Bet on Love

by A. F. Zoelle

  “That makes two of us.”

  The sound of his gravelly morning voice went straight to my dick. I didn’t have the wherewithal to control that part of me when an army of assholes with knives on their boots tap-danced in my brain. It got worse when Luci's fingers absentmindedly caressed me, arousing me and drawing attention to the fact that I was naked—that we were both naked. Everything hurt too much to think about why.

  “Fuck, the rehearsal,” he reminded me.

  I knew I wasn’t late for it, because Olivia would have been pounding on the door and reaming me a new asshole if I was. With monumental effort, I brought my left hand up to rub my eye, grimacing when I felt an unfamiliar sensation of metal against my skin. What the hell?

  It was weird enough to get me to open my eyes again, squinting as the sun assaulted me for my stupidity. I furrowed my eyebrows in confusion when I saw I had on my wedding ring, a black tungsten band with a rose-gold groove in the center. When the hell had I put it on—and more importantly, why?

  An image flashed through my mind of Luci sliding the wedding band onto my finger, which sent a jolt of adrenaline through me. It gave me the burst of energy I needed, but it was like moving through quicksand as I struggled to sit up. The wave of nausea that crashed into me made me press the heel of my palms against my eyes until it passed. I waited until I was certain I wouldn’t throw up before I lowered my hands.

  I got flustered by the sight of the sheets dipping low on Luci’s hips, his dark hair falling in front of his handsome face. It was a rare treat for me to see him without his glasses on, but it really wasn’t the right time to appreciate that my best friend was attractive.

  When he rubbed his eyes, my stomach lurched at the sight of Olivia's wedding ring of two alternating rows of round and baguette diamonds on his ring finger. He had always hated how feminine his long, slim fingers were, and being nearly the same size as Olivia’s annoyed him almost as much as she resented it. I secretly thought his hands were beautifully elegant like a pianist’s, but the presence of my fiancée’s ring set off my rising panic. “What’s the last thing you remember?”

  His bleary gaze focused on me with an effort. “Wait, why are you naked?”

  “Why are you naked?” Another surge of foreboding flooded through me as a memory of Luci's hands running down my bare spine to cup my ass flickered in my mind. “Lucien, what the fuck did we do last night?” I had progressed to freaking out, because I only used his full name when I was scared or serious.

  Eyebrows drawing together in thought, he answered in a questioning tone, “We were celebrating your marriage?”

  I was unprepared for being blindsided by remembering kissing Luci at the altar. To stop everything from spinning out, I pressed my palm my forehead to steady myself. “Please tell me we didn’t do what I think we did.”

  His blue eyes were full of confusion as he looked at my wedding band, then lifted his hand to see he was wearing Olivia’s. He squinted at it before fumbling for his glasses on the nightstand. After a long look, his voice trembled when he said, “I don’t think I can.”

  “This can’t be happening.” I tried not to hyperventilate as scenes from our drunken night replayed in broken fragments. Us laughing as we filled out paperwork at the chapel, exchanging our rings, our passionate kiss in the presence of the Elvis impersonator minister. Then, us making out in the limo on the ride back to the hotel, popping a bottle of champagne, our clothes coming off as we fooled around until we lost our nerve and passed out from being too drunk. “Holy shit, Olivia is going to kill us both. God, we’re so fucked.”

  “No, because if we only had a ceremony in a chapel, we’re not legally married,” Luci pointed out. “To make it official, we would have needed—”

  “A marriage license.”

  We stared at each other in horror. Everything moved in slow motion as I remembered standing in the marriage license office, complaining that there shouldn’t be a line that late at night on a Thursday. Desperate for some kind of evidence to the contrary, I scrambled for my phone to check for any clues.

  The world went sideways when I saw an email from the Clark County Clerk’s Office confirming our online marriage license pre-application submission. A receipt from the Grand Chapel of Graceland was next. I had irrefutable proof that we had purchased the VIP wedding package, including the ceremony, rental tuxedos, flowers, photographs, and round-trip transportation to the Marriage License Bureau, then back to our hotel. No matter how many times I read that we could pick up the souvenir copy of our marriage certificate and photographs later, it didn’t make sense. How could my best friend now legally be my husband?

  Dropping my phone, I doubled over with my head in my hands. “Fuck, I’m going to be sick.”

  I officially had the hangover from hell.

  It had to be a joke, right? We couldn’t really be that stupid, could we?

  Unfortunately, between wearing Olivia's wedding ring and my hangover, I had ample evidence to the contrary. Shit, I was way too hungover to deal with any level of crisis. Even though I wanted to pull the covers over my head and pretend none of this was happening, I sat up to deal with our massive fuckup. My vision swam, the room spinning a little from my residual buzz.

  Once it passed, I picked up Rhys's phone to see what had caused him to react that way. It took some effort to make my eyes focus on the words, but nothing could have prepared me for seeing a visual confirmation about our accidental nuptials. My disbelief was at war with the fear bubbling up inside of me.

  I protested, “This is just a bill for the ceremony. It’s not legally binding if—”

  Without looking at me, Rhys miserably said, “The next email is our marriage license pre-application confirmation from the County Clerk’s Office.”

  That tore the last shred of hope from me. “Shit.”

  We fell silent as we realized the enormity of our situation. I closed my eyes, trying to remember the previous night. We had been joking about Rhys getting married in one of those quickie marriage chapels, laughing as we drank and looked online at the craziest ones in Vegas. It had seemed like a hilarious idea at the time when he suggested we go check it out in person.

  The walk over sobered us up as Rhys confessed that he was only marrying Olivia because it was what he felt like he should do after being with her for so long. It intensified my selfish hope he would call off the wedding, that maybe I wouldn’t lose him to her. Thus, when he announced to the chapel receptionist that we were there to get married, I had played along out of curiosity.

  Left alone to fill out our paperwork, I had asked him how far he was planning on taking the joke. I never expected to hear him say, “If I’m spending the rest of my life with only one person, I want it to be you, Luci. Marry me.”

  The word “no” hadn’t even crossed my mind.

  After filling out applications, they drove us to the Marriage License Bureau. Just like we had talked about at the hotel, Rhys sauntered down the aisle to an Elvis impersonator singing “Burning Love.” It had seemed like a funny joke, but the magnitude of the moment had hit me as we exchanged rings. Our first kiss as husbands awoke something within me that had been slumbering since that night when we were awkward teenagers experimenting with each other.

  After that, it was like a dam had burst inside us both. We made out in the limo, making up for all the years we hadn’t kissed. I recalled celebrating with champagne in our room, giving us the boldness to strip each other in between nervous laughs, but we ended up losing our nerve in the face of being drunk off our asses. There was a conflicting sense of relief and disappointment that we hadn’t been intimate with each other. That’s when the reality hit me all over again that holy shit, we’re legally husbands.

  “What the fuck am I supposed to do?” Rhys demanded, a note of hysteria in his voice. “Can’t we get this annulled or something?”

  The question hurt, even though it shouldn’t have. “Probably, but I don’t know how long that takes.”


  “If we got the marriage license in under an hour, how hard can it be to undo it? We can just say we were drunk.”

  “Except we were pretty much sober by that point,” I pointed out. “We didn’t get wasted until we came back to the hotel afterward.” I sure as hell was never drinking champagne again.

  He waved away the concern. “The court won’t know that.” He picked up his phone and started researching our options, but it didn’t take long before the color drained from his face. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”

  “What?”

  “It can take up to three weeks for them to grant an annulment,” Rhys answered, looking up at me with a frightened expression. “The ‘we were a little drunk and made a mistake’ defense isn’t a solid legal ground for one.”

  “That can’t be right.”

  “This site says you have to present witnesses to show you didn’t have a clue about what you were doing. Plus, a chapel can’t let you get married if you’re too drunk to consent. What are we going to do, Lucien? Tell me what we have to do!”

  I knew things were bad when he called me by my full name. He had a tendency to panic, so I was used to staying calm for the both of us. “Look, we’ll figure something out.”

  “By tomorrow?” His voice cracked in his fear. “Did you not hear the part where I said an annulment takes up to three weeks to process?”

  “If it’s up to three weeks, it could also take less time than that,” I pointed out, trying to find a way to alleviate his anxiety.

  “Even one week is still too long,” he argued.

  He was right, but his words made me realize something that would only make the problem worse. “Oh, fucking hell.”

  “What?”

  I gestured between us as I explained, “Regardless of how we feel about it, in the eyes of the law, we’re legally married. That means if you go through with the wedding and marry Olivia tomorrow, you’d void your marriage with her since you’re really married to me. You’d also be committing bigamy, which is illegal, and they can arrest you for it.”

  Rhys threw himself facedown with a frustrated noise. “What do I tell Olivia? Her family? My family? Your family? God, how did I fuck this up so much? Shit, shit, shit!”

  “This isn’t all on you.” I paused midair when I reached out to comfort him like I normally would. Under the circumstances, it didn’t seem wise. Neither was marrying him, my brain oh-so-helpfully reminded me far too late.

  “Yeah, but it was my idea.” He groaned into the sheets.

  “That I agreed to.”

  He faced me once again. “Why did you?”

  Before I could answer, Rhys's phone rang. We both swore when Olivia's name popped up on the display.

  “Fuck, what do I do?” His eyes begged me to help him. “Tell me what to do!”

  “Answer it. If you don’t, she’ll come in here. We have enough problems right now without that.”

  Rhys grumbled, before he accepted the call on speakerphone with a gruff, “Hey, babe.”

  “Wow, you’re actually awake?” Olivia asked in sarcastic amazement. Her tone set me on edge. “I’m impressed. I assumed I would have to drag you out of bed for breakfast.”

  “No, I’m up,” Rhys told her, “but I still need to get ready.”

  “Well, hurry it the fuck up, because breakfast is at eight thirty,” Olivia ordered, causing me to cringe. I hated how she always bossed him around like that. “You better not embarrass me, Leopold.” I also couldn’t stand the fact that she called Rhys by his legal name which he hated. It was beyond me why he tolerated that.

  We shared a guilty look. “I’m hopping in the shower now. I’ll see you downstairs.”

  “Fine,” Olivia replied in a clipped tone, abruptly hanging up.

  Even after being together for over three years and one day away from being his wife, Olivia never ended a call with “I love you.” It bothered me now more than ever.

  He tossed his phone aside in disgust before hiding his face again with a sob. “I can’t do this!”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  He sarcastically shot back, “Yeah, because that will go over really well when you show up wearing Olivia's wedding ring.”

  “I can take it off.” When I attempted to, I discovered that I couldn’t remove it. I sat up to try again, but no matter how hard I pulled or twisted it, the ring wouldn’t go over my knuckle. “Shit, it’s stuck.”

  “Of course it is.”

  “No, I’m serious,” I told him, the strain clear in my voice as I continued struggling to force off the band. I was close to Olivia’s ring size, but apparently not close enough. It refused to budge. I didn’t have the luxury of time to be amused by the fact that for the first time in my life, I wished my fingers were slimmer. “Damn, how did you even get this thing on me?”

  “Here, let me try.”

  I held my hand out to him, having déjà vu from when he had slid the ring on my finger last night. That faded fast when he yanked on it. I gritted my teeth against the pain, but after a fierce tug, I swore, “Ow, shit! That really hurts.”

  “Sorry,” Rhys reflexively apologized, not letting go yet.

  “It’s okay.”

  He brushed his thumb against the back of my knuckles, sending a shiver through me. The corner of his mouth turned up into a slight smirk. “I guess it’s a good thing it suits you, because that thing’s not coming off.”

  “It’s kind of flashy for my tastes,” I joked, relieved that Rhys's panic had subsided.

  He chuckled at my comment. “What are you talking about? You picked it out, remember?”

  Rhys hadn’t had the first clue what kind of jewelry to buy, so I had helped him pick out rings for him and Olivia. The diamond band with the two rows of alternating round and baguette stones had caught my eye. It was by far the shiniest ring in the store, which I had assumed Olivia would appreciate. When Rhys had made me try it on in the store, I never in a million years expected I’d be wearing it someday for real.

  My lips quirked into a grin. “I guess we shouldn’t have made fun of the jeweler for initially assuming we were the ones getting married, huh?”

  “Looks like Cathy got the last laugh,” Rhys replied. “Well, on the bright side, at least I had the good sense to elope with you. I’d be on the bridge if I had married Ambrose.”

  While Ambrose was a close friend of ours and one of Rhys’s groomsmen, he was an unrepentant womanizer. His charming Irish accent and handsome face had broken countless hearts. “See? It could always be worse.”

  “I’m not sure this is the right occasion for optimism,” he said, but a smile tugged at his lips.

  “Are you going to be okay?”

  Rhys didn’t answer me as he continued studying my hand. He toyed with the ring but made no further attempts at removing it. When he looked up at me, there was a storm of worries in his eyes. “As long as we’re okay.”

  “We’re still good,” I promised. “Whatever you need to do, you know I’m there for you.”

  “Thank god.” He sighed in relief. “I don’t know what I would have done if I had fucked up my engagement and our friendship in the same night.”

  “No matter what, you’re always my best friend.”

  Rhys added in bemusement, “And your husband. How weird is that?”

  “Super weird, but we should get ready before Olivia comes barging in on us naked in bed together. That would be way harder to explain.”

  He grimaced. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry that I drug you into this mess.”

  I’m not, I realized with a start. It was a thought I was too overwhelmed to comprehend. Instead of reflecting on it, I tried to cheer up Rhys. “I’m sure we’ll look back on this someday and laugh.”

  “Provided Olivia doesn’t murder us at breakfast first.” He started to move toward the edge of the bed but paused.

  When he glanced back at me with a consternated expression, I realized his dilemma. “You’re embarrassed about me seeing you naked, ar
en’t you?” I laughed. “Why? This isn’t the first time I’ve seen you like this.”

  “It’s different now,” Rhys protested.

  “Yeah, now it’s legally sanctioned.” That fact equally amused and bewildered me.

  “For now.” His words once again cut me deep without meaning to. He was unsteady on his feet as he stood up, but he staggered to the bathroom with a pained groan.

  I was a horrible person for checking out him out, and I got my comeuppance for the mistake when he smirked over his shoulder. My cheeks were flame red as he joked, “I can’t say I’m surprised. You’ve always been an ass man.”

  “Sorry,” I mumbled, feeling like an asshole for appreciating the view. In my defense, an ass was an ass, regardless if it was a man or a woman. And Rhys certainly had a nice one.

  “I’ll take the compliment.” He disappeared into the bathroom.

  I took off my glasses and flopped onto my back. With a heavy sigh, I slung my arm over my eyes to block out the light that was still much too bright for a hangover. How had everything become such a mess?

  As tempting as it was to lie there and try to figure out what we could do about this crazy problem, I had to get dressed. Sorting out my feelings for Rhys would have to wait until later.

  True to his word, Luci stayed with me so we could address Olivia together. As we rode the elevator down to breakfast, I checked my reflection in the mirrored walls. Despite feeling like shit, I looked halfway decent in my jeans and black sweater. I chose a dark color in case Olivia threw her Bloody Mary at me in a fit of rage over my announcement.

  I glanced over at Luci, amazed at how refreshed he appeared considering he was as hungover as me. His button-down maroon shirt with light acid-washed jeans flattered his athletic build. His muscles had always seemed at odds with his nerdy square glasses and gentle spirit. He didn’t appear like someone who had spent the night drunk off his ass making bad decisions. With his thumbs tucked into his front pockets, Olivia’s wedding band sent cascades of sparkles against the walls.