I stare at the door until I hear another knock. Then I have to question why I’m upset when it’s only room service bringing the food my sister ordered rather than Nate.
Chapter 12
Apollo
“Did she say she was coming?” I ask Cara for probably the hundredth time since she came back to the clubhouse yesterday afternoon.
Thumper pulls her in to his side. She doesn’t answer. I hate the pity in her eyes, but at least she isn’t glaring at me. I still can’t determine if she’s hoping her sister arrives or stays away.
My hands clench, the folder the marriage license is in crinkling, and I make an effort not to mess it up. But wouldn’t it be fitting to hand the officiant a less-than-perfect license, considering just how less than perfect this entire situation is?
“Someone should have gone to pick her up,” I mutter. “I hate this part of town.”
There’s no real danger in this area, but it’s not exactly the safest either.
“She knows that an Uber is scheduled to pick her up if she wants to come,” Thumper explains.
“We need to go inside or they’re going to skip over us,” Cara tells Thumper, not me.
She can hardly look at me this morning, and it makes me wonder about what exactly she and April talked about yesterday.
Begrudgingly, I follow Cara and Thumper into the magistrate’s office, my eyes darting back to the parking lot in hopes of seeing a car pull up. One doesn’t before I enter the building.
Time ticks by, seconds feeling like hours but somehow also speeding past us.
“Fosse?” a woman who sticks her head out of an office door asks.
“Yes, ma’am?” I stand to greet her.
“Are you ready?”
Panicked, I look toward Thumper for help.
“May we have a few more minutes? We’re just waiting for the bride,” he says smoothly, as if I’m not about to be left standing at the altar.
I mean, can I even say that if there’s no relationship prior or not even an altar?
“Just a few,” she says with a deep sigh like people miss their marriage appointments all the time. “We have other things going on today that we can’t delay.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Thumper says, casting her a wide thankful smile.
The woman blushes, and Cara scoffs, smacking him in the chest when she disappears into her office once more. “You need to quit. You’re gonna give that woman a heart attack.”
My lips turn down in a scowl. He just did more with that woman than I did the night I went to break things off with Nova—a courtesy really because we weren’t even in a relationship—and yet I’m standing here, seconds from getting jilted and she’s tucked into his side with a soft smile on her face.
Doesn’t really seem fair.
“Here she comes,” Cara says, more than a little shock in her voice as the door to the building opens.
April, in a cute summer dress with a floral print, smiles softly at her sister when she enters, and it becomes very obvious that she’s avoiding looking at me.
Thumper steps away from Cara, knocking on the door to the office and telling the woman that everyone is ready. The woman instructs us into a small courtroom, telling us that the magistrate will be there shortly. She wasn’t lying because he’s entering from another door the second we walk toward the front.
He looks at his watch before giving us a tight smile. “Do you have your license?”
I hand him the crinkled folder, but he doesn’t bat an eye at the condition of it.
“Stand right up here, you two.”
“Umm,” Cara says with a shy smile. “Not us. Them.”
I move into position and April does as well. She watches the man fixing to perform the ceremony rather than looking at me, and I feel crazy going through this, being minutes away from marrying a woman who won’t even look me in the eyes.
But I do.
I stand before a San Juan County official and promise a woman who focuses on her hands while we get married that I’ll love and cherish her for the rest of my life. When she repeats the vows to me, she focuses on a spot over my shoulder.
We’re pronounced man and wife, and when I lean in to kiss her, I meet the flushed skin of her cheek rather than her lips.
Thankfully, the officiant isn’t paying enough attention to notice. He turns around, completes his part of the marriage license and keeps a grip on it when I go to reach for it.
“My office takes these to the clerk’s office weekly. Would you like me to submit it for you?”
A quick look at April, noticing her still focused on her hands, makes me shake my head.
“We wanted to do it together,” I lie because honestly I’m feeling like there’s a good chance we’re going to walk out of here and she’s going to tell me she made a mistake. I don’t want her trapped in a marriage to me if she changes her mind.