I had to take Travis far enough away, for a specific reason. Something believable, even if it was crazy. Luckily, crazy wasn’t that far a leap for Travis and me, and it was possible the investigators would second-guess the dozens of witnesses who saw Travis fighting in the basement of Keaton Hall that night—if they had proof that we were in Vegas hours later getting married. It was absolutely insane, but I didn’t know what else to do. I didn’t have time to come up with a better plan. We should already be gone.

Travis was staring back at me expectantly, waiting to unconditionally accept whatever came out of my crazy mouth. Goddammit, I couldn’t lose him now, not after everything we’d fought through to get to this moment. By anyone’s standards, we were too young to get married, too unpredictable. How many times had we hurt one another along the way, screamed at each other one minute and fallen into bed together the next? But we’d just seen how fragile life was. Who knew when the end would come along and sweep one of us away? I looked at him, resolute. He was mine, and I was his. If I knew anything at all, it was that only those two things mattered.

He furrowed his brow. “Yeah?”

“Have you thought about going back?”

His eyebrows shot up. “I don’t think that’s a good idea for me.”

Weeks ago, I’d broken his heart. Travis chasing America’s car when he realized it was over was still fresh in my mind. He was going to fight for Benny in Vegas, and I wouldn’t go back there. Not even for him. He had gone through hell while we were apart. He’d begged me back on his knees, and I was so set on never returning to my life in Nevada, I’d walked away. I’d be a complete asshole if I asked him to go back. I half expected him to tell me to get the hell out for even mentioning it, but this was the only plan I had, and I was desperate.

“What if we just went for a night?” A night was all I needed. We just needed to be somewhere else.

He looked around his bedroom, searching the darkness for what he thought I wanted to hear. I didn’t want to be that girl, the one who wasn’t forthcoming and caused a huge, stupid misunderstanding. But I couldn’t tell Travis the truth about what I’d just proposed to him. He would never agree to go.

“A night?” He clearly had no clue how to respond. He probably thought it was a test, but the only thing I wanted was for him to say yes.

“Marry me,” I blurted out.

His mouth parted, forming a silent gasp. I waited lifetimes until his lips curved upward, and he sealed his mouth on mine. His kiss screamed a thousand different emotions. My brain felt swollen with warring thoughts of relief and panic. This was going to work. We would get married, Travis would have an alibi, and everything would be okay.