I bit my cheek and nodded, watching and wondering what the hell had happened to him over the last month and a half. “Okay.”

With that, I turned on the oven like I had a thousand other times in the past. Unlike every other time, The Wall of Winnipeg went to the freezer and pulled out food on his own, getting the pizza stones out from a cabinet in a way that surprised me a little. At least when I was around, he never messed around with any of the kitchen items besides plates and utensils.

I went into the garage to throw the cardboard in with the rest of the recyclables and paused. Container after container of frozen microwavable vegan meals filled the bin.

The tiniest bit of guilt nipped at my stomach as I went back into the kitchen just as Aiden set the pizzas into the oven after a few minutes. I took the same seat I’d taken almost two weeks ago when I’d come by to talk to him about his offer. That strange silence seemed to grow as he took his favorite seat.

“Where’s Zac?” I asked, watching the huge muscles in his forearms ripple as he rotated his wrist in a stretch.

A tendon in his thick neck seemed to pop, and I knew it was in annoyance. “He didn’t come home last night.” Before I could say anything, he added in a voice I recognized as a disapproving one, “He said he’d be here.”

But he wasn’t. Zac going out wasn’t unheard of; he actually went out pretty often. Not coming back home wasn’t exactly a rare occurrence either. I’d talked to him a couple days ago briefly just to make sure he was going to be fine lying to authorities if he was questioned, and that he was okay with me moving in. He’d seemed to be more than okay with both.

“It’s fine,” I said, knowing full well from the way that tendon was straining it genuinely bothered Aiden. “So… what’s the next step with your green card thing?”

Aiden had his attention on his arm. “We should go ahead and get the paperwork over with first.” Paperwork. He was going with paperwork to describe what we were doing. Was I nauseous or did I suddenly get heartburn? “Soon.”

“How soon?” My voice sounded more cryptic than what was really necessary considering I knew exactly what I was getting myself into.

Those thick eyebrows kind of quirked, his jaw slightly twitched. “Before the season. I don’t want to wait until bye week,” he said, referring to the week off the team got during the season.

He still wasn’t answering my question. “Okay…”

“I have an early preseason game next week. Let’s do it then.” I choked and he ignored me, barreling straight through into his explanation. “We can’t file the petition until the paperwork is done. You should change the address on your license as soon as you can, but you need to have mail coming here. ”

What could I say? Let’s wait? What he was saying made sense. He really didn’t have more than a day off after each preseason game, and from what I remembered, most of them were always in the evening. That probably would be the best chance we had of getting it done.

But it still made the part of my personality that liked to plan things in advance and mentally prepare cringe.

Next week. We were ‘doing it’ in a week.

It was that easy. We needed to live in a house together, sign some papers, maybe take some pictures—was that even necessary?— and then… live the next five years of our lives.

I almost expected him to give me spirit fingers and say “Ta-da.”

That simple. It was that simple apparently.

I took in the man who was sitting across from me—the biggest man I had ever seen, the most restrained, who was for all intents and purposes, technically my fiancé—and let nausea and nerves roll around in my belly like puppies.

“My lawyer said it’ll be several months between you filing a petition for me and having my status adjusted until I get a conditional green card. We’re going to need a lot of paperwork; they’re going to ask for your bank statements. You’ll have to go with me once everything is approved to have someone at the Immigration office interview us. Will that work?” he asked, eyeing me warily, like he wasn’t positive how I was going to take his plan.

I swallowed my heart. I’d already read all of that stuff online in the days between when he’d showed up at my place and when I came to his and agreed, so I was mentally prepared. Mostly. “Yeah.” But the smile on my face was pretty damn faint.

What in the hell had I just agreed to?

Chapter Ten

The weekend came way too quickly and way too slowly at the same time. I’d woken up each night sweating profusely. I was going to commit a felony. I was getting married. And of all the people in the world, it was Aiden I was doing this with and for.

It didn’t matter how many times I reminded myself that what we were doing wasn’t real, my body couldn’t be fooled. All these changes—the moving, the living in a different room, sleeping in a different bed—they were all battling my brain for attention at all hours of the day, giving me a case of insomnia.

The only thing that eventually managed to lull me to sleep was the knowledge that I knew exactly what I was doing, what I was getting out of the hoax of a lifetime. Debt freedom and a house. I reminded myself of that repeatedly.

And we were going to Vegas to get it over with.

“It will make more sense if we do it there. We’ve gone twice together already,” he’d explained to me after I’d agreed with him that speeding into it was fine. “If we did it here, we’d have to go to the courthouse to apply for a marriage license and get a Justice of the Peace to perform a ceremony.”

He was right. We’d gone to Vegas twice. Once for a signing and the other time for a commercial he shot. Plus, I completely understood where he was going with doing it in Dallas. Someone would recognize him the instant he got out of the car at the courthouse. I could already picture a crowd if we tried to get our marr— the word gave me indigestion. License. There’d be a crowd if we went to get our license.

Actually, I think it was the word ‘our’ that gave my insides gas.

“Everyone goes to Las Vegas to elope,” the big guy had added as if I didn’t know.

Obviously, I did.

“There’s no waiting to apply for a marriage license,” he had ended with as he’d polished off a sandwich.

Another truth.

How can you argue practicality? There wasn’t a point in having any of my few loved ones there, and honestly, I really wouldn’t have wanted them to be in attendance. This wasn’t some everlasting marriage built on love. I’m pretty sure I had told Diana more than once that I was going to have a beach destination wedding if the time ever came.

If the time came, that had been my plan. Maybe someday in the distant future, it’d be a possibility.

For now, for this, Las Vegas would work.

With his credit card in hand, the morning after I moved in, I reserved two first-class plane tickets, because explaining to Aiden that flying economy was cheaper was a pointless argument I’d tried once and failed at miserably. I also scored a two-bedroom suite at the hotel we’d stayed at in the past. We’d fly in Sunday evening and leave Monday afternoon. In and out, we would sign some papers, maybe take a picture, and then head back.

On the day before we were supposed to leave, I was at the grocery store when I spotted the customer in front of me wearing a wedding band, and it hit me.