Page 19 of Love & Other Drunken Mistakes
“You are?” His surprise only lasts for a second before he exclaims, “That’s great! As soon as I sent those texts, I regretted them. I still wanted to meet you, to be friends, but I didn’t want the romantic feelings hanging over us like a storm cloud the whole time, waiting for the eventual downpour.”
“Friends.”
“Of course! I still love talking to you and—”
“You left me alone in an airport for over an hour and ignored my calls and messages until you gathered enough courage to dump me over text.”
There’s a long, drawn-out silence, and then he says, “Yeah, I guess I did. I didn’t know how to tell you I wasn’t ready to be who you wanted.”
The confession makes me pause. It sounds more sincere than any apology he’s given so far. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“I still don’t really know how to explain it, but I think we weren’t on the same page, and I didn’t want to waste your time.”
As if I didn’t waste my time on this trip.I pinch the bridge of my nose. “As I said, I’m busy. If you don’t have anything important to say, I’m hanging up.”
“Can you text me when you get home safe? Just so I know coming out here didn’t lead to your untimely death or something.”
It’s not really my problem if he works himself into a frenzy over scenarios of my imagined death. I inhale deeply, thinking of all the horrible things I could say about his behavior. Then I exhale, blowing them all away. “Yeah, I’ll text you.” I hang up before he can say anything else.
When I turn around, Alex is sitting on a stool at the bar, his back to me. The bartender is serving another customer at the other end of the counter. One of the soda cans is missing and Alex clutches the other in both hands.
“No luck, I presume,” I say as I sit next to him.
He shakes his head, then says, “Sorry, I drank your soda.”
I pointedly look at the one he’s still clutching.
He purses his lips. “I already drank from this one. It has my germs on it.”
My gaze drops to his mouth.That’s not much of a deterrent. Though having experienced the real thing, the idea of an indirect kiss pales in comparison. “It’s fine, you can have it.”
Alex sips his soda, working his way up to the question I know he wants to ask. “So, that was your ex?”
“Nick, yeah. He wanted to make sure I didn’t die in a fiery plane crash.”
Alex’s brow furrows in confusion. “Why would you—never mind.” He shakes his head as if he doesn’t care to slide down that particular spiral. “You’re braver than me, I guess, since I’m still ignoring mine.”
“Has she texted you again?”
“Yeah, asking when I’ll be available to talk. I haven’t replied yet.”
Since we’re in a bar, my first thought is to order a drink and vent about our various breakups, but we already did that last night. At some point, we have to do our healing sober. “Did the bartender say anything else?”
Alex scowls. “No. Even when I explained the whole scam angle, he said we need to file a police report and let them handle it.”
“We could,” I agree.
Alex groans and drops his head onto his hand. “It’s such a stupid thing to go to the police for. ‘Hey, we got drunk and now might or might not be married. Can you help usinvestigate and maybe get our money back?’” He shoots me a guilty look and corrects, “Well, your money.”
“I’m not sure they’d do much beyond taking our information and telling us they’ll ‘keep an eye out.’”
Alex mutters something under his breath, then chugs the rest of his soda like he’s slamming back a shot. “I don’t know what to fucking do at this point.”
“A legal license needs to be filed with the county.” At Alex’s surprised look, I explain, “It was part of the information included in the email they sent. So, our next step would be to stop by the County Clerk’s office this week. They might even have more information on the legality of online weddings.”
Alex perks up and pulls his phone out, typing something in quickly. “They open at seven-thirty tomorrow. We can stop by before I go to work and talk to them. On the off chance this isn’t a scam, maybe we can intercept the paperwork before it’s official.”
I grin at his sudden eagerness. All it took was a new plan to lift his spirits. “Should I meet you in the lobby at seven tomorrow?”
