He Played Husband for Her Dare, So I Left Carrying His Baby novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The Chapel

Libby walks up the aisle, leaves her ring in the guestbook and her husband in front of sixty guests. Hank's truck pulls alongside.

The text from my doctor's office came at noon.

Your blood test is positive. Congratulations, Libby. Call us Monday to book your first visit.

I read it in Wren's kitchen, in my green dress, with my hand on the counter.

"Well?" Wren said.

I turned the phone around.

She put down the lipstick she was holding and said a word our mother would not have allowed.

At ten to four we parked behind Willow Creek Chapel.

It was a white clapboard building with a lawn full of folding chairs and a sign by the road that read Keepsake Weddings, Any Day.

Sixty people were already inside.

A screen in the lobby showed the empty altar, with a red dot in one corner and the word LIVE.

The officiant stood at the door in a gray cardigan, handing out programs.

"Is this a real marriage?" I asked her.

She looked at me kindly.

"Oh, no, sweetheart. Keepsake certificate only. The state never gets a copy."

"Thank you."

"Are you family of the bride or the groom?"

"The groom," I said.

Wren and I took the last row.

Everyone I knew from the Dare Night group sat up front in rented formal wear, and half of them held their phones up already.

Delia came down the aisle on a friend's arm in a vintage ivory dress, carrying white roses.

I looked at the roses and then I did not look at them again.

Owen waited at the altar in a suit that fit him perfectly.

Hank stood next to him in a suit that did not.

Hank's hands hung at his sides, big and brown from the yard, and his jaw was tight.

The officiant opened her book.

"We're gathered today for a day of fun," she said, and the room laughed.

Delia read her vows from her phone.

They were funny, and everybody loved them.

She promised to love Owen, honor him, and keep him away from the Scotch.

Then Owen said his.

"I, Owen, take you, Delia, for the next twenty-four hours."

He said it so easily.

He grinned at the camera in the first pew.

"Rings," said the officiant.

Owen reached into his pocket and took out a thin gold band.

Then he held his left hand up for the room to see.

His own wedding ring, the one I had put there, was already gone from his finger.

I had not seen it leave.

He had worn it to the club, and he had taken it off at some point before four o'clock today, and put it away.

He slid the new ring onto Delia.

Wren's hand closed on my wrist.

"You don't have to," she whispered.

"I know," I said.

I stood up.

My heels were loud on the old wooden floor.

The first person to turn was a woman in a yellow dress, and she nudged the man beside her.

Then the whole room turned together, with their phones still up.

I walked up the middle of the aisle, past the folding chairs, the white roses and the red dot of the camera.

Hank saw me when I was halfway.

He closed his eyes for one second.

Owen saw me when I reached the front row, and his smile went out.

"Libby."

"Hi," I said. "I got an invitation."

I took off my wedding ring.

It slid off easily.

There was an open guestbook on a stand at the end of the pew.

The last line read Mr. and Mrs. Fairchild, in Delia's careful hand.

I set the ring in the crease of the page.

Then I turned to face the room.

"Please keep filming," I said. "He told me he was playing golf."

A woman near the front gasped.

"Libby, it's a prank," Owen said, in a low, hurried voice. "Delia's dare. It was a joke. I was going to tell you tonight."

"Then it's a very good joke."

"Libby, honey." Delia came down the step with her bouquet in both hands, her eyes already wet. "This is my fault. Please, I never meant for you to find out like this."

She said it so warmly that three people in the second row said "aw."

"I know you didn't," I said.

I looked at her white roses.

Then I looked at my husband.

"Congratulations, Owen," I said. "Stay for the whole twenty-four hours."

I walked back down the aisle.

No one said a word, and I heard every one of my footsteps.

Outside, the afternoon was cold and bright.

I got as far as Wren's car before the chapel door banged open behind me.

"Libby!"

Owen came across the gravel in his good suit.

He didn't look remorseful.

He looked angry.

"You humiliated me in front of sixty people," he said.

"You married someone in front of sixty people."

"For a dare! For a dare, Libby, because it's Dare Night. You can't take a joke for one day?"

"You took your ring off first."

He had no answer for that, and he did not try for one.

He stepped in front of the car door and lowered his voice.

"Go home. Cry. Sleep it off. You'll be back by Monday."

He smiled a little, pleased with himself.

"You always come back, Libby. Where else would you go?"

An engine growled at the far end of the lot.

A dusty gray pickup rolled up and stopped across the gravel, its driver's door already open.

Hank got out, still in his bad suit, and looked straight at me.

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