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no, it’s not a bad idea, you marrying me. It’s the only idea that makes sense.”
    The whole time I was talking, she stared at me, blinking those wide eyes at me in an effort to prevent herself from crying. She didn’t sit down again, but her hand relaxed in mine. She wasn’t going to dart. At least not right this second.
    I could finally make out the color of her eyes, though: they were the gray-blue of the Tulsa sky when an afternoon thunderstorm was rolling in. Dark. Tumultuous. Ominous.
    “Your mother, she still sells sex?” she asked.
    “Not since I signed my first pro contract. She won’t ever have to do that again.” And you won’t, either .
    “You’re good son, Razor.”
    I’m going to be a good husband, too. The thought sprang to mind, but I didn’t want to push. This conversation was the most she’d talked since consenting to marry me, and I didn’t want to spoil it.
    After she’d agreed earlier, she’d clammed up, speaking only when necessary and giving the bare minimum to answer every question she’d been asked. There had been a moment just before she’d accepted my proposal when I’d thought she was going to let me in, at least a bit. It had only been fleeting, though. She’d put an end to her tears, and the self-protective blankness had come back over her features, and that had been that.
    I got it. Holy fuck, did I get it. Viktoriya had very good reasons to be wary, to think she needed to keep everything locked up inside her. I just hoped she would eventually allow me to see who she really was, not think she had to protect herself against me. I wasn’t going to hurt her, but why should she believe that? Even with knowledge of what my mother had done, there wasn’t any good reason for Viktoriya to trust me, so I knew I was going to have to tread carefully with her.
    I went back to filling out the form, asking her questions that only she could answer. Eventually, she sat next to me again, keeping that bag tight against her body. When I finished, I reached for her hand. Surprisingly, she took it and walked with me to return the paperwork to the Elvis who’d greeted us when we first came in.
    He scanned the forms, comparing what I’d filled in with the marriage license. The next thing I knew, we were walking up to the altar and standing before an officiant. A little person in matching Elvis gear took up a spot next to the larger version.
    We said our I dos, I gave her a chaste kiss on the lips, and we were on our way back to the hotel as a married couple, all before midnight. Shocker of all shockers, somehow I ended up married before Babs. I doubted anyone who knew us would have seen that one coming, me included.
    The crazy thing was, the actual getting married part had been easy. Whatever was still to come, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind that it was going to keep us both on our toes.
    Too bad I didn’t have a ballerina’s balance. I got the sense I might well end up falling on my ass a time or two.

 

     
     

    ALL THE WAY back to the hotel, Razor kept his hand on the small of my back—unobtrusive but ever present, making it impossible for me to forget, even for a moment, what we’d just done.
    I was married. To a man I’d only met hours ago. I must be as crazy as he was.
    If not for the fact that I had no earthly idea what else I could have done, I would be a shambles, falling apart because of the absurdity of it all. What would Papa have thought? After all he’d done to keep me safe… If he could see what I had become, he would likely roll in his grave. Maybe it was good he wasn’t alive to understand how far I’d fallen. I was not the woman he had sacrificed everything to see me become. I’d squandered it all, and now I was selling myself in every way imaginable.
    Even marrying Razor was, in a way, selling myself. I hadn’t had much choice, short of ending up in jail for prostitution and being deported to a country that had nothing left for me but worse than anything