by Magan Vernon
The one that was lighting me up more than the fountains.
“You’re pretty.”
“You’re pretty, too,” I said with a giggle that caused some of the people around us to roll their eyes.
“Like really fucking pretty. I definitely had stared at you when I was supposed to be working more than once. Even though I’m pretty sure you kind of hate me, that doesn’t stop me.” He grinned, glancing at me out of the corner of his bright green eyes.
I shook my head, my dark hair swishing around my bare shoulders. “I don’t hate you. I just don’t really know you. You’re like this dark, mysterious man. Sexy, but still scary as hell with your tattoos and bright Mohawk.”
“There’s nothing scary about this thing,” he said, leaning his head down and tickling my neck with his spiky hair.
When he pulled back, I stared into his eyes. I never noticed how they were a colorful mixture of green, brown, and even shades of gray swirling around.
“What do you want to know about me, future wife?” he asked, pulling me close. His body radiated heat, suddenly making me want to strip off everything I was wearing in the middle of the chilly desert night.
I chewed on my bottom lip. “What’s your favorite color?”
He laughed. “That’s all you got?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Too embarrassed to tell me?”
He smiled, a crack in the usual hard exterior. “I like rainbows.”
“Rainbows? Isn’t that kind of ... um ...?” I struggled for words.
He laughed, the sound rumbling against my chest, and my nipples puckered in response. “I’m not gay, if that’s what you’re asking. I just like them. They don’t make you pick one color or one thing, and when you see a rainbow in the sky, no one is ever pissed about it. You can’t not smile when you see a rainbow. It’s just a fact.”
“You have a point there.”
“You know, we planned to go and get hitched here, but I haven’t even gotten you a ring. Think we can find something with a rainbow stone? Then when you get pissed off at me, you can look at it and smile.”
“How would you even find that?” I giggled but thought about how right he was about rainbows. How they brought promises of better things, and how I could really use something good in my life, even if it did include marrying my secret crush in Vegas.
He pulled out his phone and clicked a few things. “A quick internet search shows a pawn shop just down the road.”
He tugged on my hand, sliding his phone back into his pocket. “Come on, wifey, it’s time for me to make an honest woman out of you.”
Chapter 11
Clay
I tossed and turned all night, which pissed off Snogs to no end, and she constantly snorted in my face.
“Sorry, girl,” I murmured, scratching behind her ears each time.
The last time I couldn’t sleep like this, I had just come back from my last tour and was still in the hospital.
I relived the experience over and over. Watching it play out in my nightmares in slow motion.
The only thing that helped was doing manual labor on the ranch until I was so exhausted that the dreams never came.
That and some medicinal herbs once in a while.
But the ranch had become my solace. The thing I clung to when I needed an escape. And now I could have fucked all that up.
Not only that, but I was playing a very dangerous and wicked game by involving the boss’s daughter.
What the hell was I doing with Christy? I should have just agreed with the divorce right there in Vegas even though I knew there would be paperwork. Even though I said that it could mean some leverage on running the ranch.
That was before I realized what I was doing. Before the girl bared her soul to me when she didn’t need to.
Fuck.
I would ruin this girl forever.
And probably myself in the process.
TAKING IN THE SMELL of coffee, I decided to roll out of bed since I couldn’t get back to sleep and had to work early with everyone and their mom planning the Christmas parties at the ranch. One of the perks of having a roommate was that he liked coffee as much as I did, maybe more, and was always up to make a fresh pot.
Noah stood at the counter in a three-piece suit, sipping from one of the many Q Ranch mugs I’d swiped from work.
I knew better than to sneak up on the guy, though, and stomped my footsteps extra hard to vibrate on the floor, which, of course, had Snogs going crazy as she followed after me. She snorted and ran alongside me, looking up with her ears perked.
Noah turned toward me with a smile, pushing back some of his shaggy brown hair that hid his hearing aids.
“You’re up early,” he said in his usual husky tone.
“Could say the same about you, Mr. Suit,” I replied, making eye contact so he could read my lips. I grabbed another Q Ranch cup and poured it a little over halfway with coffee, then looked through our stash of creamer cups Noah had acquired from his different jobs. I picked a couple of mint ones and opened the little containers, pouring them in before grabbing a spoon and stirring.
“Another interpreter gig. This time, it’s at the symphony, so the client requested a suit. Luckily, I had this one from all the weddings gigs I did last summer. I think this came from a garage sale. She was selling all her deceased husband’s clothes, and this may have been his casket look, but hey, for twenty-five bucks, I couldn’t go wrong.”
Noah was a jack-of-all-trades. The guy played piano for the local Baptist church and at weddings, cleaned pools, and during the winter, he hired himself out as a sign language interpreter and sometimes even moonlighted as an on-call drummer for various bands. I never understood why the kid, only three years younger than me, never went to college, but I didn’t go to university either, so I couldn’t judge.
“Guess at least you’re getting a use for that thing. And you washed the dead guy stank off it,” I said before taking a sip of my coffee.
“What about you? Get to wear a suit in Vegas? You came back with a ring, I see.” He raised his eyebrows.
The warm coffee caught in my throat, and I coughed, pounding my chest to swallow the hot liquid instead of spitting it all over the counter and his suit.
Shit. I forgot that I was still wearing the metal band with skull and crossbones engraved on it. I didn’t know where Christy and I picked it up, but I figured it was cool and didn’t take it off. That, and a part of me tinged with guilt at the thought of removing it, which was stupid in its own right.
“Naw. This is just something I picked up from a random dude at the convention. Keeps the desperate housewives away at work, I figure,” I said, trying to be casual and running my fingers through my hair that was matted to my head instead of its usual spiky array.
“Sure, that’s why you almost choked when I asked it.” He leaned in, putting his elbows on the breakfast bar between us. “So, who’s the lucky new Mrs. Carrington? A random stripper named Candy? Or did you and Christy finally stop pretending to hate each other and get it on?”
Heat rose to my face, and I couldn’t even take a drink of coffee to try to hide it for fear I’d choke.
“Holy shit. You’re kidding. You and Christy? Finally?”
I raised an eyebrow, my whole body going rigid. “What’s this ‘finally’ shit?”
He smiled. “Like you two aren’t already an old married couple with the way you fight. You talk about that girl more than anyone, and even though you say it’s complaining, you do everything she says, like even trimming your Mohawk.”
I frowned, not wanting to admit the guy was even close to right, but I did cut the hawk down from six to two inches after she made a quip about the spikes being too tall. But I didn’t completely cut it, so I wasn’t whipped or anything.
At least that was what I told myself.
Noah pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and rummaged through it before yanking out a business card and placing it on the table. “This guy’s in Wylie, a
nd I clean his pool. If you need a quick and easy divorce, if that’s what you really want, I’m sure he’ll be of service.”
I took the card, looking at the guy in a cowboy hat and bolero tie’s photo before glancing back at Noah. “And what if I don’t want a divorce ... say, if I was really married? Or to fight for ownership of a family ranch?”
His eyes widened. “I know you’re an asshole, Clay, but you’re not the type of asshole who would use a girl to get her family’s business. If you really want to run the ranch, get your degree and do it on your own merits. Not by scamming the Quinns.”
I rolled my eyes, ignoring the way the hair stood on the back of my neck when he called me out. “Says the guy who won’t get his degree either.”
He tapped his hearing aids. “I have my reasons.”
“Yeah, bullshit ones.”
He smirked. “Just like yours.”
“Touché,” I said, raising my mug.
The guy got me. Just like Christy, he took my shit and handed it back. Which was why he was one of my best friends, but also like Christy, he deserved someone way better than a guy like me to hang around with.
Noah finished the last of his coffee and rinsed his mug in the sink before turning to me with a serious glint in his eyes. “Look, you’ll do what you want. You always do. But just don’t hurt that girl at the end of all this. She may have that bitchy exterior, but deep down, she’s just as insecure as the rest of us. And since you two are both some of my best friends, I don’t want to have to pick a side when Mom and Dad divorce.”
I grinned. “Since when did you become the prodigal son?”
“I’m just here until she kicks me out, and you two replace me with a deaf cat. But let me get through another wedding season first, okay? Lia Conti’s shindig is going to be huge in June, and after that, I’ll have enough for my own place.”
“I’d never kick you out. You’re the best roommate I’ve ever had, and that says a lot since my sister was before you, and I roomed with a former MMA fighter during one of my tours in Afghanistan.”
Noah laughed. “No wonder you got the girl. You know just how to flatter someone.”
I nodded and stared at the ring on my left hand. I couldn’t remember exactly where we picked it up, how it got there, or the wedding. But I knew I wouldn’t be taking it off anytime soon. Regardless if it was because I said I wanted the divorce and the ranch, or something more that I would not admit to even myself.
The thing that had me up all night and thinking of a pair of sad brown eyes and a future that they never left.
Chapter 12
Christy
“So, we got the dress. Now, it’s time for the ring,” Clay said as I followed him into the pawn shop.
Wrinkling my nose, I tried not to take in the awful body odor smell or the man with multiple chins and a face tattoo who eyed me from the counter.
Clay laughed. “Don’t look so scared to death. If you wanted Tiffany’s, you should have had your dad give me a raise before we came out here.”
Damn, how long did this high last? Everything around me was contorting in different waves and colors, and the only thing that grounded me in all this craziness was Clay’s arm around me, guiding me toward the glass case.
He’d always been my buoy in a storm, more times than I cared to admit it. When Teagan was a bitch at my birthday party, he was the one who kicked her out, and the first one to see if I was okay, even before Abbey.
I’d always thought in the back of my mind that maybe something more could happen between us, but I never let my imagination run away with it. And now that he was talking things like marriage—no matter how high he was—I would run with it. Or swim. Or whatever analogy my high brain could come up with.
The man behind the counter was going on and on and sounded like a cartoon in my head as he pulled out different rings that I knew would probably turn my finger green. Real gold and sterling silver, my ass. Those things were from a chain store in the mall where they also sold little girl hair bows.
Once the world finally focused, I put my hands on the glass, steadying myself. That was when I saw the platinum band staring back at me. “That one. That’s the one I want.”
The man and my Mohawked man stared at me, then the guy behind the counter pulled the ring out.
Clay laughed. “I think that’s a dude’s ring.”
I nodded, slowly taking it from the counter man who was still going on and on. The world might have been spinning, but I was sure of one thing. In the craziness of my life over the past year and even this night, Clay had been the constant. The one I could always count on never changing just because of who I was or who my parents were. He was my badass unicorn cowboy. When I sobered up, I knew I’d probably regret this, but right now, I would take the courage I mustered and use it.
“No. This is for you.” I held out the ring with a shaky hand. “Will you marry me, Clay? Walk me down to that chapel, and let’s become every Vegas cliché together.”
He grinned but shook his head. My face fell, and my heart sank.
Was this all just a big joke, and now he would laugh, and I’d never hear the end of my stupidity?
Just when I was about to run out the door and never look back, he smiled.
What the hell?
Then he motioned toward the sales guy for something behind the glass, and he handed him a white gold ring with a rainbow-colored gemstone that sparkled in the shop’s fluorescent lighting. “You can’t be the boss all the time. So Imma do the traditional proposing here.”
Slowly, he dropped to one knee, holding out the ring.
Everyone in the small, smelly pawn shop watched us.
This was my chance. I could have said no or just giggled and said I was high as a kite.
But instead, I did what I wanted to do. What my heart desired and beat rapidly at just the simple thought of.
I said yes.
Chapter 13
Clay
With it being the second week in December, everyone was having a Christmas party at the ranch. Every day and night was a different party for companies, book clubs, and large families. This gave me a lot of hours at work for extra money. Also, a lot of time to see Christy. And, of course, her parents...
Since I was busy manning the bar while Christy usually helped with decorating—well, or telling the decorators what to do—I didn’t get any time alone with her. Any time to discuss how the hell we were going to figure all this shit out.
Part of me, the big guilty part, kind of enjoyed not having to deal with the problem. But the other part missed seeing the girl and hanging out with her. Even though I didn’t want to admit that out loud.
I guess I could have messaged her to hang out, but by the time I walked out of the ranch at two a.m. most mornings and then was back by nine a.m., I didn’t want to do anything but pass the fuck out.
After only a week of wedded bliss, most people would be glowing. But not us. Well, maybe I would be if I could even get more than a glimpse of the brown-eyed girl directing some guys where to move the tables for the Baptist church bunco Christmas party.
One of the waitresses, Tina, came up to the bar where I was setting up because those bunco ladies loved their wine. “Hey, Clay, think it’s okay if I take off for like an hour?”
“Everything okay?” I asked, looking at the woman with her dark circles and pale face.
She sighed. “Yeah. I just want to be home when the delivery guy gets there with my kids’ Christmas gifts. Last time, he shoved it in the mailbox, and the post office made me pay to get my own box. Can you believe that shit?”
I shook my head. Not that I’d ever had that happen, but the woman had her hands full with working here whenever she could and raising two kids under five by herself. “Yeah. No problem.”
“Thanks.” She smiled sweetly. “How’s your shopping coming? The stores are crazy right now, and my kids want this damn robotic toy that I haven’t been able to find anywhere until someone told me
about this site today. I just hope it isn’t some fake one and I didn’t get ripped off again.”
I listened to her rambling but didn’t understand half of it. “Yeah ... haven’t really started my shopping. I figure I’ll run by the store on Christmas Eve and get some gift cards or something.”
Though that was exactly what I gave my sister shit for last year. Not saying I wasn’t sentimental but working all the time left few spare moments for anything else. Guess maybe I should look into online shopping.
Tina shook her head, her loose brown curls bouncing off her shoulders. “Nuh-uh. You can’t pull that.”
She then called over her shoulder, “Christy, c’mere, you need to help Clay with his Christmas shopping.”
The hair on the back of my neck stood, and I waved my hands wildly, hoping Christy didn’t see. “No. You don’t have to do that. It’s fine. I’ll online shop or something too. It’s what I do every year.”
But Tina wasn’t listening and put her arm around the wide-eyed Christy as soon as she approached the bar. “Christy, here, is the best at picking out gifts for people. She even helped me with what to pick up for not just my kids but my parents too. And all within a budget, believe it or not. We’re lucky to have her around for all these winter weddings to help the brides. Maybe soon she’ll be doing it for her own wedding if some of these boys get their heads out of their asses.”
Tina shot me a wink before she squeezed Christy’s side, then slowly walked toward where some bussers were hanging lights from the rafters.
“Well, that wasn’t awkward at all,” Christy muttered.
“Yeah, tell me about it.” I scratched the back of my neck that was now on fire. “But, you know, I do have off during the day tomorrow if you would maybe want to help me with my Christmas shopping.”
What the fuck? Why was I stuttering and getting nervous around this chick? We’d seen each other naked, and now we’re married. It wasn’t like this was all new.
