My hands stilled on my belt buckle as my gaze jerked to her. “What?”
“It’s the only thing that explains this.”
I shook my head, finishing with my belt. “That doesn’t explain this. First of all, no one in their right mind would marry two people who were incoherently drunk.”
She arched a brow. “We’re in Las Vegas, Max.”
“Even so, there would have to be paperwork, right? A marriage license. A marriage certificate.”
I pulled the ring from my finger and tossed it on the pillow. Doing so made me feel like a jerk.
Amelia took my lead, pulling her ring from her finger. She leaned over to set it on the side table, stopping as she saw papers. She scooted closer to the side table and picked them up, studying them. “Oh, God.”
“What?” I rounded the bed, buttoning my shirt.
She held the papers up. “Marriage license and certificate.”
No fucking way. I snatched the papers out of her hand. I scanned them, but I was too out of sorts to decipher the words. All I could think was,so this was the joke. I looked at her, so disappointed. Sure, I didn’t see a future for us, but I’d really thought she was different.
“Is this some sort of joke?” I tossed the papers on the bed.
Amelia’s eyes flared with heat. She stood, gripping the sheet around her tighter. “You think I did this?”
“The proof is in the papers, sweetheart.”
Her mouth gaped, and she stared at me like I’d grown a horn, and then said angrily, “Your signature’s on there as well, slick.”
What?I reached over, picking up the papers again, looking at the signature line. For a moment, I stood, utterly confused. She was right. That was my signature, or at least what it would look like if I were drunk.
My anger lessened, and I sank down onto the bed. I was a party to this. I couldn’t figure out how, but it was clear that I’d been a part of what we’d done.
Now I needed to undo it. “We’ll be able to get this annulled.”
“Being drunk doesn’t constitute being incapacitated to get an annulment in Las Vegas.”
Annoyance flared as I again wondered if this was some sort of joke. “Sounds like you have experience with this.”
“This is Vegas, Max. I know about gambling and showgirls, but that doesn’t mean I gamble and dance.”
I set the paper on the bed and scraped my hand over my face again. She seemed to be as annoyed as me. I wasn’t helping by accusing her.
It was strange that being blackout drunk didn’t constitute grounds for annulment. It meant we couldn’t consent to the marriage. So what would constitute grounds for an annulment? Not being able to understand what I was signing would meet the requirements, right? God. That meant I’d need to tell Amelia and a judge about my reading challenges. I wasn’t ashamed, but still, I didn’t need people knowing my challenges.
In this case, I didn’t have a choice. “Not being able to read or understand what I was signing would be a reason to grant an annulment, wouldn’t it?”
“I suppose, but I don’t remember reading or signing it either, and I’m not so sure that being too drunk to read and sign will work.”
I turned to look at her, wishing I didn’t have to tell her this. “I have dyslexia. It’s often hard enough to read legal papers when I’m sober. I can’t imagine that I could do it drunk.”
She sat on the bed next to me.
It was then I remembered I had a flight to New York today. I looked at my watch. “Fuck. I don’t have a lot of time before I need to catch my flight.” Except I couldn’t leave now. I had to take care of this. “I guess I could take a later flight. I can move my schedule around.”
“I’m not sure how to go about this in the first place. Why don’t you let me research and get whatever paperwork we need, and once it’s together, I can let you know? Maybe we can do this long distance and you don’t need to return to Las Vegas.”
I hate how relieved I felt. It was cowardly and unfair to put this on her. “But if I do need to be here, I can come.”
I had never been one to wear my feelings on my sleeve. My brother was an open book when it came to feelings, even if he wasn't expressing them verbally. One look at him and I knew exactly what he was feeling. Perhaps he could do the same with me since we grew up together and were twins, but it wasn't because I was as open and expressive as he was. When it came to my feelings, I kept them to myself. A shrink could probably figure out why, but mostly, I just thought they were no one's business. Especially the bad ones where people might take pity on me. Or the ones that made me vulnerable, giving somebody access to a part of me they could break.