Copper and Salt, page 13
“Da,” Alex said softly.
“Specifically, a passport and anything else we need to get legally married in the state of Wyoming,” Oren said. “Something that will hold up.”
Anouk spun back, gasping theatrically. “The famed bachelor, getting married at last? Say it isn’t so!”
Oren fixed her with a look. “Do you think we could actually do what we came here to do?”
“Grumpy, jeez,” Anouk muttered. She flopped into a folding chair in front of a bank of computers and began tapping keys. “Gonna need some information. Full name, birthdate, place of birth, personal number, things like that.”
Alex didn’t answer and Anouk pointed at him without looking.
“Talking to you, Hot Stuff.”
“She’s harmless, I swear,” Oren murmured.
“Heard that,” Anouk said.
Alex cleared his throat. “My name is Alex Costea. I was born in Vaslui, in Romania, the twelve of July, 1994.”
Anouk perked up at that. “Romanian, huh? Încântat de cunoștiință.”
Oren watched in amazement as delight lit Alex’s face and he turned toward Anouk like a flower opening to the sun, pouring out a flood of unintelligible words in his native tongue.
Anouk held up her hands, laughing. “Whoa, whoa. Way above my pay grade, pal. The only other thing I know how to say is țâțe faine.”
Alex blinked and then dissolved into a fit of giggles, folding forward and wrapping his arms around his ribs as the mirth rolled through him. Oren just caught his crutches in time, bemused but enchanted at seeing Alex laughing so freely.
“What did you say?” he asked Anouk.
“Uh… nice tits,” Anouk said, her grin widening. “Gotta have your priorities straight, man.”
Oren snickered and cleared a nearby chair of its towering pile of books and papers, indicating that Alex should sit down. He did so as Anouk typed and Alex kept talking, giving her his parents’ names and all the information he could.
“Do you have a personal number and do you know it if so?” Anouk asked, fingers still busy.
“Da,” Alex said again, and reeled it off as she typed.
“Good,” she said, flashing a distracted smile at him. “Okay, Cheekbones, need a picture of you. Stand up against that far wall for me.”
Alex looked at Oren. “She is stranger than you,” he said under his breath as he stood up, but there was still a faint smile in his eyes.
“Heard that too,” Anouk sang.
Oren grinned at Alex and made sure he had room to maneuver his crutches across the cluttered floor to the wall, where he straightened his shoulders, looking uncertain.
“Look this way,” Anouk said, grabbing a camera. “Don’t smile. Just stand there and be pretty, you can do that in your sleep.”
Oren rolled his eyes. “Relentless,” he mumbled. “Anouk, stop hitting on my fiancé. Alex, just look at the camera and ignore her.”
Anouk clutched her chest. “No, help, it’s too cute!” She put the camera on a tripod and fiddled with the controls, peering at the display. Finally she decided it was good enough and took several pictures, muttering to herself.
Oren pointed at the chair again. “You heard Bethany—gotta stay off that ankle.”
Alex sat down, folding his hands in his lap as they waited.
It took awhile but eventually Anouk pronounced herself satisfied with the results. “It’ll take me a few hours to put this together. Come back tomorrow morning and I’ll have it ready then.”
Oren kissed her cheek, making her laugh. “See you tomorrow.”
He ushered Alex out of the apartment and to the elevator, where Alex leaned against the wall as it descended to the ground level. Oren looked at his face, concerned.
“Feeling okay?”
“Tired,” Alex said, reaching for Oren’s hand. “Tired of… being tired.”
Oren stepped close, bracing Alex with his shoulder. “You’re recovering from a lot. You need to take it slow.”
“I was runner, before,” Alex said. “Fastest in village. No one could catch me. Now….” He lifted a shoulder.
“It’ll come back,” Oren said. The elevator dinged and they stepped out. The sun had gone down while they were with Anouk and there was a bite to the air. Alex shivered and Oren stopped and pulled his sweater off.
“No, you need it!” Alex protested. “I have mine, I am alright.”
Oren just held it out, raising one eyebrow, until Alex sighed and took it, balancing awkwardly on one foot as he tugged it over his head.
“You fuss so much,” Alex said, affection in his voice.
“Someone’s got to,” Oren said, and hailed a passing taxi.
Back in their room, they kicked off their shoes and settled on the bed. Oren pulled Alex against him, tucking him along his side, and picked up the remote.
“I wonder if there’s anything interesting on,” he mused.
He gasped with delight when he changed the channel and the television showed Fred Savage’s baby face as he sat in bed, playing video games.
“Oh baby, you’re in luck,” he said. “Look, it’s the best movie ever made!”
Alex looked doubtfully at the screen and back at him. Oren grinned.
“Trust me, you’ll love it.”
Oren privately thought there was nothing quite as much fun as introducing someone to a piece of his childhood and watching them fall head over heels in love with it just like he had, all those years ago.
Alex watched as Westley and Buttercup fell in love, braved the fireswamp, faced ROUSs, and when Billy Crystal waved the heroes off with a cheerful, “Have fun stormin’ the castle!”, Alex sat straight up.
“Oh,” he said. “Oh!” He turned to see Oren grinning at him.
“Now do you get it?”
Alex laughed and lay down again, resting his head on Oren’s shoulder. “You are still ridiculous,” he said. “But you begin to make a little more sense.”
Oren chuckled deep in his chest and rubbed Alex’s back. He could feel the tension leaving his muscles as he relaxed, safe for the moment. Safe forever, if I have anything to say about it, he thought fiercely.
He waited for a commercial before he spoke. “Tomorrow, after we’re married, we’ll come back here and get our stuff, then I’ll get the rest of my own affairs in order. Then we’ll go to the police station with everything. I wish I’d thought to take pictures of the injuries you had when you showed up on my doorstep, but at least the hospital can verify them if necessary.”
Alex had grown gradually tenser as Oren talked. He lifted his head, worry in his dark eyes. “Are you sure, Oren—”
Oren squeezed his arm, wordlessly rubbing reassuring circles into the skin. “We have to trust the cops to do their jobs,” he said. “I promise, nothing will happen to Mihai.”
Alex chewed on his lip, searching Oren’s face, but finally he sighed and put his head down again. “Alright,” he said, almost inaudible.
“Movie’s almost over, and then you need to sleep,” Oren said. “Tomorrow’s going to be nuts.”
Alex fell asleep just before the end, his long limbs draped over Oren’s in an unselfconscious sprawl. He barely roused when Oren eased him over onto his side and slipped off the bed to go to the bathroom.
When Oren came back, he felt around in the bag from the bookstore until he came up with the other book he’d bought. A quick glance reassured him that Alex was still asleep, so Oren opened the book and scanned the pages until he found what he was looking for.
Then he stopped, stared at Alex for a long moment, and put the book back in the bag, tucking it away out of sight before climbing into the bed.
Alex stirred, murmuring something in Romanian, and squirmed back against Oren’s warmth. Oren wrapped his arm around Alex’s waist and pressed his face to the nape of his neck.
He fell asleep eventually, Alex a warm, trusting bundle in his arms.
13
They stopped at Anouk’s apartment and picked up the passport first thing in the morning, both of them in neatly pressed button-down shirts and slacks.
Anouk took one look at them and wolf-whistled. “Looking sharp.” She handed the burgundy passport to Alex with a flourishing bow, her neon dreads almost glowing as the morning sun hit them through the window.
Alex accepted it, smiling at her, and flipped through it as Oren leaned over his shoulder and made approving noises.
“Top shelf as ever,” Oren told her as he handed over the cash.
Anouk preened. “Best in Wyoming, baby. Now get out of here, you two have a wedding to get to!” She all but shoved them out the door, flapping her hands at them like a tiny, vividly feathered bird, and winked at Alex as the elevator doors slid shut between them, cutting her off from view.
Alex slipped the passport into his pocket and took a deep breath.
“Are you ready to do this?” Oren asked quietly.
Alex nodded, firming his mouth. “Da. I am ready.”
But he got more and more tense the closer their taxi got to the courthouse, and by the time Oren helped him out and inside the building, Alex was almost visibly jangling with nerves, his face white as a sheet.
Alarmed, Oren squeezed his shoulder. “Doing okay?”
Alex nodded silently, his lips pressed together, but he was trembling as he followed Oren down the hall to the county clerk’s office.
He stopped a few feet from the door and Oren turned with his hand on the doorknob to see him wavering in the hall, his breathing rapid and his eyes wide as he shook his head.
“I—I cannot, Oren, I—”
Oren glanced around. They were alone in the hallway, but it was definitely not the place for a mental breakdown. To his left was an empty conference room, the lights off, and Oren shoved the door open and caught Alex’s arm, pulling him inside.
Alex followed without resistance, his breath whistling in his lungs as he struggled to breathe.
Oren took his crutches and set them against the wall, then eased Alex into a chair against the wall where they couldn’t be seen from the hallway and knelt in front of him.
“Breathe for me, baby,” he said, rubbing Alex’s lean thighs. “You’re okay, you’re safe, everything’s going to be okay.”
Alex shook his head, gripping handfuls of his khakis until his knuckles turned white and dragging in air in great, gulping gasps.
“Is too much,” he choked. “Too fast. You—will not want to be with me, after—” He squeezed his eyes shut, a tear leaking from the corner of one and sliding down his cheek. “I cannot be—” He clutched his hair, his frustration almost palpable.
“The marriage is happening too fast, is that what you’re saying?” Oren said gently.
Alex nodded, swallowing a sob. “I am not… enough. You will regret—”
“Alex, honey, can you look at me?” Oren waited until Alex opened his eyes and met his gaze. “I was going to wait, maybe try and figure out how to say this properly, but I think you need to hear it now. See, I got a Romanian phrasebook when I bought your novel yesterday, and, um….” He took a steadying breath. “Si eu te iubesc.” He had a horrible feeling that he’d butchered the pronunciation, but it didn’t seem to matter.
Alex had turned to stone, staring at him with his mouth open.
Oren rubbed the back of his neck, smiling at him. “That’s what you’ve been saying to me, isn’t it? That you love me?”
Alex covered his mouth and shook his head. “You cannot,” he whispered, muffled against his palm. “Is too soon, too fast, and you should be with someone… like Ben. Not me, Oren, I am not—”
“I know it’s fast,” Oren interrupted. “I know you feel like you’re falling off a cliff without a parachute right now, because that’s how I feel too. But sometimes when it’s right, you just know.”
Alex sobbed out loud and covered his face with both hands. “What if you… change your mind?” he managed. “When you see—”
Oren touched his knee. “Listen to me, okay? It doesn’t matter what’s been done to you, what you’ve been forced to do to anyone else. That’s not you. Alex, I killed the boy I loved when I was seventeen years old. Did that make me a bad person?”
Alex shook his head, dropping his hands to grab Oren’s. “You are best person,” he said, his voice still thick with tears.
“So are you,” Oren said, smiling up at him as his eyes stung. “Can I—can I hold you?”
Alex made a helpless noise and tilted forward, sliding out of the chair into Oren’s lap and clinging to him desperately.
Oren held on, rubbing his back. “Someday I’ll get you to see how incredible you are,” he whispered.
Alex’s trembling began to ease after a few minutes and he lifted his head, blinking. There were tears on his cheeks, but his smile was genuine, soft like the unfolding of a butterfly’s wing. His dark eyes were luminous in the dim room, wet lashes clumping together, and Oren caught his breath.
“God, you’re beautiful,” he whispered.
Alex ducked his head, pressing his face to Oren’s shoulder. “Mulțumesc. So are you.”
Oren huffed a laugh and rubbed Alex’s back. “So what do you say, shall we get married?”
“Da,” Alex whispered, pushing his face into Oren’s chest a little harder. “Yes, Oren. Let’s get married.”
Oren helped him to his feet and held the door for him as Alex crutched his awkward way out into the hall and down the corridor to the county clerk’s office.
A heavyset woman was sitting at the front desk and she glanced up as they entered. “Help you?” she said without much interest.
Oren cleared his throat. “We, uh… we’d like a marriage license.”
The woman looked him up and down and Oren fought to keep from shifting his weight under her scrutiny.
“It’s $125,” she said after a minute. “Payable upfront. You wanting to get married here too?”
“If you’re not too busy,” Oren said, giving her his best winning smile, the one that Ben had always loved.
It seemed to have an effect on her too—her eyes softened and she almost smiled as she pointed at the two chairs in front of her desk.
“Sit. I’m Debora. What’s your name, honey?” This last was directed at Alex, who had stopped trembling but was still pale.
Oren settled Alex in the chair and sat down next to him.
“Alex Costea,” Alex said, his voice almost inaudible.
Debora’s eyes sharpened again and she leaned forward. “Alex, how old are you?”
Oren held his breath.
Alex lifted his chin. “Twenty-one.”
“Got ID?”
Alex pulled his passport out and handed it over.
Debora’s eyebrows went up. “Romanian? Don’t see a lot of them in Cheyenne. And you’re sure you want to marry this man?”
Alex nodded, taking Oren’s hand. “So much.”
Debora considered his face, but Alex’s shoulders were back and his grip on Oren’s hand was steady, and finally she nodded. “I’ll need both your IDs, and you—” She pointed at Oren. “Start on these forms.” She handed over a stack of papers and Oren gulped as he took it.
Oren was developing a fine case of writer’s cramps by the time he was done, but overall he thought he’d done a good job. Alex was reading over his shoulder, cheek pressed to Oren’s shoulder blade.
“You spelled my name wrong,” he said suddenly, making Oren jump. “Is Costea, not Costa.”
“Right, duh,” Oren said, scribbling it out and fixing it.
Debora tapped her pen on the desk. “Okay, both of you sign it and put the date at the bottom.” She waited until they were done and then stood, making a gesture for them to rise as well. “Raise your right hands, please.”
Oren leaned in close to Alex. “Mawwiage is what bwings us togevver today,” he said under his breath, and Alex’s breath whooshed out of him in a startled, explosive laugh as his shoulders eased and he leaned against Oren’s arm a little more.
“Do you, Alex Costea, take this man—” Debora squinted at the paper. “Orlando Acevedo, to be your lawfully wedded husband?”
Alex shot Oren a look and Oren shrugged.
“Alex?” Debora prompted.
“Sorry,” Alex said, his attention snapping back to her. “Da, yes, I—sorry, how do I say?”
Debora smiled at him. “You can just say ‘I do’.”
“I do,” Alex said instantly.
Oren swallowed hard as Debora turned to him and repeated the spiel.
“I do,” he said as soon as she was done.
“I now pronounce you lawfully married in the state of Wyoming,” Debora said. “You may kiss your husband.”
Oren turned and pulled Alex close, Alex’s body soft and yielding against him, and caught the back of his neck, tugging him down into a kiss. He could still taste the salt of Alex’s earlier tears, but Alex’s mouth was curving in a smile as he murmured something against Oren’s lips.
When they broke apart, grinning foolishly at each other, Debora cleared her throat and handed Oren the marriage certificate.
“Congratulations,” she said dryly.
They found themselves on the sidewalk outside the courthouse somehow, Oren with no clear memory of how they got there. His head was spinning and all he could process was that he was married to Alex, that Alex was darting shy looks at him from under his lashes and clearly unable to fight his smile. Oren sympathized—his own face hurt from how widely he was grinning.
“What now?” Alex asked.
Oren tried to marshal his thoughts. “Now, we go back to the hotel and you rest, even if just for an hour. And then, we go to the police.”
“No,” Alex said. His jaw was set. “We go now. To the police.”
“You’re exhausted,” Oren protested. “Who knows what’s going to happen once we get there? You should rest first.”
“No,” Alex repeated. “Mihai, Oren. Please. We have to—”
Oren sighed. “Okay. You’re right. I’m sorry.”
Alex touched his face, fingers cold and soft. “You worry about me. But I worry about Mihai.”
