They Sold Me for Five Million, So I Collected It Myself novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: The Clerk

Tamar marries Dane at the county clerk with plastic rings and four rules, and five million dollars lands in her account, until Roland sends a photo of her stolen notebook.

We didn't run.

I had decided on the stage steps that I would not run, so we walked down Main Street at the pace of two people going to buy milk.

Cleo came behind us in her dining-hall hairnet, saying "Oh my God" at intervals.

Behind her, half the quad had spilled onto the sidewalk with their phones out.

Dane Haverly kept his hands in the pocket of his hoodie.

He was a head taller than me and he walked on the street side, without comment.

"You can take it back," I said. "Now, before the courthouse. I won't hold it against you."

"I don't want to take it back."

"You don't know me."

"I know you take your coffee black and you chew your pen when a problem is going to come out," Dane said. "You've done it since September."

I stopped walking.

"That is a strange thing to know about a stranger."

"We have the same Statistics class," he said, and his ears went red. "It's a small room."

He had a scar through his left eyebrow, thin and old, and a way of looking at the ground when he lied.

I noticed that.

I noticed that he was lying, and that it was a small lie, and that I had no idea what it covered.

I let it go for now.

"Rules," I said.

"Okay."

"One. Twelve months, and then we both walk away, no claims." I said.

"Okay." Dane said.

"Two. No questions about the past until spring."

That one was for me.

I didn't want him asking where the money was going to go, or why I had stood on that stage and counted.

"Three. No lying."

He glanced at me.

"That's a hard one," he said, carefully.

"Four. Nobody else in the bed."

"That one's easy."

I looked at him.

"I'm only saying I'm not seeing anyone," Dane said. "It's easy for me."

Cleo made a strangled noise.

At the courthouse annex a clerk behind a glass window took our IDs and our fee and did not look up once.

Dane paid the fee with cash from his wallet before I could reach for mine.

"I have it," I said.

"You have two hundred and twelve dollars," Dane said.

I stared at him.

"I saw your debit card at the dining hall," he said. "Once. It was in your hand. I'm sorry. I can't help the numbers."

Cleo whispered, "He's a stalker, but a nice one."

"Shut up, Cleo."

"I'm your witness. I'm entitled."

We had no rings, and the magistrate wanted to know if we had rings.

Dane said, "Give me four minutes," and walked out of the building.

He came back with two plastic rings from the gumball machine in the diner next door, a silver one and a purple one, both sticky.

He held them out in his palm.

"They had a gold one," he said. "It was the wrong size. I got the one that matched the rules."

The magistrate said the rest in under three minutes.

Dane slid the silver ring onto my finger. It was too big.

I put the purple one on his smallest knuckle, and it stuck there.

"You may kiss the bride," the magistrate said, with the tone of a man who had said it two thousand times.

Dane looked at me.

He didn't move.

It was a question, and the whole room waited on my answer.

I turned my face a little, and he kissed my cheek, just beside my mouth, and held there one second too long.

I felt it all the way down my arm.

That was a problem I would think about later.

We ate pie at the diner afterward because Cleo said that was the law.

Dane ordered a slice of every pie they had and arranged them in a row in front of us.

I was halfway through a bite of apple when my phone buzzed on the table.

My credit union.

DEPOSIT RECEIVED, the screen said. $5,000,000.00. Source: Haverly Family Trust.

I put the fork down.

The diner went quiet in my ears.

For eighteen years I had been given an allowance in singles.

I had never held a number with that many zeros, even in my head, except as a variable.

"Tamar?" Cleo said. "You went gray."

"I'm going to be sick."

Dane pushed a glass of water across the table, and then a plate of crackers from the next booth.

Then, without a word, he took my hand under the table and held it flat, the plastic rings clicking together.

"Breathe," he said. "It's just a number."

"It's my number."

"Yes," he said, and for a second his voice shook. "It is."

I looked at him across the pies.

He looked at me for a long moment, and he did not look at the money at all.

I did not know why that scared me more than the money did.

My phone buzzed again.

Roland.

A photo, no words at first.

A page torn from a spiral notebook, covered in my handwriting.

Lines of proof, my margin notes, my crossed-out guesses.

At the bottom, in the corner where I always sign my work, three letters: A. J. W.

A second message loaded under it.

Found these in your old room. Dean's office would pay a lot to know who A. J. Wick really is. Funny how he writes just like you.

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