I wince. “Yeah, that’s not going to happen.”
“Excuse me?”
I lift my glass of water to my lips and before taking a sip, I say, “We’re not getting an annulment.”
“Uh . . . why not?”
“Because why get an annulment when we can see if we can make this thing work?”
“Wo-work?” She stumbles over her words. “As in, continue to be husband and wife?”
“Yeah, why not?” I ask with a shrug of my shoulder.
“Because we’re not in love,” she shouts.
“Semantics.”
“Se-semantics?” she repeats, lifting out of her chair. Her anger is boiling over, and I realize that maybe I didn’t go about this the right way. What do they say—“you can catch more flies with honey”？ Maybe if I was slightly nicer, she’d be more apt to give this a go? Then again, I did provide her with dinner. That was chivalrous.
I also made her bed, which was unmade when I arrived.
Another act of kindness.
Who am I trying to kid, here? Fuck. I know I’m in the wrong, here, but is there a way to make Cora want to make this work? Even if it’s only for six months. Maybe she—
“Pike, you can’t be serious. We don’t even know each other. How are we supposed to be married if we don’t even know each other?”
“We get to know each other, simple as that.” I lean back in my chair. “You admitted it yourself, you find me attractive. You wanted to bed me.”
“Ew, I did not say bed you,” she says, crossing her arms.
“Either way, it’s not like I’m some dude you want nothing to do with.”
“I want nothing to do with you right now.”
I smile at her. “Too late.”
“Urrghh, you’re so frustrating.” Cora flexes her fingers in front of her, looking as though she wants to strangle me.
Yeah, I’m not winning any points. My acts of kindness have no clout at the moment.
“What’s the problem? Why can’t we just get the annulment? What’s the big deal?” she asks.
“I don’t want to,” I answer. “I want to give this a shot.”
“Why? Why is this—” She pauses. Her eyes bounce back and forth, and I can tell she’s attempting to comprehend an idea. “Oh my God,” she finally says. She leans in and whispers, “Is this some sort of green card necessity? If so, just tell me now, because I don’t want to be involved. Prison wouldn’t look good on me. I wouldn’t last a second.”
“I don’t need a green card.”
“Then what the hell is this all about?” she yells. “Why do you want to stay married to me? Because, I’m telling you right now, I’m not pleasant. I don’t share well. I don’t cook. I like to watch sappy love movies. And I refuse to hide my feminine products; they’re out in the open for the world to see.”
Holding back my smirk—because my smile seems to irritate her—I say, “That’s fine. I’m not scared of tampons.”
In a deep, demonic voice, she asks, “What about nighttime pads?”
Christ, if this is what marriage is like, I might be making a big mistake.
“Uh, those are fine too.”
“You say that now, but wait until you see how they run from belly button to crack.”
What? The visual in my head is too much.
“And how about how I like to talk with my mouth full of food?” She reaches for her pizza and takes a large bite. Mouth chock-full of crust, sauce, and cheese, she asks, “You want to have dinner conversations with this?”
Sauce drips down her chin.
Cheese spews out of her mouth.
“Find this attractive, do you?” she continues.
“I’ve seen worse.”
Growling in frustration, she wipes her mouth and paces the apartment. “God, Arlo is going to murder me,” she mumbles.
Fascinating how much she cares what Arlo thinks, and if I were to guess, he would in fact kill her if he knew she got married in Vegas. He’s very protective of her, not sure exactly why, but there’s a tight bond between the two of them.
Cora continues to pace before she pauses and turns toward me, an evil glint in her eye. “I’ll sue you. Is that what you want? For me to sue you?”
“Sue me for what?”
“Errr . . . negligence.”
“Negligence of what?”
“Of . . . of . . . my sanity!” She tosses her hands in the air.