Sexy Hart (Sexy Series) (17 page)

After helping me out of bed, he turns on the shower and makes sure I get it okay. When I ask about his cautiousness, he says he doesn’t want anything to happen that might stop this morning going ahead. Which is
super cute and really quite unbelievable. Is this actually happening? Am I dreaming this whole thing up?

While I’m in the shower, he runs to his room to collect some clean clothes and returns in record breaking time, before I’ve even finished washing my hair, popping his head around the door as he returns. “Honey, I’m home… my god, you look
hot
. Could you maybe hurry it up a bit before I forget that I’m waiting until
afterwards
to make love to you?”

I laugh, rinsing the conditioner from my hair. “If you keep saying ‘make love to you’ like that, I’m going to force you to do it before we even leave.”

“Ooh, that does it for you? I can’t wait to ‘
make love to you
’ my beautiful, hot, fiancée.”

I swallow hard. “Wow… fiancée… that’s something I’ve never been called before…”

“Well you kind of are… I did ask you to marry me, and we aren’t married yet… so that makes you my fiancée, doesn’t it?”

“I suppose so…” I say, turning the tap off and stepping out of the shower, grabbing the towel on the way.

He steps over to me and kisses me softly. “I’m going to have a shower now,” he says, locking his eyes with mine, “you go and do whatever you do, get yourself ready and we’ll leave in half an hour. Okay?”

“Okay. Looking forward to it. It’s just us, right? I mean, no one else knows about this, no one is going to be there?”

“No. We’ll do that when the time is right, it’s just us. This is about you and me. No one else. We can share it when we’re ready.”

I take a deep breath and smile, nervously. “Okay, this is… this is scary.”

He frowns and tugs on my hand to sit down on the side of the bath next to him. “I don’t want it to be scary, I don’t want you to do anything if it doesn’t feel right for you.”

“Oh, it feels right, Oliver, it really does. It’s just… I’ve never done this before and I haven’t even told anyone about it… it’s just… different.”

“But you’re sure you want to?”

“Absolutely. If you do.”

“Oh, I do. I can’t wait. We’ll decide when to tell everybody later, but in the meantime, this is between you and I. It’s us. We’ll be ‘us’.”

“And that sounds so perfect. It’s… it’s so romantic.”

We share another soft, slow kiss on the side of the bath before separating to get ready. I’ve been thinking about a dress I bought in Nordstrom in LA; I think it will be the most perfect dress to wear this morning. It’s a beautiful, ivory dress with a strapless panel inside and a full lace outer. The skirt is above the knee and full, and a ribbon ties around the waist. The neckline is edged with the intricate pattern of the lace, as are the capped sleeves.

I haven’t worn it yet but I think my own wedding would be the perfect place to debut it. My new
earrings are a wonderful match, and I have a pair of cream, satin ballet shoes that I brought with me but haven’t yet worn. I know they’ll only be good for one use because they’ll get filthy so quickly, but I think today is the day. They’ll match my dress perfectly.

I do my make-up in my usual sort-of-sixties style with a thick black line on my lids and spiky black lashes, and I decide that I should have my signature hairdo for my special morning. The flick
pony tail with slight bouffant and cream bow looks perfect with the make-up and my dress, and as I pour myself a glass of juice, I pray that Oliver is going to like my choices.

When he emerges from the bathroom, he’s fully dressed and gorgeous. My heart flutters just looking at him. Again, he looks dapper, with a crisp white shirt, smart jeans and another very smart jacket. His aftershave wafts out of the bathroom with him and my stomach knots in excitement. I’m about to marry that smell. Oh god, this man… he’s going to be
my
man; no one will get to go on a date with him or kiss him… or be intimate with him again - just me. Me!

“Wow,” he says when he sees me standing by the window. “You’re beautiful, you look perfect. That dress is… wow, stunning on you.”

I smile shyly. “Thank you.”

“It looks like a little wedding dress.”

“Well, I didn’t think so when I bought it, but when I thought about what to wear this morning - this just seemed right.”

“Perfect.”

“You look very handsome, too.” I say with a smile, feeling shy.

“Thank you, darling. Are you ready to go?”

I nod. I’m not taking my bag, I don’t want my phone or purse or anything. I don’t need anything but myself and my passport, and Oliver can carry that for me.

He smiles and takes my hand, looking into my eyes and winking, “Let’s go,” he says, slipping our passports in his back pocket.

He walks me down the hallways and out to a cab at a fast pace, and once inside the vehicle, he exhales and squeezes my hand, smiling at me before asking the driver to take us to the Clark County Marriage Bureau.

“Sure,” the driver responds, “you guys getting a
licence there today?”

Oliver smiles at me before answering. “We are, actually, yes.”

“Cool, congratulations. Where’s the ceremony?”

“I booked this morning at a small chapel…” Oliver says before giving the name.

“Really?” I ask, how has he done all this research without me knowing? “Where was I?”

“Asleep, darling.”

“Did you get any sleep at all, Oliver? I only got about three hours so you must have had hardly any…”

“Worth it,” he says, shrugging, matter of fact.

“You want to take my number?” the cab driver asks. “I’ll come get you and take you to your slot.” Oh… Sounds
so
romantic…

“That would be great, thank you. Hopefully we won’t be long in here.”

“This time on a Wednesday? You’ll be fine.”

“You see this a lot, then?” Oliver asks exactly what I was thinking.

“Not too much but probably more than most - I work in Vegas, ya know?”

We both smile and look at each other.
Are we really going to do this?
He takes my hand again. “You okay?”

“Mmm hmm,” I respond with a smile and he simply squeezes my hand and lifts it to kiss before sandwiching it with his other hand, tightly.

“Good.”

It takes about ten minutes to get to the office, and once in there, we’re dealt with at an amazing speed. We fill out a
form, hand over a fee and our passports, et voila! Free to marry in any Nevada wedding chapel with immediate effect. It’s crazy how easy this all is.

Once we’re back in the cab, we sit again, quiet and slightly dazed in our tired states. I rest my head back and close my
eyes, I’m excited, but oh-so-tired and a little nervous.

“Clare…” Oliver whispers, touching my face gently with his hand, “…are you sure you want to do this? Please don’t worry about hurting my feelings if you’re changing your mind; this is very fast, very out of the blue, and I know what you’re like - I don’t want you to go ahead with it just because you’re too afraid to upset me.”

I turn my head to look at him and I smile. “I love how considerate you are. I love that you’re worried about me. I love what we’re doing and I can’t wait to start living a totally different life with you. Please don’t think I’m changing my mind. I’m worried
you
might, afterwards… I mean it was only a couple of days ago that you had a different girlfriend. I don’t want you to rush into this because she was a bitch and I was always nicer to you than she was. But I’m definitely not changing my mind.”

The cab driver looks in his rearview mirror, clearly fascinated by our conversation and I regret saying that so loudly. I hope he doesn’t think badly of Oliver for moving on so quickly.

“That’s not why I’m doing this, Clare. We’re here where this can be done so easily, we have loved each other as best friends forever and recently realised… more than that. I don’t want to date and wait and get everyone involved - while we’re here, I want to marry you and start our new life in the most committed and serious way. I’m serious, I want to do this so much and I will
not
regret it. I give you my word on that.”

I grin and nod. “Let’s do it then.” I say, excitedly.

“We’re here, guys, are you doing the drive thru, or…”

“No, thank you. We’re going inside.”

“Well you’ve got a little extra time - you might wanna take a little look-see, it’s a cool place if you like that sorta thing.”

“Thank you,” Oliver says, climbing out of the car and reaching for my hand to help me out. The building is really quite… ugly. Not really what one would expect, but in all honesty - I’m not bothered.

“The lady I spoke to on the phone told me that if you’d like flowers, we can go into the flower shop here and you might be able to get a simple bunch made up.”

“Oh, that would be nice, and as we have some time…”

“Exactly.”

We enter the small florist area and are greeted by a very sweet lady who seems to know Oliver already. She takes one look at my dress and tells me she could make me up a small posy of ivory roses and I smile gratefully - that’s exactly what I would have asked for myself.

“Oh! Oliver!” I gasp, as the lady goes into the cool room to get the roses. “We don’t have rings! Can you get married without rings?”

“It’s fine, I asked all about that, we can get them here; we’ll just get whatever we prefer and change them later, if you want.”

“Oh, phew. That’s okay then. I’m okay with changing rings later, I like being unconventional when I’m being conventional.”

He smiles at me and presses himself against me. “And I love that.”

When the small bouquet is made and we’ve picked out some very, very simple gold bands - Oliver pays and we head in to the chapel. There are a few different rooms to be married in here, but Oliver has picked the smallest and most intimate. The decor… well it’s tacky to say the least. The bright red carpets and fake Grecian pillars look like they’ve been here for centuries and the cherubs, hand painted randomly all over the walls and ceilings are… in all honesty - revolting.

Oliver notices me taking everything in and giggles, nudging me with his elbow. “Classy, don’t you think?”

I laugh, I love that he’s thinking the same as me. “It’s funny.”

“Well you won’t forget it in a hurry. Are you sure you want this? You don’t want to wait and have a more traditional, elegant wedding?”

“No!” I cry. “I do not, this is half the fun Oliver. No one else is here, this is something for you and I to remember. When we decide to go public about all of this - then maybe we’ll have a party or something, but I love that you and I will have something to talk about, forever, that no one else will fully understand. It’s just us.”

“Good. I love how you think.”

When it’s our turn, we are ushered towards the small room and allocated a witness. My stomach rumbles… hunger, hangover, nerves… no idea, but I don’t have much time to think about it because within moments, the pastor begins. This is it.

No more than six minutes later, Oliver and I walk through the door again, back out into the garish hallway… one hundred percent married. A photographer was in there with us, ensuring we have something to remember the moment that we were… married.
Oh my god.

The vows were very sweet and romantic, the actual ceremony was really rather emotional. Tears ran down my face, I’m not sure how Oliver was feeling, but he never cries.
At anything. He was smiling handsomely, though, and brushed my cheek with his thumb at one point.

We pay the pastor a tip as we stand in the hallway, another most hilarious unconventionality about these fast weddings - being handed an envelope immediately after you’re married to say the pastor isn’t paid and would we please consider donating a tip. In this case, we were more than happy to do so - he was lovely.

Once paid, we’re told how we can obtain the photos and asked to leave so we don’t cause an obstruction. I’m amazed that we only woke a short while ago and suddenly we’re a married couple…

We get back in the cab, holding hands and smiling as the driver congratulates us and begins our journey back towards the hotel.

“So… we need to check out in, what? An hour?” I ask, trying to get my head around what happens next.

Oliver chuckles and squeezes my hand, “Yes… but Clare, we just… we just got married… you’re my wife now.”

I look at him with a frown, but smiling. “I know… it’s so weird. What happens now?”

He grins and shakes his head. ‘I don’t know! We need to decide what to do in terms of when to tell the others and the folks, and then have a good chat about how to move forward, back at home. But Clare… I’m excited,” he says, reassuringly as he leans towards me and kisses my cheek, lingering. “You’re my wife…”

I turn to look at him and smile, holding his face in my spare hand and kissing his lips softly. “I know… I have a husband… this is - this is bizarre. I didn’t so much as have a boyfriend yesterday.”