Page 30 of Something Forever

“Why?” I ask.

She shifts on her feet, reaching for a banana. “Well, I was thinking we should probably go to Vegas to get married since it’s the shortest waiting period for a marriage license. Then we can fly back here and… be married.”

“I can trade my Saturday shift,” I tell her. “If you can get us flights for Saturday morning, we can get married Sunday and come back Monday?”

She tosses the banana and some strawberries into the blender. “That works. Do you want me to book them?”

I lean against the counter, watching her. “Sure.”

She adds oat milk and protein powder. “Can you send me your… license or something? I don’t know. That feels really intimate.”

“We’re about to be legally married, but booking a flight for me is intimate?”

She rolls her eyes. “Can we just do it now? I’ll go get my laptop.”

“Okay.”

She leaves the room, her unblended smoothie sitting on the counter. I set down my coffee cup and cross over to the blender, plugging it in and running the pulse setting for a few seconds. When she comes back into the kitchen, I’m pouring the liquid into a mason jar and sticking one of those twirly straws she’s always chewing on into the glass.

“You didn’t have to do that,” she says as I slide the smoothie across to her.

“It’s fine.” I shrug.

We browse online for a few minutes before Whitney books flights for the both of us. Once those are set, I call Darius, basically begging him to take my shift. After I hang up, I wonder if I should have told him I’m getting married. Maybe he would have been excited for me.

Across the counter, Whitney is typing rapidly on her laptop, her eyes darting across the screen. She looks so focused, those chocolate brown eyes zeroed in on whatever she’s working on.

Chocolate brown? What the fuck?

My curiosity gets the best of me. I clear my throat and slant my gaze towards her. “What are you working on?”

She glances up at me, wariness written all over her face. I feel a sudden churning in my gut. I’ve really been a dick to her if she doesn’t even want to answer a simple question like that.

She sighs. “It’s my business plan. The business I need the money for.”

“What kind of business is it?”

“It’s a beauty salon,” she replies with a soft smile.

I’m surprised by that. Sure, Whitney is gorgeous, and I realized that the second I laid eyes on her. Her short blonde hair that cuts off just at her slender neck, her freckled cheeks and slim, symmetrical face. She’s fucking stunning, but she doesn’t seem like the type to be concerned about having perfect hair or a face of makeup.

“What made you want to do that?”

“I spent a lot of time in salons when I was kid. Since my mom and I basically lived on the road, she would leave me for long periods to do my own thing. I’d often hang in one of the local hair salons and talk to the ladies who worked there. It felt like a safe space for me, a constant in a world where nothing else really was.”

I find myself oddly fascinated watching her speak. She’s got this gleam in her eye, a fiery passion behind her words that makes me want to keep listening.

She shrugs. “Yeah, that’s it. I don’t really know what I’m doing.”

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out. It sounds really cool.”

She nods, and it’s quiet. For the first time, I feel a comfortable silence settle over us, like I don’t need to say anything. Like we can just sit here, together, and that’s enough.

12

WHITNEY

The morning of our trip to Vegas, I shoot up in bed at the crack of dawn. After triple checking my suitcase, I go into the kitchen and quickly make a couple of sandwiches for the flight. Everything is ready.

---