Page 118 of Wild Love
“Ginny is talking to her mom on the phone. Adam and Reagan are in her room.”
I nod and grab a sparkling water from the fridge. Ginny comes out of her room, falling onto the cushion next to Heath. “Hey, you’re back. Where’d you go all day?”
“I stopped by the Hall of Fame. Regina got me a few hours this week helping with events and doing office work. It’s boring, but it’s better than sitting around waiting for summer to end.”
The days are long even as I try to fill them full of activities. When Sienna and Rhett group call us later, I wander out to the living room and plaster on a happy face. It’s the first time since their engagement that they’ve come up for air, and we huddle around Ginny’s laptop in the living room so everyone can hear all the details. I was there, of course, but I stay and listen to them retell the story.
“Maverick helped arrange everything,” Rhett says. “Where is he anyway?”
“Might have been my bad,” Heath says. “I wasn’t sure if…” He glances at me, and I drop my gaze to the floor. “Let me text him to hop on.”
A minute later, Johnny’s face appears on the screen. He’s got on a Wildcats hat pulled low on his eyes, but his smile is easy and light. “Hey, guys. What’s up?”
Since the rest of us have already caught up, the questions turn to Maverick. I can tell by the background and noise that he’s at Wild’s—clinking glasses and people talking. Declan’s big shoulder is in half the frame.
“How’s Minnesota?” Adam asks him.
“Uhh, it’s okay.” Johnny briefly looks at me. “Most of the guys are still on vacation, but I’m working out hard every day, and they’ve got me doing a lot of press leading up to the season.”
“Miss you, buddy,” Heath says and makes a heart with his hands.
“Right back at ya.”
The conversation bounces back around to Rhett and Sienna. When are they getting married? Where?
My stomach twists with sadness and a little guilt that I haven’t shared with my friends the biggest thing that’s ever happened to me.
When the call is over, I ask Reagan and Ginny to come into my room. Normally, Heath and Adam would whine and complain, and the fact they don’t makes me feel like poor, pitiful Dakota. But whatever, right now, I don’t care. I need to tell someone.
We sit on top of my bed. I can’t figure out the right way to say the words. It still sounds so ridiculous in my head. I go back and forth on whether I should call Sienna. I don’t want to steal any of her thunder from the engagement, but I don’t want her to feel excluded either.
Screw it.
“I’m calling Sienna.” I hold out the phone as Ginny and Reagan share a worried look.
“Are you okay?” Reagan asks. “Was that hard seeing Maverick?”
“Brutal,” I say honestly. Sienna answers, and I angle the phone so that she can see everyone.
“What’s going on?” she asks.
I swallow and look around at my best friends in the whole world.
“Johnny and I got married in Vegas.”
It’s so quiet I can hear the guys in the living room and the TV. They’re watching the NBA playoffs, and something big must have happened because they are excited about it. I’m finding a million things to focus on, anything but the silence and disbelieving jaw-dropped faces of my favorite girls.
Sienna is the first to recover. “When you say married, you mean…”
I hold up my left hand. “Married.”
Ginny starts giggling. She slaps a hand over her mouth and waves a hand. “I’m sorry,” she gets out before erupting into laughter again. Soon Reagan joins her, and then Sienna and I do too.
“I know,” I say, tears that are some weird mixture of happy and sad stream down my face. “It’s absolutely ridiculous. I wanted to tell you guys but… I don’t know. I was afraid that you’d tell me how wild it was. I mean, I know. I knew then, but some small part of me wanted to be happy about it too. And then this one went and got engaged.” I motion to the phone. “I’m so happy for you, and I’m sorry that I’m dimming your excitement with my marriage disaster. You’re getting married, and I’m getting an annulment.”
“Wait.” All the laughter dies as Reagan rests a hand on my leg. “You’re going to get it annulled?”
“Well, yeah. It was a summer fling and an impulsive, drunken decision.” I share a picture with Sienna and then show Ginny and Reagan. It’s the only picture I took the night we got married. We didn’t want to risk the chapel releasing photos and outing us, so we only took them with our phones. We were coherent enough not to make headlines with a Vegas wedding, but not for much else.
