Page 66 of Married in Michigan

I hum the wedding march: “Bummmmm bum-bum-bum…Bum BUM bum-bum.” I shake my head, dizzy again. “I am not ready for that. Not even a little bit.” I wave a hand. “I thought, I really do want to see the look on your mom’s face whenIwalk down the aisle to you, and it made me dizzy.”

Paxton stares at me blankly, slowly lowering the rolled-up meat and cheese he’d been eating. “Now why the hell did you have to go and say that?” he mutters. “NowI’mdizzy.”

“It’s easy enough talking about getting married, but thinking about it being a reality?” I shake my head, rubbing my temples with my middle and forefingers. “That’s totally different.”

He blinks at me. “Yeah, no shit.” He breathes in deeply, holds it, lets it out slowly, and I feel him regaining control over himself. “Well, it’s the path we’re on. I chose it, and so did you.”

“Doesn’t mean I like it,” I say. “It’s still scary as hell, and I don’t know how I’ll cope with it. I’m only making it through right now by not thinking about it.”

A sigh. “Yeah, I know what you mean.”

I shake my head at him. “You’re not giving up as much as I am, Paxton.”

“You also stand to gain a hell of a lot.”

I don’t have an answer for that.

“Speaking of which,” Paxton says. “How’d shopping go?”

I shrug. “It was a lot.”

“Am I poor now?” he quips, cackling.

“Yes, I think you very well may be.”

“Well, let’s see what the damage is.” He opens an app on his phone, taps and scrolls, perusing the list of recent transactions, totaling them up, muttering to himself. “Ten, plus twelve is twenty-two, plus another fifteen is thirty-seven, plus thirty-five is…seventy-two, plus ten and another ten is twenty, which makes ninety-two, plus eleven and another thirteen…that’s…one-oh-three and then…one-sixteen.” He nods. “Not bad.”

I stare. “That’s how much Julie spent? A hundred and sixteen thousand dollars?”

He nods. “About what I was expecting.”

He seems so casual about it, and I just can’t understand how he can be casual about spending a hundred and twenty thousand dollars in a single day. That’s more than I’ve ever made in my life, total.

He seems to see my discomfort. “That seems like a lot to you, huh?”

I boggle at him. “Yes, Paxton, a hundred and sixteen thousand dollars does seem like a lot to me.”

He snickers. Stands up, waves his hand for me to follow him. I do, and he leads the way into his bedroom, and his closet, which is twice the size of the one in my room; his closet is full, but it’s obviously been organized and spaced to make it look full, and he obviously has plenty of room for more…easily double what he has right now, more if he compressed them a bit. One entire wall is dedicated to suits—grays, blues, blacks, a couple tan suits, pinstripes, houndstooth...

He walks over to the suits, slides three aside, and glances at me. “A hundred and twenty grand.” Another three. “Another hundred and fifty.” He gestures at the rest. “And so on. I go to London each year and have three or four new suits made, and I drop at least a hundred, sometimes double, just on suits. Shoes, coats, ties, watches, cuff links…I drop easily a quarter mil, sometimes half a million.”

I blink, and can’t swallow or breathe. “I…but…why?”

A shrug. “The suit makes the man, so they say, and nothing makes a man like a bespoke Brioni suit.” A laugh, somewhat self-conscious. “And plus, I can, so I do. It’s fun.”

I glance at the rack of suits. “So that’s like, half a million dollars just in suits on that rack?”

“Oh, easily.” He waves a hand. “I donate a few every year to make room.”

“You donate a fifty-thousand-dollar suit? To who?”

“Whom, you mean,” he corrects automatically.

I snarl. “What the fuck ever.”

He laughs. “Sorry, sorry. That was rude of me.” A pause. “Anyway, I donate them directly to a charity org I founded. It works to get homeless people jobs—provides showers and haircuts, suits, rides to and from interviews, a meal before and afterward, and if they get the job, enough professional clothing to get through a full week without having to recycle outfits.” He heads out of the closet as he drops this on me. “I don’t specify the worth of the suits, obviously, because that would be tacky.”

“So there are homeless men out there wearing a fifty-thousand-dollar custom Brioni suit and they don’t realize it?”