He Stood Me Up, so I Married His Brother novel · Chapter 1 of 24
Chapter 1: Number Twenty-Seven
On their 27th try at the marriage counter Crosby carries his stepsister out again, so Neely marries the clerk who called their number, his exiled brother Thatcher, and on the courthouse steps Crosby says she married the man who killed their father.
The red board over the counter flipped to 27, and Ivey grabbed her stomach.
It was our number.
It was the twenty-seventh time Crosby and I had taken a number at the county marriage office in our good clothes.
"Twenty-seven," the clerk called. "Faircloth and Ashwood."
The clerk was Thatcher Ashwood.
Crosby's older brother.
He'd worked that window for two years. He had called our number nineteen times.
He looked at me over his reading glasses.
I stood up in my white sundress.
Behind me, Ivey made a small, sharp sound.
"Crosby. My stomach."
She folded over in her chair, one hand on her belly, one on his sleeve.
Her phone was propped against her purse. The red dot was on.
Crosby was already on his knees.
"Where does it hurt? Ivey, look at me."
"It's nothing." She gave him a brave little smile. "It's your big day with Neely. Go."
"Don't be stupid. I'm taking you to the hospital."
"Crosby," I said.
He looked at me.
"Neel, she's white as a sheet."
She wasn't. She'd had her lashes done yesterday. I saw the post.
"We're at the counter," I said. "It's two signatures. Four minutes."
"Four minutes could be her appendix."
"It was her appendix in March."
Crosby scooped Ivey off the chair.
Her arm went around his neck. Her phone went with her.
"We'll come back after lunch," he said. "I promise."
He'd said that on number nine. And sixteen. And twenty-two.
The glass doors swung shut behind them.
The whole waiting room looked at me.
A grandmother in a church hat. A young soldier holding his girl's hand.
I walked to the counter anyway, because my legs needed something to do.
Thatcher had the no-show stamp in his hand.
He didn't use it.
"Neely," he said quietly. "I'm sorry."
"How many of mine did he show up for?"
He set the stamp down.
That was the answer.
My phone buzzed in my purse.
Ivey had posted a story.
Twelve minutes, and she was at the diner on Broughton Street with a stack of pancakes.
Crosby was cutting them into squares for her.
Pink letters ran across the bottom. "#27. He always comes."
Twenty-seven.
She was numbering them.
My cousin Tammy was running my crew on a roof on Abercorn in ninety-two degrees, short one, because I'd taken the morning off to get married.
I thought about twenty months of white dresses.
I put the phone face down on the counter.
"Mr. Ashwood," I said. "Are you married?"
The waiting room went quiet.
Thatcher took off his glasses. "No."
"Seeing anybody?"
"No."
"Do you think I'm crazy?"
"I think you've been very patient," he said. "That's not the same thing."
"Then marry me. Right now. Before he finishes his pancakes."
The grandmother in the church hat said, "Lord have mercy."
Thatcher looked at me for a long time.
He had his father's jaw, Crosby always said. Crosby said it like an insult.
I'd seen Thatcher at exactly one Thanksgiving in three years.
He carved the turkey, said almost nothing, and left before pie.
When the door shut, his stepmother Lorene said, "Good."
"You know what they say about me," he said.
"I've heard it."
"Do you want this? Or do you want to hurt him?"
It was an honest question, so I gave him an honest answer.
"I want to walk out of here married. I took the day off."
Something moved at the corner of his mouth.
He unclipped his county badge and laid it on the counter.
"I can't marry myself," he said, and turned to the next window. "Can you take one more?"
The other clerk was already pulling a fresh form.
He typed my name. Then his own.
His hands were steady. Mine weren't.
"Ring?" the other clerk asked.
I had one. It was Crosby's grandmother's. It was on my finger.
I took it off and put it in my purse.
Thatcher reached under the counter for a little glass dish of plastic gold rings.
"For people who forget," he said.
He tried two on me. The second one fit.
The ceremony room was two folding chairs and a dusty silk ficus.
The soldier and his girl were our witnesses. The grandmother came in anyway.
The other clerk read the words fast.
Thatcher said "I do" like he was signing for something heavy.
I said it.
"You may kiss the bride."
He didn't move.
"Is that all right?" he asked, low enough that only I heard.
"Yes."
He put one big hand along my jaw, slow.
His thumb was rough. He smelled like coffee and cedar.
He kissed me carefully.
Then I fisted his tie and pulled him down, and it stopped being careful.
His mouth opened against mine. His other hand found the small of my back and pressed me flat against him.
I felt his heart slam through his shirt.
I felt mine answer.
The grandmother started clapping.
When he pulled back, his eyes had gone dark, and he looked as shocked as I felt.
"Well," he said, hoarse.
"Well," I said.
We walked out through the waiting room, and the whole room clapped.
The soldier whistled.
Outside, the noon sun bounced off the courthouse steps.
Thatcher's hand was on my back. I liked it there more than I should have.
Halfway down, I stopped.
Crosby was coming up the steps with a to-go box in one hand and Ivey on his arm.
She was laughing. Her stomach was fine.
Crosby saw my face first. Then the plastic ring.
Then his brother's hand.
The box hit the steps.
"Neel," he said. "What did you do?"
"I got married," I said. "Number twenty-seven."
Ivey's phone came up.
People on the steps were stopping to watch.
Crosby didn't look at me again.
He looked at his brother, and he said it loud enough for every one of them to hear.
"You married the man who killed our father."
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