My brows pulled together. “Like what?”
“Anything they want. How quickly did you have sex for the first time? How many siblings do you each have? What was the proposal like? Your answers need to be in sync, or you’ll be referred for a fraud interview. Like I told you the other day, the penalty for attempting to defraud the government by marrying someone for immigration status is up to five years in prison and a two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar fine.”
Maya’s attorney spoke up. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. These two have a four-year-old child together. This isn’t a mail-order-bride situation.”
I was about to say it was worse, I was being fucking blackmailed. But I stopped myself, knowing my attorney had some scruples. Instead, I swallowed the information. Besides, we hadn’t done anything illegal yet anyway, so there was still time for me to pull out. After another half hour, I told my attorney I’d be in touch if and when we wanted to file an application for citizenship. But I still had a few questions about things I could do to protect myself before entering into a marriage, and I didn’t want to ask those in front of Maya. So I told her and her attorney I needed a few minutes alone with my lawyer. Maya said she’d wait outside for me.
I really wished she would have just left—today had been draining enough—but of course she didn’t. She and the shyster attorney were waiting outside on the street when I walked out of the building.
“Are we all set?” she asked.
“I don’t know if we could even pull this off. We don’t know anything about each other. How the hell can we pass an interview with intrusive questions like my attorney mentioned?”
“There are businesses that will prep you,” Xavier said. “I’ll give Maya a few numbers she can call.”
“Prep you? What does that mean?”
“Immigration interview preparation services. They maintain a database of commonly asked interview questions. You both answer them and swap answers, so you can memorize how you’ll need to respond. A few are even pretty high-tech these days and can be done right online.”
I frowned and shook my head. “People make a living off helping other people defraud the government. Great. God bless America.”
“Think of it as test prep, Colby,” Xavier said. “When you want to be a lawyer, you take a Kaplan review course and study practice questions from previous bar exams. It doesn’t mean you still can’t fail, but the more you practice, the more likely it is that you’ll be well prepared and there won’t be any surprises.”
The entire thing was gross, but what choice did I have? I shook my head. “Whatever. Fine.”
Maya’s shoulders relaxed. “Okay, good. Now that we have things squared away, why don’t we meet Monday morning?”
“For what?”
“To get our marriage license, of course. Then we can have the ceremony Tuesday.”
CHAPTER 22
Billie
Tick-tock. Tick-tock.
I checked my phone for the hundredth time on Tuesday morning. Apparently, I was counting down the minutes until the hour of doom.
Colby’s sham ceremony was scheduled for just before 4 PM this afternoon. Five hours left until my boyfriend would marry someone else. I knew it wasn’t as simple as that—it wasn’t a “real” wedding—but it still hurt like a motherfucker. As much as I hated that it had come to this, I was happy he’d decided to bite the bullet. This meant one step closer to the nightmare being over.
Saylor.
Saylor.
Saylor.
This is all for Saylor, I reminded myself.
I kept trying to dive into work today because I had no choice. But my brain and hands just couldn’t communicate with one another. I’d had one other bad workday like this—right after Maya showed up. But today took the cake. And to make matters worse, I was fully booked, so I’d have multiple opportunities to fuck something up.
Deek had been watching me crash and burn all morning: dropping tools, forgetting where things were, asking a client to repeat the details of the ink they wanted more than once. The only thing I hadn’t done was screw up a design. That was one thing I’d never done, and I didn’t want to start today.
After my second client left, Deek went to the front of the shop, changed the sign on the door from open to closed, and pulled down the shades on the windows.
“What the hell are you doing?”
“I’m shutting us down for the day,” he explained.
“Why?”
“You’re not in your right mind. I’ve got Justine calling all of the remaining clients to reschedule.”
I looked over at Justine, who had the phone to her ear. She waved at me. This felt like an ambush.
“Clients are counting on me.” I looked around frantically. “You can’t just make that call to close down. This is my shop!”
“What are you gonna do? Fire me?” He laughed as he walked over to the door. “Come on, butterfingers. Let’s get out of here.”