His Ex Wore My Ring, So I Married His Rival Instead novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Four Thirty

Dolores demands Leah come back and pay for the wedding, Leah sets terms with Bruce in his truck, and a judge marries them at the courthouse, until Travis's car pulls in.

"No," I said.

Bruce nodded. "Okay."

"I don't even know you."

"That's fair."

"You think I'd marry a man on a church sidewalk because he asked nicely?"

"I didn't ask nicely," Bruce said. "I asked fast. It's twenty past one."

The church doors banged open behind him.

Dolores Landry came down the steps in her navy suit with her pearls straight and her chin up.

She did not look at Bruce. She looked at the ring in my fist.

"Leah. Come back inside. Whitney will give you an apology and we will start over in ten minutes."

"Start over."

"Two hundred people are sitting in that church."

She said it flatly.

"The venue alone was thirty-eight thousand dollars. You owe this family a wedding."

"I owe you nothing."

"You owe me thirty-eight thousand dollars," Dolores said, "and you will walk back in and earn it."

Travis came out behind her, jaw tight, one hand loosening his tie.

He didn't look at his mother. He didn't look at me. He looked at Bruce.

"Of course he's here," Travis said. "Of course."

He turned to me.

"Leah, listen. Bruce doesn't want you. He wants to use you to get at me."

I turned and looked at Bruce.

"Is that true?"

He took his hands out of his pockets.

"Yes," he said. "I want him to watch."

He held my eyes.

"That's all I'm asking you for. I won't pretend it's anything else."

It was the first honest thing anyone had said to me all day.

Travis laughed, short and sharp. "You see?"

"I see two men who want something from me," I said. "One of them told me what it was."

I held up my grandmother's ring so that Travis could see it.

"Mr. Garrison, where's your car?"

"The black truck."

"Then let's go."

Behind us, Dolores said my name.

Then she said it again, louder, as guests drifted onto the steps to film.

I did not turn around.

Bruce's truck smelled like coffee and dog.

There were beige hairs on the passenger seat.

He brushed them off with his hand before I sat down in my wedding dress.

"Biscuit," he said. "She's a beagle. She's nine."

"Does Biscuit know about this?"

"Biscuit is going to love you."

He pulled out of the lot while I gathered a mile of tulle into my lap.

"Terms," I said. "Out loud, now, before I lose my nerve."

"Go ahead."

"One year. Then we divorce, quietly."

"Yes."

"Separate bedrooms."

"Yes."

"Nobody touches anybody unless someone's watching."

His eyes flicked to me and back to the road. "Yes."

"No questions about the past. Mine or yours."

"Done."

"I keep my job and I keep my name."

"Of course you do."

I turned the ring over in my fingers.

"And at the end of the year," I said, "Travis and Whitney stand in front of everyone who saw this morning."

I held on to the door handle.

"They look at me, and I say what I want to say."

"I'll help you write it."

"I don't need help writing it."

The corner of his mouth lifted, and I saw the chipped tooth. "Then I'll hold your coat."

It took us forty minutes to get a marriage license.

The clerk behind the counter was a woman in her fifties with a cardigan.

She looked at my dress for a long moment.

"You've done this before?" she asked Bruce.

"Never."

"You?" she asked me.

"Not today. Not yet."

She typed. She printed. She slid the form across and tapped the line where we signed.

"The judge does ceremonies at four," she said. "She's got a gap."

"We'll take it."

At ten past four we stood in a small oak-paneled room with a flag in the corner.

The judge had a cold.

She asked if we had a ring.

I had one in my hand.

I put my grandmother's ring on the third finger of my right hand, where it fit worse than it had on my left.

Bruce looked at it and didn't say anything.

"I'll get you one," he said quietly. "A real one. That's mine to give."

"Don't spend money on a prop."

"It won't be a prop."

I heard that, and I didn't ask what he meant.

The judge read the words. I said mine. He said his.

His voice was steadier than mine.

"You may kiss your bride," the judge said, and sneezed into her sleeve.

"Photo for the file," the clerk added from the doorway, holding up her phone.

Bruce turned to me.

"Only if someone's watching," I said. "That's the rule."

"Someone's watching."

He put one hand on my jaw, very lightly, and waited.

I stood on my toes.

It was meant to be a kiss for a camera.

His mouth was warm, and he kissed me slowly and did not hurry.

My hand closed on the front of his jacket.

I heard myself make a small sound.

When he lifted his head, neither of us was smiling.

"That was for the file," Bruce said. His voice was rougher.

"I know," I said, and did not let go of his jacket.

The clerk had stopped filming. She was fanning herself with the form.

We signed the register.

We walked out through the glass doors into the late light, my train over his arm.

A silver Mercedes swung into the courthouse lot too fast and stopped across two spaces.

Travis got out, and he was not alone.

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