Page 54 of Dial F for Finance

David comes down the hall in a sweater with the sleeves pushed up, and there must be something in my face that makes him look up and frown. “Is this about the mysterious paperwork you called me about?” he asks, his voice low and lawyerly.

I hold up the folder. “It is. I’m going to need you to look at this.”

Nora pours two mugs of coffee and sloshes a modest glug of whiskey into mine. She sets them in front of us and doesn’t let go of mine right away. “That’s all I’m giving you at this time of the morning, Casanova.”

I pick the coffee up with two hands and inhale. “Thank you, Nora. This is why you’re my favorite.” I take a sip.

“I thought I was your favorite?” Michaela says, making a sound somewhere between a gasp and a laugh.

“You are. You’re my favorite Michaela,” I say, with pure conviction, “but she’s my favorite Nora.”

Michaela considers this, then nods, magnanimous in victory. “Makes sense,” she says. “I don’t want custody of you, anyway.”

She disappears with Archie, and Nora gives my arm a squeeze before David gestures for me to follow him into his home office.

We leave the kitchen with two mugs and the folder, which I clamp under my arm like it might try to escape. The office is small and warm—fancy books with gold lettering on shelves and a bunch of crayon drawings of Archie taped on every surface in between. In the corner is a child-size desk because his daughter is his life and Michaela has a place in every room of this apartment. He closes the door, holds out his hand, and I put the folder in it, then realize I can’t release my grip.

“Dominic.” David gives the folder a gentle tug and I force myself to let go.

“Sorry.”

“It’s fine. Can I look inside now? Or are you gonna slap it from my hand the moment I get a peek?” He’s smiling but I can tell he also thinks this is a possibility.

“It’s fine.” I gesture for him to go ahead. “I need to know if I can refuse to sign.”

He gives me a look, his brows halfway up his forehead, then opens the folder. I watch him read. I’ve been across enough tables from David Kingsley to know his poker face is his superpower, which is how I know exactly how bad it is when the poker face slips. He stops. Reads the header again. His jaw goes slack, and then his eyes come up over the top of the page.

“These are annulment papers, Dominic.”

“Technically I think your people call it⁠—”

“A petition for declaration of invalidity of marriage, yes, I can read.” He sets the folder down on the desk with both hands. “Dominic. You’re married?”

“Today makes it ten days of matrimonial bliss.”

“To Jenna.”

“Well, I’m not out here collecting wives, David.”

He sits on the edge of his desk like his knees have withdrawn their support. For a second he’s not my lawyer, he’s just my friend, staring at me with his mouth open. “Tokyo. The trip—Caleb said you came back looking like— How? Were you drunk?”

And there it is. The question everyone will ask—because everyone will assume a woman like Jenna had to be inebriated to marry a man like me that fast.

My gut twists.

“The decision was half-drunk,” I say. “The vows weren’t.”

He waits for me to elaborate.

“It started as a throwaway comment.” I hear how it sounds and I keep going anyway, because if he’s going to advise me, he needs the whole of it. “Last night in Tokyo. This yakitori counter the size of a hallway, two in the morning, the deal was done and we were—we were happy, David. She was laughing with her whole body. And we saw these two kids walk past—maybe twenty-two, twenty-three, still half-wasted from their own reception. The girl had this white tube dress on and a veil made out of what I’m almost positive was a hotel pillowcase. The guy was wearing a suit jacket over jeans and they looked so goddamn happy. It was like they didn’t know the rest of the city existed. Jenna watched them go by, she finished her drink, and she said—” I have to clear my throat. It’s not failing me, but I hear the catch all the same. “She said, ‘Just think, in another life, that could have been us.’”

David stares, not even trying to hide the intensity. “And you said?”

I shrug. “I said, ‘What do you mean, another life? That literally can be us. You want a ring, you’ve got it. Marry me.’” I rub my jaw, remembering the moment like it’s still running on a loop, running hot and bright behind my eyes. “She laughed and called me an idiot. So I said I was absolutely serious. That if she wanted to, I’d marry her right then and there.” You and me, Pemberton. To the ends of the earth . . .

David looks at me like I’ve handed him a live grenade.

“Dominic, please tell me you’re not saying what it sounds like⁠—”