Stu found the marriage certificate in his jacket pocket at 3 p.m., and the world narrowed to a piece of paper that said he’d married a woman named Jade Deluna at the Little White Chapel six hours into a night he couldn’t remember.
He sat down on the villa couch.
Stood up.
Sat down again.
“Okay,” he said.
“Okay okay okay this is I’m married. I’m married to someone who isn’t Melissa.”
Phil looked up from his phone.
“You’re what.”
“Married.” Stu held up the certificate like it was evidence at a trial.
“There’s a seal. There’s a legal seal, Phil, this is a legal document”
“Who’s Jade?”
“I DON’T KNOW.”
Alan wandered over, peering at the certificate with the bright focus of a man examining something fascinating.
“That’s a very official stamp. You don’t see stamps like that anymore. Everything’s digital now.”
“Alan,” Stu said, his voice climbing, “I don’t care about the stamp, I care about the MARRIAGE.”
Holden set down his coffee.
“Let me see it.”
Stu handed it over, his hands shaking slightly.
Holden read it once, flipped it over, read the back.
The paper had a phone number scrawled at the bottom in looping handwriting.
A woman’s handwriting.
“Little White Chapel,” Holden said.
“Standard Vegas ceremony.
Officiated by” he squinted, “someone whose signature I can’t read.
Filed Saturday morning, so it’s on record.”
“Oh God,” Stu said.
“Oh God, Melissa’s going to kill me. She’s going to actually kill me and I deserve it because I MARRIED SOMEONE ELSE”
“Stu.” Holden’s voice cut through the spiral, calm and level.
“Breathe.”
“I can’t breathe, I’m married to Jade, whoever Jade is, and there’s a baby”
Phil blinked.
“There’s a baby?”
“There was a baby this morning,” Alan said helpfully.
“In the closet. We gave him back.”
“That was Jade’s baby?” Stu’s voice cracked.
“I married a woman with a baby and I don’t remember her FACE”
Holden stood.
“Okay. Here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to call the number on the back of this certificate, because that’s Jade’s number and she wrote it there for a reason. You’re going to have a conversation like an adult. And then we’re going to fix this.”
“How do you fix a marriage?”
“Annulment,” Holden said.
“Vegas weddings can be annulled if both parties agree and there’s no consummation.
Which” he glanced at Stu’s panicked face, “I’m guessing there wasn’t.”
“I don’t know!” Stu said.
“I don’t REMEMBER!”
“Call her,” Holden said.
“Ask.”
Stu stared at the number like it might bite him.
Then, with the air of a man approaching his own execution, he pulled out his phone and dialed.
It rang three times.
“Hello?” A woman’s voice, warm and a little wary.
“Hi,” Stu said.
His voice came out strangled.
“This is this is Stu. Stu Price. I think we got married last night?”
There was a pause.
Then a soft laugh, not unkind.
“Yeah. We did. You were very sweet about it.”
“I was?”
“You cried a little during the vows. It was cute.”
Stu closed his eyes.
“Did we I mean, after the ceremony, did we”
“No,” Jade said, and her voice gentled.
“You passed out in the limo on the way back to the chapel. I got you to a couch and you slept there. Nothing happened.”
The relief hit Stu so hard he had to sit down again.
“Yeah,” Jade said.
“I figured you’d want that.”
“I’m sorry,” Stu said, and he meant it.
“I don’t I don’t remember meeting you, I don’t remember any of it, but I’m sure you’re very nice and I’m sorry I wasted your time”
“Hey.” Jade’s voice was firm.
“You didn’t waste anything. You were drunk and sweet and you said I deserved better than the guy I was with. You meant it. That was nice to hear.”
Stu blinked.
“I said that?”
“You did. And then you proposed, and I said yes because I thought, why not, and then you cried, and then you passed out.” She laughed again, softer.
“It was a weird night.”
“I’m sorry,” Stu said again.
“Don’t be. But yeah, let’s undo it. I’ve got a son to take care of and you’ve got I’m guessing a life that doesn’t include a stripper from North Vegas.”
“I’m not judging”
“I know you’re not. That’s why I’m not mad.” Jade paused.
“There’s a guy at the chapel, Father Macklin. He does annulments, cash under the table, same day if you’re nice about it. I can meet you there in an hour.”
“I’ll be there,” Stu said.
“And thank you. Really. Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Stu Price. And hey good luck with Doug’s wedding tomorrow. You told me about that too.”
She hung up.
Stu set the phone down.
Looked at Holden.
“She’s meeting me at the chapel in an hour. There’s a guy who does annulments.”
“I know,” Holden said.
“Father Macklin. Stella told me about him this morning.”
Phil raised an eyebrow.
“You already knew about this?”
“I had a feeling.”
“Man,” Phil said, “your feelings are getting expensive.”
An hour later, Stu stood outside the Little White Chapel with Holden beside him and his stomach doing things stomachs weren’t supposed to do.
The chapel looked exactly like every tacky Vegas wedding chapel he’d ever seen in movies, complete with a blinking neon heart and a cardboard Elvis by the door.
Jade was waiting on the steps.
She was younger than Stu had expected, mid-twenties maybe, with dark hair pulled back and a baby on her hip.
She looked tired and kind and not at all like someone who’d ruin his life.
“Hi,” Stu said.
“Hi.” Jade shifted the baby to her other hip.
“This is Tyler.”
“Hi, Tyler,” Stu said.
The baby stared at him with the solemn focus of a tiny judge.
Jade looked at Holden.
“You’re the friend.”
“Holden,” Holden said.
“I’m here to make sure the paperwork goes through.”
“Good,” Jade said.
“I like paperwork. Paperwork doesn’t lie.”
Father Macklin turned out to be a man in his sixties with a collar that looked optional and a smile that suggested he’d seen stranger things than a Saturday annulment.
He led them into a small office that smelled like old carpet and peppermint, sat them down, and pulled out a form.
“Standard no-fault annulment,” he said.
“No consummation, mutual agreement, filed same day as the marriage. Costs three hundred, cash. Takes about twenty minutes.”
Stu pulled out his wallet.
Holden put a hand on his wrist.
“I’ve got it,” Holden said.
“You don’t have to”
“I’ve got it,” Holden said again, and handed Father Macklin three hundred-dollar bills.
Macklin nodded, tucked the cash away, and started filling out the form.
He asked questions full names, dates of birth, time of ceremony, reason for annulment and wrote the answers in looping script that looked like it belonged on a marriage certificate, not its undoing.
Jade answered everything calmly.
Stu answered everything like a man defusing a bomb.
Twenty minutes later, Father Macklin stamped the annulment form, signed it, and slid it across the desk.
“You’re undone,” he said.
“Legally, it’s like it never happened.”
Stu stared at the form.
“I’m sorry,” he said again.
“Stop apologizing,” Jade said.
“You were sweet. Most guys aren’t.” She stood, adjusted Tyler on her hip.
“Good luck tomorrow. I mean it.”
She left.
Stu sat there, holding the annulment certificate, and felt something complicated: relief, yes, but also the specific ache of being handed a kindness he hadn’t earned.
“Come on,” Holden said.
“Let’s get you back to the villa. You’ve got a wedding to get to tomorrow.”
“Yeah,” Stu said.
He stood, folded the annulment form carefully, and put it in his pocket next to where the marriage certificate had been.
“Holden?”
“Yeah.”
“Thank you. For for all of it.”
Holden looked at him.
“You would’ve figured it out.”
“No,” Stu said.
“I wouldn’t have. I would’ve panicked and called Melissa and ruined everything.” He paused.
“You made it not terrible. That counts.”
Outside, the sun was starting to dip, painting the sky orange and pink over a city that didn’t care.
Stu got into Holden’s rental car, buckled his seatbelt, and let the relief finally, properly hit.
He’d been married for fourteen hours.
Now he wasn’t.
Jade had been kind.
Father Macklin had been efficient.
Holden had been Holden had been exactly what Stu needed, which was starting to feel like a pattern.
“Can I ask you something?” Stu said.
“Sure.”
“How do you always know what to do?”
Holden was quiet for a moment.
Then he said, “I don’t. I just try to do the decent thing and hope it works out.”
Stu thought about that.
About Jade on the chapel steps with her son.
About Father Macklin’s kind, tired eyes.
About Holden handing over three hundred dollars like it was nothing.
“It worked out,” Stu said.
“Yeah,” Holden said.
“This time it did.”
They drove back to the villa as the city turned its lights on, one by one, bright and indifferent and full of people getting married and unmarried and married again.
Stu closed his eyes.
When he opened them, they were pulling into the villa’s driveway, and Phil was on the balcony waving them up.
“Did it work?” Phil called.
“It worked,” Stu called back.
“Good. Because we’ve got seventeen hours until Doug’s wedding and Alan just ordered room service for eight people.”
Stu climbed out of the car.
Looked at Holden.
“I owe you.”
“You don’t owe me anything,” Holden said.
“Yeah,” Stu said.
“I do.”
He went inside.
The villa smelled like room service and relief.
Alan was arranging sandwiches on a tray with the precision of a man building a monument.
Doug was asleep on the couch, his face less red now, his breathing even.
Phil was on his phone, probably calling Stephanie.
Stu sat down.
Let the weight of the last eighteen hours settle.
Married.
Unmarried.
A night he couldn’t remember and a consequence he’d managed to undo without cruelty.
It could have been worse.
It had been worse, in every version of this story he’d imagined.
But Holden had made it decent.
And that, Stu thought, was worth remembering.