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It was a beautiful day. Almost offensively beautiful.
The kind of sunshine that makes people in love do stupid things — like say I do when they probably should’ve said I need therapy first.
Brad Majors and Janet Weiss — now Majors — stood on the steps of the little white church in Denton, hand in hand, beaming for the flashbulbs. Her dress was simple, lace and satin. His tie was just crooked enough to make him look charming.
Everyone clapped. Rice flew. Someone’s great-aunt sniffled.
They looked like the picture-perfect couple, the ones who get framed on greeting cards.
And for a moment — maybe a real, fleeting moment — they were.
Then they got in the car.
The door slammed, and like flipping a switch, the air changed.
Brad turned the key, eyes on the road, his jaw set a little too tightly. Janet adjusted her veil, sighing as she caught sight of herself in the rearview mirror.
“Do you have to grip the wheel that hard?” she said after a beat.
“What?”
“Your knuckles are white. It’s… distracting.”
Brad’s eyes flicked to her. “Sorry, I didn’t realize my grip was part of your post-wedding checklist.”
“I’m just saying, it’s unnecessary tension.”
“Well forgive me for being a little tense, Janet. The last time we took a drive, we ended up in a—”
“Don’t.” she cut him off, eyes narrowing. “We’re not talking about that.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
A long, heavy silence followed. The kind that settles like fog.
The car hummed along the highway, and Janet started humming too — an aimless, tuneless hum.
Brad’s eye twitched.
“Could you not?”
“Not what?”
“That… humming.”
“I didn’t even realize I was doing it.”
“Well now you do.”
She stopped. A whole thirty seconds passed before she began tapping her fingers against her knee.
“Janet.”
“What now?”
“The tapping.”
“I thought maybe rhythm would be less offensive than humming.”
“It’s not.”
Janet turned toward the window, muttering something about control issues. Brad muttered something about noise pollution.
By the time they reached the interstate, it had escalated.
“You always do this thing where you correct people,” Janet snapped.
“I do not.”
“You just corrected me saying that you correct people!”
“That’s not— okay, that one doesn’t count!”
“It does count, Brad!”
He shot her a look. “You know, you used to be sweet.”
“And you used to be fun. What happened to that guy?”
When they pulled into a dingy roadside motel (the kind where the neon “VACANCY” sign flickered like it was gasping for life), it was dark out.
Brad grabbed the bags. Janet checked them in. They didn’t speak as they walked down the hallway, the carpet squelching slightly underfoot.
The room smelled faintly of mildew and cheap perfume. One bed. One lamp. A TV that buzzed like a dying fly.
They stood there in silence.
Then Janet sighed. “Well. Romantic.”
Brad dropped the bag. “Perfect honeymoon destination.”
Janet sat on the edge of the bed, kicking off her shoes. “Do you have to put the suitcase there?”
“Where should I put it, Janet? The ceiling?”
“It’s just— that’s where my veil—”
“Oh, heaven forbid your precious veil touch the floor of this fine establishment!”
She stood. “You know, for a guy who just got married, you’re doing a great impression of someone who hates his wife.”
“And you’re doing a great impression of someone who thinks the world revolves around her veil!”
That did it.
They were shouting now — about nothing and everything. About toothpaste caps, about tone of voice, about that night (but without saying what “that night” really meant). Every small irritation poured out now.
At some point, Brad stepped closer. Janet didn’t back away.
At another, she jabbed a finger into his chest.
At another, his hands were on her shoulders.
And then — it was quiet.
Just their breathing.
And the faint hum of the broken air conditioner.
They looked at each other.
Janet’s chest rising and falling fast. Brad’s jaw was tight, his tie hanging loose now.
Neither knew who moved first.
The kiss hit like a thunderclap — desperate, angry, hungry. The kind of kiss that feels like fighting with your whole body until it stops being about anger at all.
Her hand found his collar; his found the back of her neck.
When they finally broke apart, both of them were panting. Janet blinked up at him, dazed.
“So…” she said softly. “Still mad?”
Brad’s mouth twitched. “Completely.”
“Good.” She kissed him again.
Outside, the neon sign kept flickering:
VACANCY.
ACY.
NCY.
CY.
Inside, there was no vacancy left at all — not in the air, not in the silence, not between them.
And if anyone ever asked how the happy couple’s wedding night went… well.
Let’s just say it was a night they’d remember for a very long time.
————————————————————————————
Morning came too soon, as mornings tend to do when you’ve spent the night trying to forget everything that led up to it.
The weak motel sunlight slipped through the slats of the blinds, landing right on Brad’s face. He groaned, blinking awake. The first thing he saw was the cracked ceiling. The second was Janet, fast asleep beside him.
For one disorienting moment, he thought maybe the whole castle ordeal had been a dream.
Then he walked to the bathroom and looked at himself.
Lipstick. Everywhere.
His chest, his neck, even the side of his jaw.
Brad sat up sharply.
“Janet!”
She startled awake, eyes wide. “What? What’s wrong?!”
He pointed at himself, exasperated. “What’s wrong is that you’ve vandalized me! Your lipstick’s everywhere, Janet!”
She blinked, then blinked again, trying not to laugh. “Oh, that’s what you’re upset about? I thought maybe the aliens came back.”
“This isn’t funny!” he huffed, gesturing to the mess. “I look like I lost a fight with a clown.”
Janet rolled over, tugging the blanket with her. “You didn’t complain last night when I was getting it there.”
That shut him up — for approximately three seconds.
Then: “That’s beside the point!”
Brad stomped into the bathroom, muttering something about dignity and dry cleaning bills. Janet stretched out across the bed, watching him go, the faintest glint of satisfaction on her face.
Ten minutes later, they were back in the car.
Brad’s hair was still damp from his furious sink-washing, and Janet was sipping coffee from a paper cup from the motel.
“So where are we going for breakfast?” she asked, trying to sound civil.
“I was thinking that diner we passed on the way in,” Brad said. “Lou’s.”
“Lou’s? That place looked like it hasn’t had a health inspection since 1958.”
“They make great pancakes.”
“They make salmonella.”
He gave her a look. “You got a better suggestion?”
“Yes. The café down the road. It looked nice.”
“‘Nice’ meaning overpriced and served by someone with an ironic mustache?”
“‘Nice’ meaning not sticky, Brad.”
They stared each other down at a red light, the tension so thick you could butter toast with it.
Finally, Janet sighed. “Fine. Lou’s.”
“Fine.”
“Fine!”
At Lou’s, the waitress called everyone “hon” and looked like she’d seen it all — and probably had. Brad ordered pancakes. Janet, out of pure spite, ordered toast she didn’t want.
They ate mostly in silence, occasionally clinking forks in accidental, passive-aggressive sync.
By the time they got back in the car, the atmosphere had shifted again — not calmer exactly, just… quieter. Like the eye of a very sarcastic hurricane.
Brad drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. Janet stared out the window, pretending she wasn’t watching him in the reflection.
The road stretched ahead in lazy gray miles.
At some point, Brad’s hand drifted from the gearshift to Janet’s knee — absent-mindedly, like he wasn’t even aware he was doing it.
Janet froze.
Then his hand slid a little higher.
“Brad.”
“Yes?”
“Your hand.”
“Yes?”
“Seems lost.”
He didn’t move it. “It’s just… resting.”
“Uh-huh.”
The corner of her mouth twitched. But she didn’t slap it away.
Didn’t say anything else either.
The car kept rolling down the highway, the radio murmuring some old love song that neither of them had the heart to change.
And if you happened to pass them on the road — a newlywed couple driving nowhere in particular — you’d think they looked perfectly content.
You wouldn’t hear the snark, the muttered complaints, or the fact that she was smirking and he was pretending not to notice.
But you might catch the way his thumb was tracing idle circles just above her knee, and how she wasn’t moving his hand away.