flight information.
“Hey Sue.”
“Yeah?” She opened the bathroom door and rejoined him.
“We need to go. The next flight leaves in an hour. We’ll be rushed to get to the other hotel and collect our things.”
“I think I remember that from when I was making the reservations. We could either leave early or take the later flight, but then there are two layovers with that one and we wouldn’t get back into Knoxville until really late tonight.”
“Would you rather stay over then and take an earlier flight tomorrow? That would give us another night here and we can call Keely about you not being back for work.”
“What about Duke and Queenie? Don’t you need to get back to them?”
“I’m sure Mrs. Bradshaw won’t mind feeding them one more night. I’ll give her a call too. What do you say? We can even go back to that chapel and see if they recorded the ceremony. It was an option we didn’t take, but maybe they did it on the chance we changed our mind.”
She smiled. “Okay. Let’s do it.”
He pulled her to him, tilting her chin up until she was looking him in the eye. “I really meant it last night when I said I love you.”
“I meant it too. I do love you and I want to spend the rest of my life being your wife.”
Her confession was all he needed to hear. He lifted her up, holding her around the waist and kissed her. She planted her hands on his face and returned his kiss with tenderness. When he finally released her, she sighed.
“I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of you kissing me like that.”
“Neither do I, but we had better go or we won’t be leaving this room today.”
She giggled and went to the wet bar where she picked up her purse and envelope with the marriage certificate in it. “We can’t forget this.”
“No we can’t.” He looked around the room one last time to make sure nothing personal was left behind before they headed out the door.
The wedding chapel wasn’t hard to find. It was next door to the hotel and had a side entrance into the hotel lobby. Sue held her breath as they entered afraid she would find out they’d been married by an Elvis impersonator, but luckily this was not one of those venues. The girl out f
ront, Gina, recognized them and greeted them by name, which surprised Sue.
“I hope there isn’t anything wrong?” Gina asked.
“No. We were having second thoughts about the video and wondered if you recorded our ceremony?” Alex explained.
“Normally Sal doesn’t waste his time if you don’t want it, but let me check. We’d just finished with the Clausman wedding when you showed up insisting you had to get married.”
“We did?” Sue said.
“Yes.” Gina nodded. “I thought you were drunk because you were babbling about having to get married before your sister. That you couldn’t be an old maid. You were too young for that. But I have a younger sister and I totally got what you were saying.”
Alex chuckled and Sue smacked him on the arm. “Hey. I think I remember that now.”
“Well I don’t.” She turned to the girl. “That’s the problem. I don’t remember the ceremony and I don’t want our kids asking me about it years down the road and I’d have to admit I was drunk. Can’t you help us?”
“Give me a second and I’ll check the video log.” The girl hurried away into a draped room.
Alex reached for her hand. “So we’re having kids now?”
“We might…someday. Don’t you want them?”
“Sure. Someday.”
“That doesn’t sound very convincing.”
“I didn’t think I wanted to get married either, but here I am and I couldn’t be happier.”
She stepped toward him and took hold of his shirt, pulling him to her. “I’m glad you said that last part because I’d hate to make you sleep outside with Duke and Queenie when we get home.”
“Are you already going to try to be the boss in this household?”
“If the shoe fits.”
He grinned, wrapping his arms around her and planted a kiss on her lips.
“You’re in luck.” Gina returned, causing them to break apart. “Sal did record it because he got distracted when you arrived and left the recorder on. He’s making you a DVD right now. It shouldn’t take but about five minutes.”
