We didn’t tell anyone what we’d decided. It was time for Beckett and me to be on our way to River Glen anyway, and it didn’t take much deep soul searching to figure out that Ashley might think this was a stupid plan. Mostly because it was a stupid plan, I guess. But when your back is against the wall, any lifeline will do. Or some other metaphor that makes sense.

So with our terrible plan in hand, Beckett and I packed up his RAV4 and hit the road, next stop Las Vegas. Because there was one more little detail in agreeing to be his Emily: turns out that the housing authority at Middlesex would be asking to see our marriage license.

Beckett and I were going to get married.

As we rolled into the city limits, past that famous 1960s era Welcome sign, butterflies began to flutter in my stomach. I was going to get married.

Married.

We’d talked it through on the drive, and we’d agreed that as soon as we got our living arrangements settled, we’d get an annulment. That way we’d never even have to tell anyone about it. It would be like it had never happened at all. A legal contract, nothing more. We’d be like business partners. It wasn’t about love, romance, or even our friendship. It was a really, really formal roommate agreement.

Those were the thoughts that ran through my head like a litany as we followed the GPS directions to the Regional Justice Center. Beckett found a place to park and we went inside to get our place in line. It was just after eight in the morning on a weekday, so there wasn’t much of a wait. Most people weren’t drunk enough to make this kind of mistake yet, I guess.

All we had to do was show our drivers’ licenses to get the marriage license. It was disturbingly easy. Then, in what is probably the classiest moment of my life, we asked where the quickest, cheapest place to get married was. The bored bureaucrat behind the counter pointed us to a nearby chapel offering something called The Sign & Go. Ah, romance.

On our way, we passed the famous chapel that offered Drive-Thru weddings. Talk about a marriage of convenience. This was obviously the right city for people like us.

At the chapel, the woman behind the check-in desk gave us a binder with different wedding packages. They ranged from the most basic to some truly over-the-top variations, including having an Elvis impersonator as our officiant. There were add-ons, too. Like a commemorative photo package, a bouquet that I could keep, and even a selection of rental wedding gowns.

“This will be fine,” I told the woman, pinching the side seam of my sundress. It was just a typical dress that I’d worn dozens of times, bright red with white polka dots. Definitely not a wedding dress. But I couldn’t stomach the idea of the big poufy princess gown for this sham marriage. Especially not one worn by a bunch of other women.

“Which package are you going with?” she asked with a big, Vegas-style smile. Her tanned face looked like it was slowly turning to leather below her tall blond hair.

“Just the Sign and Go, please,” Beckett said, flipping the laminated pages back to the beginning.

The leathery woman’s penciled-in eyebrows went up. “You don’t want to make it a little more special?”

We looked at each other, then back at her. “No, thanks. Just need to get married.”

“Suit yourself,” she said in resignation.

Beckett gave her a tight smile. “Thanks.”

We accepted a black buzzer like you get at a restaurant and took a seat on a round couch in the center of the waiting room. The other couple waiting for their turn was on a small love seat by the chapel doors, holding hands and gazing at each other as if blinking might make the other disappear. Over and over again they leaned close to kiss each other, not all of them PG.

I kept my hands in my lap, sitting near Beckett but not close enough to touch him. There were a million things I wanted to say, but none of them seemed right.

Today was his wedding day. The actual day he was supposed to marry his Emily. He was supposed to be in Arizona right now, probably dressed in a suit and waiting anxiously with his best man—his brother. Waiting with his high school sweetheart to begin the rest of his life.

Instead he was in a second-rate Vegas chapel with his roommate, wearing khaki shorts and a dark blue t-shirt.

I’m sorry I’m not Emily, I thought. I’m sorry this is happening. I’m sorry you have to pay for it because I’m broke. Thank you for saving me. Thanks for putting your broken heart on hold so I have a place to live.

Instead I glanced at him and said, “Okay?” in a low voice.

He nodded. “You?”

“Yep. I’m good.” Sort of.

I caught the woman behind the desk looking at us suspiciously. She saw me catch her in the act and frowned deliberately. I smiled at her and scooted a bit closer to Beckett. He startled out of his thoughts and gave me a confused look.

“I don’t think we look like two people about to get married,” I whispered.

He looked over at the desk woman, at the other couple in the waiting area, then back at me. “Right.” He took my hand out of my lap, weaving our fingers together letting our hands rest on his thigh. The act made my heart jitter with guilty nerves. Like the woman would somehow see through us and intuit that we were attempting to scam the housing department of a small university in Iowa.

“Why does she even care?” I whispered. “I’m sure there are plenty of people who get married for dumber reasons than this.”

Beckett grinned. “She’s a romantic at heart, I guess.”

I laughed. “Yeah, that’s definitely it.”

I’d never held hands with him like this and I was surprised that he kept stroking his thumb over mine. It was sweet, and probably an unconscious bit of muscle memory from Emily.

The chapel doors opened and another couple emerged, holding their arms aloft in victory, smiling and laughing and pursued by an employee with white confetti. The couple, who were both men in their fifties, threw their arms around each other and kissed while “Trumpet Voluntary” played from somewhere inside the chapel.

After a moment, the officiant, who was a big, sweaty-faced man in a purple robe that looked like it might have once been worn by a Gospel choir member, followed them out. “Who’s my nine-fifteen?” he asked.

The kissy couple by the doors hopped up, the woman shouting, “We are!” She was in her twenties, I’d guess, not too much older than we were, while her groom appeared to be at least 15 years older than that. Maybe more.

“That relationship has long-term written all over it,” Beckett observed drily.

The two buoyant men who’d just gotten hitched walked past us, their arms entwined and their faces lit up like Christmas trees.

“Congratulations,” I said when one of them made eye contact with me.

“Thank you!” he said excitedly.

Then they disappeared into a side room to get some pictures taken, and Beck and I were alone in the waiting room with the Queen of Judgement. We sat in silence for a few minutes, holding hands.

“Still okay?” I finally whispered.

“Yep.”

That was all either of us said until the May-to-December couple emerged a few minutes later, practically tripping over each other as they tried to walk and suck face at the same time. Once again the officiant followed them out and looked around the waiting area.

“You must be my nine-thirty,” he said.

“That’s us,” Beckett agreed, standing without letting go of my hand. I popped up awkwardly beside him.

“You ready to get married?” the purple-robed man asked.

“Yep.”

“Let’s do this.”

We followed him into the chapel room, which was not much larger than a decent-sized bedroom. There were chairs arranged in two squads on either side of an aisle, but no more than 16 on each side, and they looked like they spent at least ninety percent of every day completely unoccupied. The chairs in the last rows had dust on the upholstery. Opposite the doors, a black velvet curtain hung the length of the room with a small table centered in front of it and two large flower arrangements that reminded me of a funeral home more than a wedding. Off to the side, an organ was angled toward the “altar” with a woman seated on a bench behind it. There were two other employees in the room; a man sitting in the front row, looking bored, and a woman standing at a high top table just inside the door.

“Here we go, bride,” she said, approaching me with something white in her hands. It floofed in the air and then I had a headband plunked on my head. The attached tulle fell forward around my shoulders, standing out stiffly like a triangle. Then the woman held out a small bouquet of fake roses, all white and pink with plenty of baby’s breath and white lace surrounding it.

“No, no,” I protested. “We just wanted the Sign and Go thing.”

“Yeah, we paid for the basic thing,” Beckett agreed.

The woman wrinkled her nose. “Nobody wants that.”

“No, seriously,” I said, trying to detangle the veil from my hair.

“We’ve got a few extra minutes,” the officiant said. “Why not go for something a little more special?”

“We already paid,” Beckett said.

“You’ve already got the veil on,” the woman by the door added. “Come on, live a little.”

“But we didn’t pay for this,” I tried.

“Tell you what, it’s on the house,” the officiant said. “Let’s just get a move on, okay?” He consulted a paper in his hand, “Beckett, is it? You come with me.”

Beckett looked at me questioningly. I shrugged, panic making my eyes wide like dinner plates.

“If you’ll come with me,” the officiant repeated, sounding mildly annoyed now. So Beckett followed him up to the altar.

“What do I do?” I asked the bouquet woman.

“Wait for the music, honey.”

It wasn’t a long wait. I barely had time to experience the swell of nausea in my gut before the organist began to play the “Wedding March” and the bouquet woman gave me a pat on the back.

“Down you go, honey.”

“What?”

“That way.” She pointed to the front of the room. “Get married, remember?”

I hurried down the aisle to stand beside Beckett, rushing through less than a single chorus of the “Wedding March,” but that didn’t seem to deter the organist. She made us stand there while she played through enough measures to satisfy some internal set point, then cut off abruptly.

The officiant began, “We are gathered here today to witness the marriage of…” he paused to look at the paper again, “Beckett Anderson and Emily Black.”

The rest continued at a breakneck pace, with both of us promising that we were here of our own free will and—shocking—no one in the room objecting. We each repeated the short vows after the officiant, though I felt like I was listening to someone else use my lips and breath to form the words. My brain was churning and grasping for reality while the words came out of my mouth on autopilot. I couldn’t have repeated them even a second later.

And then I heard the big purple man say, “By the power vested in me by the great state of Nevada, I know pronounce you husband and wife. You may kiss the bride.”

Beckett looked at me with shock. The same shock that rattled through me. Kiss the bride? How had neither of us thought of that?

Before I could wrap my head around it, Beckett was leaning toward me and I felt the swift press of his lips on mine.

And then it was over. The organist began to play again and the officiant gestured for us to make our way down the aisle. Beckett took my hand and we walked away to the spray of white confetti from the two witnesses.

The last stop was in the lobby to sign our names on the marriage certificate along with our two “witnesses.”

“Don’t forget to sign your new name,” the leathery blond told me, but I signed it “Emily Black.” She did her eyebrow lift again, but didn’t comment. I handed over the headband veil and my bouquet, we said no to the photographs she offered for a second time, and then we were on our way.

We were married.