Chapter 139 (1/2)

“Don’t you think a fifteen-hour drive is long enough to think about it?” I joke, pulling the chairs away from the door.

Then Tessa truly shocks me by cocking her head and saying, “Yeah, I guess so.”

Epilogue

HARDIN

The drive to Vegas was a daunting one. The first two hours were spent creating fantasy scenarios about the perfect Vegas wedding. Tessa played with the ends of her curled hair, glancing over at me with flushed cheeks and a happiness in her smile that I haven’t seen in so long.

“I wonder how easy it is, in reality, to be married in Vegas. Last minute. Ross and Rachel style,” she questioned, her face buried into her phone.

“You’re googling it. Aren’t you?” I asked her. I moved my hand to her lap and cracked the window of my rental car.

Somewhere outside Boise, Idaho, we stopped for food and more gas. Tessa was getting sleepy, her head leaning forward and her eyes soft and heavy. I pulled into the crowded truck stop and gently shook Tessa by her shoulder to wake her.

“Vegas already?” she joked, knowing we were barely halfway there.

We got out of the car, and I followed her to the bathroom. I always liked these types of gas stations; they were well-lit and had full parking lots. Less chance of being murdered and whatnot.

When I came out of the bathroom, Tessa was standing in one of the many snack aisles. Her arms were already full of junk: bags of crisps and chocolates and too many energy drinks for her small hands to hold.

I stood back for a moment, just staring at the woman in front of me. The woman that would be my wife in just a few hours. My wife. After all we have been through, after fighting back and forth over a marriage that, honestly, neither of us thought would actually happen, we were on our way to Vegas to make it legal in a small chapel. At twenty-three, I would become someone’s husband—Tessa’s husband—and I couldn’t imagine anything that could possibly make me happier.

Even being the bastard I was, I was getting a happy ending with her. She would be smiling at me, her eyes full of tears, and I would be making some stupid remark about an Elvis lookalike walking by during our wedding.

“Look at all this stuff, Hardin.” Tessa used her elbow to point at the enormous number of random snacks. She was dressed in those pants—yeah, you know the ones. Those yoga pants and an NYU zip-up sweatshirt were what she was wearing on the way to her wedding. She was planning on changing when we arrived at whatever hotel we were going to check into, though. She wouldn’t be wearing a wedding gown, the way I had always imagined in my head.

“You’re okay with not wearing a wedding dress?” I blurted out.

Her eyes went a little wide, and she smiled, shook her head, and said, “Where did that come from?”

“I was just wondering. I was thinking about how you won’t be able to have, like, the wedding that women are always obsessing over. You won’t have flowers or anything.”