He Let Her Rip Our License, So I Married Another Man novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: The Torn Passport
At the license counter Cade lets Brooke shred his passport while his friends laugh, and Hallie phones the man she swore never to call. Benedict walks in four minutes later.
Brooke tore Cade's passport in half at the license counter.
Cade, who had carried my coffee in all morning, just said her name like it was a joke.
Then she took his birth certificate out of the folder and tore that too, slowly, so everyone in the waiting room could watch.
The four friends he had brought along to see us get married bent over laughing.
"Relax, Hallie," Brooke said, dropping the pieces on the counter. "It's only paper."
"Twenty dollars says she cries before five o'clock," said the tall friend.
"Make it forty," said the one in the green jacket. "She's already blinking."
Cade smiled at me and ruffled my hair.
"Brooke's right, babe. You hold on too tight. If we don't loosen you up now, what will you be like after the wedding?"
"Nobody becomes a Whitford just by signing a form," Brooke added.
The clerk behind the glass tapped the counter with her pen.
"Ma'am, I close applications at five. That's five minutes from now. Without his ID, this doesn't go through today."
Brooke's smile got wider.
"You heard her. Even if you start over, you can't do anything without a passport. Take him to the passport office on Monday."
I turned away from the counter.
Benedict Chatsworth's grandmother and my late grandfather had promised us to each other when we were babies, and I had sworn I would never call him.
I dialed the number anyway.
He answered on the first ring, and he said my name before I could.
"Hallie."
"Benedict, I'll do it," I said. "The arrangement our grandparents made. If you can be at the county office in five minutes, I'll marry you today."
There was a short silence on the line.
"Stay where you are," he said, and hung up.
I walked to the farthest row of the waiting area and sat down.
Cade found me there in under a minute and reached for my hand.
"Hallie, don't be like this. We'll do it Monday, or next week. Did you really have to make a scene in front of everyone?"
I pulled my hand back.
In three years I had never once answered him in front of his friends.
"You planned this," I said. "You let her tear up your documents right when we were about to sign, and I was the only one in the building who didn't know."
"I planned a joke. You're blaming me for a joke."
"Who gave my pitch drawings to a valet and let me tell my biggest client they were lost?"
The friends had stopped laughing.
"Who turned our anniversary dinner into a poker night and left me at the table with a candle until the restaurant stacked the chairs?"
"Hallie," Cade said.
I didn't stop.
"Last Thanksgiving, who sent me the wrong flight number?" I asked.
"I waited at arrivals from two in the afternoon until the terminal closed, and a cleaner finally told me the board had been wrong all day."
"Somebody had left a cup of tea on the seat beside me while I was in the restroom, and I never found out whose it was."
"I drank it anyway, because I was freezing."
Cade frowned.
"Everyone was joking," he said. "Do you keep a file on me or something?"
"I do now," I said.
"They cleared their Friday to be here for us," he said. "Can you not make it weird for them?"
I stood up.
"They cleared it for our wedding, or for the show?"
He shrugged, that lazy half smile coming back.
"Honestly? Both. You're cute when you cry."
Nobody in the room said anything.
Then the friend in the green jacket spoke up quickly.
"She's just intense, man. She called the florist three times this week."
"To confirm," I said.
"You can't make Cade the center of your whole universe," Brooke said. "It's exhausting for him."
I almost laughed.
For three years every cruel thing his friends did to me was followed by Cade holding me for hours, saying they didn't mean it, saying that teasing was how they showed they accepted me.
They hurt me, and he comforted me, and I had called that being loved.
Now I understood that the comfort was what kept me there.
I looked at every one of them.
"You get away with it because I let you," I said. "I'm done letting you."
Brooke stepped close and caught my sleeve.
"Hallie, I'm sorry, okay? I thought they were old expired papers. Cade promised we'd finish the paperwork today, so I played along."
I took her fingers off my sleeve.
"I heard you laughing when you did it, Brooke," I said. "I don't accept your apology."
Her face went tight.
My phone lit up on my knee.
It was a live location pin, a small blue dot moving along the street outside.
Under it, Benedict had typed: Three minutes out.
I walked back to the counter and sat down in front of the glass.
The friends saw I had not left, and the snickering started again.
"Told you," the tall friend said. "She can't leave him."
"She's sitting there waiting for Cade to come crawl to her," said the one in the green jacket.
Brooke raised her phone and pointed it at my face.
"Let's film this. Let's see how long it takes the future Mrs. Whitford to crack and apologize for her little stunt."
I kept my eyes on the clerk's clock.
Four fifty-eight.
The glass doors at the end of the hall opened, and the friend filming lowered his phone halfway.
"Wait," he said. "That's Benedict Chatsworth."
Cade turned around, and all the color left his face.
Benedict walked past all of them without looking at one, and stopped in front of me.
"You said five minutes," he said. "I'm early."
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