I woke up later to the light fading outside and Sarai saying my name. Her body was still pressed against mine, but when I opened my eyes, I realized that she’d been awake for a while.

“Did you sleep?” I asked, my voice hoarse.

“Yes.” She stared at me, her serious eyes trailing over my face.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, all sleepiness disappearing in an instant.

“Let’s get married,” she said.

“That’s the idea,” I replied, looking at her in confusion.

“This weekend,” she clarified.

“Uh.” I coughed, choking on my own saliva. “What?”

“Let’s get married this weekend. Let’s just do it.”

“Just do it,” I murmured.

“That didn’t come out right,” Sarai mumbled with a little laugh.

“You want to get married this weekend?” I repeated back to her. “This weekend. In the next two days?”

“Yes,” she confirmed with a nod.

My mind raced. I wanted to marry her—of course I did, or I wouldn’t have asked her. But this was crazy…wasn’t it? We’d just gotten engaged. She’d just met my family. I hadn’t even met hers yet.

Our eyes met, and a million things passed between us, from the first night we’d met to the moment I’d slid her engagement ring on. The times we’d texted late into the night, the times I’d stopped by her place just to bring her dinner while she’d studied, and I’d had to force myself to leave again. The nights I hadn’t left, and we’d stayed tangled up in the sheets until the sun rose the next morning. The moment she’d met my parents. The way she’d kissed me that morning. The way she’d ridden me the day before in the forest. All of it.

“Okay,” I said, reaching up to brush her hair away from her face.

“Most of your family is already here,” she said, her lips tipping up at the corners.

“Your family isn’t.”

“That’s okay,” she said quickly with a shrug. “You can meet them afterward.”

Her nonchalance rang false, but I didn’t argue. The feeling of her hand on my chest and her legs tangled with mine made me look past how odd I found it. I shouldn’t have ignored that feeling, but I did.

“Shit,” I said after a few seconds of smiling at each other. “You can’t just get married in Oregon,” I explained, dropping my head back against the pillow. “You have to file for a license first.”

“And everything is closed for the holiday,” she said with a deflated sigh. She lay down next to me.

As we stared at the ceiling, an idea formed. I studied it from all angles, thought about the balance in my bank account, thought about my family, counted the number of hours I had until I had to report in again on Monday morning.

*  *  *