Page 29 of Rule 3: Never Fake Marry the Coach's Son

My heartbeat quickens. I’m not sure what he means. “Because of the gay thing?”

His frown deepens, and I wish I hadn’t said anything.

“Being gay is normal, Oskar. You know that. I just meant that you’re...you.”

I want to turn to him. I want to watch his face as he says nice things about me, but my heart can’t take it. It’s already beating too quickly.

Somehow Dmitri seems oblivious of the fact that I’m utterly and completely in love with him. Now that we’re married, I definitely don’t want to reveal it to him. I turn away and grab another chocolate-covered strawberry and drop it into my mouth and don’t look at him. I finish the strawberry, then yawn.

“Ooh! I’m so sleepy,” I say.

Dmitri stiffens, and I wish that I’d taken theater as an elective at Harvard. Acting I suppose is not something that comes naturally to me. Not something like mathematical equations and memorizing the chemical elements table.

Dmitri gets up off the bed, and when I glance at him, his smile is tender. Everything is fine.

“Then you should sleep, Oskar. We have an early flight tomorrow morning.”

Dmitri takes his suitcase and opens the door to the adjoining room. The door clicks shut, and I sink onto the rose-petal strewn bed, my heart pounding.

I am married.

I am married to Dmitri.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Dmitri

I enter my bedroom, smaller than Oskar’s but still with a king bed sprawled across it. No rose petals here. I lift the marriage certificate, running my fingers over our names printed side by side.

Oskar and I are married.

Oskar has saved me.

I smile at the blue-and-white certificate, running my fingers over the ornate embossing before slipping it back into its envelope because it’s so precious and tucking it into my suitcase. I get ready for bed, then slip under the covers.

The bed feels too big and too lonely, but maybe it’s only natural to think that after spending the whole day with Oskar tucked beside me. I smile as I close my eyes.

The alarm makes its unwelcome blare too soon.

Vegas is still dark. The fountain no longer explodes to the sounds of one of music’s most famous songs, and red-and-gold lights no longer move rapidly over the Eiffel Tower.

Vegas is garish and bold and ostentatious, and even though the city is silent, I stare out the window, grateful that Finn and Noah got married here, grateful I knew what to do to secure my eventual green card and stay in the United States.

This is nothing like the grim, gray block building I grew up in, that was surrounded by dozens of tall, equally grim, equally gray block buildings.

I can’t go back.

I won’t go back.

I check the marriage certificate again, needing to see it’s real.

It is. I beam at the embossed engraving.

A knock sounds on the door, then Oskar appears in the doorway, hair still shower-damp. “Just checking that you’re awake.”

“I am. Thank you.”

He nods multiple times, his gaze bouncing everywhere except me, which is sort of strange because the room is less interesting than his room. The armchair is the same material as the couch in his room, as is the velvet headboard.