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PROLOGUE

TEN YEARS AGO

CASS

I f I wasn’t about to leave everything I know and love, I’d be living the best night of my life.

It’s our last night in Vegas, and the three days we’ve been here have been heaven. We pooled our graduation money for the trip—me, Wilder, my cousin Remy, Wilder’s twin sister Shelby, and his best friend Tate—and drove two days to get here in the dead heat of July. In a week, we’ll be scattered to the wind for college, and I’ll be the farthest away at Oxford, so we figured why not go to Vegas and live it up for a minute? We’d never be together like this again.

We’re doing a pretty good job pretending we aren’t devastated about it too.

Wilder pulls me a little closer, pressing a kiss to the top of my head as we walk toward our hotel off the strip. Like, a mile off. But as we pass the Bellagio, the music begins to play, the fountain springing to life.

Our friends whoop, running up to the fence, but Wilder and I hang back. I wind my arms around his waist.

Five years we’ve been together, ever since he sent me a carnation on Valentine’s in the eighth grade and asked me to the dance. I knew even then I wanted to marry him. Haven’t wavered once about it, even now, despite the fact that things are ending.

He’s leaving for Auburn next week, and I’ll fly across the ocean to England. We’ve known for a long time that this was coming. But neither of us bargained. We never promised each other we’d try long distance because we’ve never lied to each other before. Why start now? It would only prolong the pain.

Easier to be honest with ourselves and say goodbye.

Or that’s the idea, at least. So far, nothing about this is easy.

“What’s wrong?” he asks.

I mostly hear him from my ear against his chest, the sound muffled and marked by his heartbeat.

“Why do you ask?”

“You just sighed like eight times.”

We chuckle. He wraps his arms around me.

“I don’t want to go home,” I answer after a minute.

It’s his turn to sigh. “Me neither.”

“All summer, all through the last semester, I didn’t have to think about leaving because I was thinking about this. This trip. With you. And now it’s almost over and I…” My voice cracks. I swallow hard.

“I know,” he says, softly now.

“I wish there was another way.”

He rocks me just a little. “The only way would be for one of us to give up one dream for another. And then what?”

“You hate me for making you give up baseball, or I hate you for giving up my spot at Oxford.”

“Right.”

For a beat, we watch the fountain jump and whoosh and spray to the music.

“Why’d it have to be five thousand miles away?” he asks. “A ten hour flight. A thousand bucks, if you can get a deal.”

I lean back so I can peer up at him, smiling. “You looked?”

“Of course I fucking looked. I don’t want to leave you. Not since the eighth grade.”

The sigh I sigh hurts.

But there’s nothing left to say. So we watch the fountain until the lights go dark and the music stops. Our friends turn to us, but Wilder waves them on. Remy shrugs and says something that’s probably rude, which makes the other two laugh. Then, with a few waves, they’re gone.

He peers down at me with eyes like whiskey, a tawny, gold-flecked dream. “Don’t you think if there was any way to have you that made sense, I would have already made it happen?”

God, I can’t look at him when he looks at me like that. Tears well, clinging to my lashes, and I glance down.

“You were my first everything, Cass. I wanted you to be my last. I’d wife the fuck outta you.”

A laugh bubbles out of me, the sound muffled by my instantly stuffy nose. “Too bad you never asked. We’re even in Vegas and everything.”

His face grows serious, his eyes darkening. “Don’t kid around about that. Remy told you, didn’t he?” His cheeks flush, his lips flattening. “Goddammit, that son of a bitch. He told you.”

“Told me what?”

“That I bought you a ring! I’m gonna kill him.”

My heart stops.

Whatever my face looks like widens his eyes. “Oh, fuck. He…he didn’t tell you.”

I shake my head, mute.

Wilder rubs the back of his neck and searches the sky for answers. “Before we got any acceptance letters or anything, I bought you a ring. Took every penny I’d saved from working at the boat shop. I don’t know why I’ve been carrying it around all this time. It just…well, I guess now it’s too late.”

My mouth pops open. “Right now? It’s with you?”

He chews on his lip and nods.

I step back and stick out my hand. “Let me see it.”

“No way, Cass.”

“Yes way, Wilder. Give it.”

“Cassidy Winfield, if I show you this ring, it’s going on your finger.”

I pause, staring up at him. By the look on his face, he’s dead serious. The sight does something to me that I don’t understand, but I instantly want more of. In a sweet rush, a vision of us married and happy and together hijacks my brain. I’ve daydreamed about it a thousand times, but here we are in Vegas, and him with a ring in his pocket. For me.

“Wilder Davenport, you brought that ring to Vegas, put it in your pocket for tonight?—”

“It’s always in my pocket.”

Words jam in my throat. “Why?” is all I can squeak.

He shrugs, glancing at his shoes. “Because I love you, and I’ve been looking for a reason to ask you to marry me.”

I can’t parse what he said—it’s too big, too much—so I make a joke. “And what if I say no?”

He laughs. “Oh, you won’t say no.”

“Try me.” My voice shakes. My hands shakes. The whole world shakes when his eyes snap to mine.

“Cass—”

“I’m leaving. You’re leaving. But tonight, we’re here, in the wedding capital of America. We could do it. Have one night together, annul it in the morning. At least then we’ll know what it’s like, even if it’s just for a minute.” Tears roll down my cheeks, but I barely feel them. “So ask me, Wilder. See what I say.”

His Adam’s apple bobs, but he’s otherwise frozen. War rages behind his eyes for a long, breathless moment before he straightens. Slips his hands in his pocket, retrieving a dark velvet box that triples my heartbeat. Locks eyes with me and drops to one knee.

“Cassidy, I’ve loved you my whole life, and I’ll love you for the rest of it. You’re all I’ve ever wanted. W-would you marry me?”

He opens the little box, and my lungs shoot open with a gasp. In the bed of dark velvet is a small, sparkling diamond ring.

I blink tears away so I can see the ring, and beyond it, his hopeful face. But I can’t speak. So I nod, my face bent.

“Yes?” he asks, unsure.

“Yes!” I answer, and fling myself at him, lips first.

He catches me, kisses me to the cheers and clapping of a knot of lookie-loos. But I don’t care who’s around. Not as he puts the ring on my finger, not as we kiss some more. Not as I live a few minutes of my dream, a fantasy.

For one night, I was going to be Wilder’s wife.

After a quick cab ride, we’re at the county clerk’s, signing a marriage license. I might have maybe considered this as an option before we left, so I searched the internet last week and found out that A) you need a license to get married in a chapel, B) you can get a license in about an hour, and C) the clerk’s office is open until midnight. You know, just in case.

We spot an Austin Powers chapel, which is one of my dad’s favorite movies, and as such I’ve seen it a trillion times. Which means Wilder has seen it at least a million times. As far as I’m concerned, it’s perfect, and Wilder doesn’t seem to care any way we cut it, as long as we end up married.

In a foyer covered in fuchsia shag wallpaper, we’re greeted by two Fembots, their fur-lined sheer nighties dotted with light from a spinning ball hanging on the ceiling. They escort us to their counter, the base of which is shaped like a pair of lips, and have us sign a few things. I don’t have a ring for Wilder, but they have options—I try to convince him to get a thick gold band with a gigantic tiger’s eye in it, but like a wet blanket, he opts for a traditional, plain old gold band. And once we pay up, the Fembots disappear to get things ready.

My ring goes back in its box for a moment, and as he slips it into his pocket, I smooth my sundress, suddenly nervous.

“You sure you want to do this, Cass?” he asks.

“Never been so sure of anything. I just wished I’d dressed better.”

He slips his hand into the curve of my neck and smiles down at me. “You’ve never been so beautiful.”

I chuckle. “You’re just saying that because you’re about to own me for twenty-four hours.”

“It’s only fair. You’ve owned me for five years.”

I melt into him as he kisses me. I’ve never loved anything as much as I love him.

I’ve never been loved like he loves me.

People like to say we don’t understand, that it’s just young love. Hormones. And I’m sure those things are true. But I know somehow that I’ll never find a love like this again. Not ever.

When the kiss breaks, we sigh happily, and he strokes my face while I stare into his.

“Think we can scrounge up enough to get our own room?” he asks.

“I was thinking…I have an emergency credit card Mom snuck me. This feels like an emergency to me.”

Wilder laughs, threading his fingers in mine. “She’s gonna kill you. And probably me too.” He brings my knuckles to his lips.

I shrug. “I got nothin’ to lose, baby. I saw a little place around the corner that might work.”

“Good. I need you all to myself tonight. I only get one night. Gotta make it count.”

I’m an inch away from hitching my dress right then and there, but the Fembots bust back into the room.

One takes Wilder, the other shooing me toward the double doors of the chapel.

“Here are some flowers, honey,” she says, handing me a bouquet of fake plastic daisies in psychedelic colors that definitely didn’t exist in nature. “I’ll hang on to his ring for you, okay?”

“Thank you.”

“Gosh, you’re gorgeous,” she says, fluffing my hair. “Do you mind if I…” She gestures to my ponytail.

“No, be my guest.”

She smiles, pulling out my hair tie, and gasping when she shakes out my unruly red hair. “Goddamn, girl. It would cost a grand to get my hair this color. And there’s so much of it!”

“A blessing and a curse.”

“ Always a blessing to have hair like that.”

“Tell that to my mom’s vacuum graveyard.”

She giggles. “And funny too. You’re a catch. Are you nervous?”

I think about it. “Only because we’re doing something so wild. Not because it’s him. I’d marry him a thousand times.”

She sighs, her face all moony. “That’s so sweet, and he’s so hot. Good job, girl.” She hip bumps me as a light flashes over the chapel doors. “Oh! That’s your cue!” When she reaches for the handle, she pauses. “You know, I see a lot of people get married…I don’t think most of them last a day. But I have a good feeling you’re going to be married a long, long time.”

I smile through the pain of my broken heart. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, honey. Now just walk down that aisle and say I do .”

She opens the doors.

I almost black out.

“I’m A Believer” by The Monkees plays in the hot pink chapel, the caged go-go dancers on either side of the pulpit shimmying. Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery, stands at the end of the aisle looking groovy in a purple and pink striped suit. And standing next to him is Wilder.

Something in his face twists up my heart, knots my throat. His dusty brown hair a little mussed, his whiskey colored eyes pinning me, his broad shoulders tight.

“Well, go on, honey—move!” The Fembot nudges me from behind to get me going.

I laugh. Wilder laughs. Austin says, “Yeah, baby!”

And then I’m standing in front of my future husband.

Obviously there wasn’t time to write vows, so we decided to wing it, and as I stand there with my hands in his, my mind blazes with things I want to say, need to say.

But he beats me to it.

His eyes are on our hands, his thumb stroking the back of mine. “I always knew we’d end up here somehow, though I never thought it’d be in Vegas, and I definitely never thought it’d only be for a night. I want you forever. I want you watching me carve a turkey for our family to eat at Thanksgiving. I want you getting onto me for throwing a red in the wash with the whites. I want every birthday, every Christmas, every morning and night. But I’ll take this. I’ll take tonight. I’ll take everything you’ll give me with thanks, because I love you, Cass. And I’ll love you until the day I die.”

A Fembot hands him the ring, and he slides it on my finger. But when Austin turns to me, I can’t speak. I’m too busy blubbering.

Another Fembot hands me a tissue and pats me on the shoulder.

“Thank you,” I squeak, dabbing at my face before glancing around for a trashcan. There isn’t one, of course. The Fembot sighs and sticks out her hand for it.

“Don’t cry,” Wilder says, his voice rough. “Please, don’t cry.”

“I-I’m sorry. I just love you so much and I hate that we have to leave each other. I know we said there’s no way, but there has to be.” I sob, gulp, and continue. “I’ll quit school. I won’t go. I’ll come to Auburn with you and we’ll f-figure it out. I can’t be without you, Wilder. I just can’t. I won’t.”

He takes my face in his hands, kisses the cool tracks of tears on each cheek, then my lips with sweet tenderness while I choke back sobs.

“By the power vested in me by the groovy state of Nevada—”Austin starts.

“No, wait—those weren’t my vows!”

“I now pronounce you man and wife!”

My Fembot nudges my arm with Wilder’s ring, and stunned, I slip it onto his finger.

“Can I get a do-over?” I ask.

Wilder laughs. “Come here, wife.”

The way my body quivers when he says it is obscene. This is not soothed by the way he kisses me, with fire and ownership and sweet familiarity.

I can barely open my eyes when he’s through with me.

“We’d better get out of here before I climb you like a jungle gym,” I say, pulling him to the door, not even a little bit kidding.

And for one endless, perfect night, he’s mine.

WILDER

The next morning, I woke up with Cass in my arms for the last time.

The knowledge made me want to fucking die. Slowly, and with every piece of my heart, I fucked her once more just like I had all night, savoring that one last time in the hopes it’d ease the pain. I only managed to make it worse.

I succeeded in making her walk funny, though, so at least I had that.

Everything else made it worse too. Like when we went down to the motel office and printed up the annulment papers. When we took off our rings and she asked if she could keep hers with tears in her eyes, my heart climbed out of my chest and into the gutter. Then we signed those fucking papers and she handed them to me because I said I’d take care of it.

I really did plan to. Really, I did. I shoved them in my duffel bag and swore I’d send them in. But then we were home, and she was gone, and I sat with them on my bed, staring at her signature, and I…I just couldn’t.

I promised myself I’d try again.

I never did.

And then it was too late.

For ten years, I tucked away my secret wish that we would find our way back to each other. It didn’t matter that I hadn’t filed for annulment because eventually, we’d end up married anyway. Someday she’d come back, and when she did, she’d be mine.

Except when she finally came back, it was to marry another man. Which left me in a real fucking pickle.

Because she’s still married to me.

And she has no idea.