Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 82411 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 412(@200wpm)___ 330(@250wpm)___ 275(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82411 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 412(@200wpm)___ 330(@250wpm)___ 275(@300wpm)
“Married?” he asks, his voice low and full of disbelief.
“Married,” I confirm, watching him stare down at the band on his finger as if it’s a venomous cobra that will strike at him if he so much as twitches.
My history and the choices I’ve made have been the talk of our small town of Lindell for years. There’s rarely a day that goes by that I don’t hear a whisper of There’s Beth Too Much when I walk through the town square. My actual last name, well, before last night, was Moore. I was in elementary school when Beth Moore quickly transitioned into Beth Too Much. Once, a teacher even called that out to me in chastisement when I did something against the rules on the playground. It stung so much back then, knowing that even the adults in my life weren’t immune to my mocking. I spent the rest of recess crying in one of the huge concrete culverts the school had as inexpensive playground equipment.
You’d think that having everyone whisper about me when I showed my face would make me make better decisions, but what they didn’t understand, and what took me until I left for college and spoke with a therapist about it, was that I have cyclothymic disorder, a branch of bi-polar disorder. Although most days my symptoms are controlled by meds, there are still times when I make brash decisions without thinking them all the way through.
Judging by the look on this guy’s face, last night was clearly one of those times.
“Married,” he says again, the confidence he had when he approached me last night at The Hairy Frog nowhere to be found. “How is that even possible?”
I scan the area around the bed, wishing I had clothes on for this conversation.
“Do you want a play-by-play or the condensed version?”
His cheek twitches as if he almost smiled, but then realized this might not be a funny situation.
When he drags his eyes up to mine, I don’t miss how they linger on my body. The look in his eyes now is similar to the hunger that was in them when he walked up to me and fed me some ridiculous line about his club name Oracle and how he could predict our clothes mingling on my bedroom floor when the sun came up.
He wasn’t completely wrong, but we ended up in his hotel room rather than back at my house last night. When I look at his feet, I see my bra peeking out from under his t-shirt.
“I just want to know what happened.”
I roll my teeth between my lips to keep from smiling, but the way he just spoke would’ve made my grandpa proud. His tone was nearly identical to Joe Friday on Dragnet when he’d say Just the facts, ma’am.
“We got married.”
His eyes narrow further. “Listen…”
“Beth,” I remind him.
“Listen, Beth,” he repeats as he walks across the room and picks up his pants.
He remains silent as he drops the denim to his feet, unconcerned about his nudity, after he fishes out his phone.
The device makes a clicking noise as he unlocks it with his face, but he doesn’t speak as he types something in it.
I swear if he calls the cops, I might just cry.
I knew there was a chance this would go sideways. Hell, experience tells me there is no other way for it to go, but that didn’t stop me. He’s from out of town, and all I want to do is escape Lindell. I saw it as an opportunity. Yeah, I might’ve taken it a little too far, but I wasn’t alone in making that happen.
He turns his phone around to face me as if I can read the tiny print from all the way across the room.
I bite the corner of my lip rather than asking him if he’s an idiot. I don’t think I’d get very far if I insult the man.
I drop my eyes lower on his body as he does the same to me. Just as my nipples tighten, I see that he’s having a visceral reaction to me as well.
He clears his throat, coming to his senses faster than I can manage.
“This states,” he says before turning the phone back toward himself so he can read it verbatim, “there’s a seventy-two-hour waiting period after applying for a marriage license.”
“Unless it’s waived by a judge,” I explain.
“We met last night, Beth.”
I grin when he gets my name right.
“What judge would possibly be working that late?”
“The same one who married us and signed our marriage license.”
I angle my head in the direction of the paper lying on top of the dresser.
I should probably take this a little more seriously than I am, but this entire day is going to head south. I’ve learned to take the good with the bad, so being capable of not watching his muscular ass as he crosses the room to the license isn’t possible.