What Happens In Vegas | ✓

09 | the surprise

"I'm just... I'm stunned. I don't even know what to say," Valerie spluttered, turning around to see the back of her dress. "You outdid yourself with this, Ella. Really." Her eyes were wide as she took in every inch of her dress. She laughed in disbelief. "I can't believe I get to wear this. I can wear this right? Like outside of my house?"

I laughed. "It's yours, Val. I made it just for you. You need a jaw dropping dress if you're going to be accepting your award for best female lead actress."

Valerie blushed. "I might not win," she mumbled. 

I rolled my eyes. "Believe whatever you want, but you know you're gonna win. Now stand still, I need to make a few small alterations." 

She straightened up. "Enough about me. What about you, huh? And your new husband? I'm honestly kind of betrayed that you never told me about him. Or invited me to the wedding."

I sighed, sticking a pin into the hem of the dress. "Val, what I'm about to tell you is top secret. You cannot tell anyone, ok?"

She waved me off. "You know I'm not one to gossip. Plus you're one of my closest friends. Now spill the tea."

My lips quirked up. I knew I could trust her. "We're not really married. Well, legally we are but we're not in love or anything."

She quirked a brow at me. "Explain."

I sighed again and sat back. Val followed suit and sat on one of the couches across from me. "We may or may not have gotten drunk in Vegas like three weeks ago and got married. We didn't know each other before then."

Val gaped at me for a few seconds before bursting out into laughter. She laughed like a maniac, laughing so hard that her laughs went silent. I pursed my lips. She collected herself, wiping the tears from her eyes and taking a calming breath. 

"You and I need to get drunk together sometime, because if that's what you do when you're drunk, I want to be there to witness whatever you do next."

I glared at her. "Unfortunately for you, I've sworn off alcohol for the rest of eternity."

"Oh boo. But so then why are you two still together? I mean why didn't you guys just annul or divorce?"

I massaged my temples. "Neither of us wanted the bad press we'd get from being married for like 48 hours. So we decided to fake it for a while and act like we we're a real couple. But honestly speaking, now I kind of wish I chose to annul."

Val frowned. "Why? Noah's a pretty nice guy. He's my boyfriend Eli's best friend. I know him kind of well."

I snorted. "Well he hasn't been the best guy to me so far. And we've only been officially married for not even two weeks."

"That doesn't sound like the Noah I know. What'd he do?"

"Where do I begin?" I pretended to be deep in thought. "Oh yeah, he invited one of his flings on our honeymoon, the day after we got married in Vegas he was sleeping with someone else and got caught, and he was the one who fucked up my schedule and called you to say that I needed an extra week to finish this dress."

Her jaw dropped. "That was him? I thought it was your manager?"

I shook my head. "I don't have a manager. He lied. The person you talked to was his personal assistant at Grid. He didn't even ask me about my schedule. I have no idea how he got a hold of it."

Val thought deeply for a moment. "I know it's probably not what you want to hear, but there's reasons why he did all of that. I'm not excusing his actions or anything because you're right, those were pretty shitty things to do. But he's not a bad person, trust me."