On Valentine’s Day, I Issued My Fiancé and His Female Best Friend a License—By Morning, I Was Gone

The glass of Window Three was three-eighths of an inch thick. It was designed to muffle raised voices, to temper the hostility of people whose blood sugar had dropped while waiting two hours to pay fifty-five dollars for a legal status change. But standing behind it, looking through the square speak-hole, I realized it was also very good at turning Ryan’s voice into something flat and tinny.

"Nora, look at me," Ryan said. He leaned his forearms against the small wooden ledge below the opening. The fabric of his dark suit jacket—the one he’d worn to our rehearsal dinner consultation three weeks ago—stretched tight across his shoulders. "It’s a stunt for Chloe’s stream. Everyone’s in on it. Max is filming outside in the corridor right now."

I glanced past his shoulder. Sure enough, twenty feet back, past the rows of blue plastic chairs where an older couple sat holding hands over a tote bag, Max was holding a smartphone mounted on a small gimbal. He gave me a brief, sheepish wave with his free hand, then immediately snapped the camera back to focus on Ryan and Ava.

"A stream," I said. My voice was level. It sounded like the voice I used when an applicant brought a photocopy of a birth certificate instead of the certified state seal.

"It’s twenty-four hours," Ava said. She shifted her weight, the white cotton of Ryan’s birthday shirt whispering against the line of her skirt. She pulled a folded sheet of paper from her coat pocket and smoothed it flat on the glass with her palm. It was the preliminary online application form, filled out in her rounded, loopy handwriting. "We file today, we do a ten-minute chapel thing at the drive-thru place on Fourth Street, we get the footage, and tomorrow morning we file the annulment or the joint petition for dissolution. Chloe said she’d pay the court clerk fee herself."

"Dissolution takes weeks in Nevada," I said. "Even an uncontested summary divorce requires a thirty-day residency affidavit if you don't use the fast-track joint petition, and even then, it goes on your permanent public record."

Ryan laughed. It was the short, puffing sound he made when I explained the HOA rules about the parking permits at our complex. "Nora, honey, nobody’s looking at county records for a twitch prank. It’s a bit. You’re working the desk. We saw your shift was listed on the board, and Ava said, 'Wouldn't it be insane if Nora was the one who processed it?'"

"It’s poetic," Ava added, her eyes wide, bright, and completely empty of anything resembling an apology. "The ultimate proof of trust. Like... you’re so secure in your relationship that you can literally sign your fiancé over to his best friend for a weekend and not even sweat it."

She looked at Ryan when she said it, her fingers twitching near his elbow until he reached down and let her tuck her thumb into his pocket.

I looked at the driver's licenses lying between us on the polished granite counter.

Ryan Thomas Hails. DOB: 08/14/1992. Eye Color: BLU. Height: 6-01. Ava Louise Brooks. DOB: 03/22/1993. Eye Color: GRN. Height: 5-05.

Behind me, Brenda, who had worked Window Four for twenty-two years and could spot a forged signature from six feet away, tilted her head toward my station.

"Problem, Nora?" she asked, her voice low enough that the glass didn't catch it. "Number 414 is waiting."

"No problem, Brenda," I said.

My fingers were cold. The air conditioning in the Clark County building was always set to sixty-eight degrees to keep the crowds from getting faint, but my knuckles felt stiff, almost wooden, as I picked up Ryan’s license.

"Nora," Ryan whispered, his face pressing closer to the hole. The smell of his cologne—the cedar and amber one I’d bought him for Christmas—came through the perforations. "Don't do the serious face. It’s five minutes of work for you. Put the stamp on, give us the paper, and I’ll pick up Thai food on the way home tonight. We’ll laugh about this when we’re forty."

"You want me to process this?" I asked. I looked him straight in the eyes. I didn't look at Ava. I didn't look at the phone camera twenty feet away.

"Yes," Ryan said, smiling now, relieved because he thought my hesitation was just my usual bureaucratic caution—the rigid adherence to order that he often called my "cute little file-clerk brain." "Process it, babe. Let's get the show on the road."

I didn't argue. I didn't raise my voice. I didn't drop the licenses or call supervisor Miller from the back office.

I laid the two cards side-by-side on the scanner. The red laser light swept over Ryan’s face, then Ava’s. The printer behind my desk gave its familiar, mechanical whir-click as it fed a fresh sheet of heavy, gold-bordered state stock into the tray.

I typed his name into the field. H-A-I-L-S, R-Y-A-N.

I typed her name into the field. B-R-O-O-K-S, A-V-A.

"Sign here," I said, sliding the digital signature pad through the slot.

Ryan signed first. He did it with a flourish, adding a little smiley face inside the loop of the 'R' that he always used when he was signing bar tabs. Ava took the stylus next, her fingers skimming over Ryan’s knuckles as he handed it to her. Her signature was small, precise, and topped with a tiny star over the 'i'.

I pulled the printed license from the tray. It was crisp, still warm from the fuser rollers.

I picked up the heavy steel seal of the County of Clark. It weighed three pounds. I aligned the bottom edge of the document between the jaws of the press and brought my hand down with a firm, deliberate crunch.

The gold foil puckered into relief: STATE OF NEVADA – COUNTY OF CLARK – MARRIAGE LICENSE.

"That'll be seventy-seven dollars," I said.

Ryan pulled out his leather wallet—the one with his initials stamped into the corner—and slapped a hundred-dollar bill onto the counter. "Keep the change for the wedding fund, sweetness."

I took the bill, placed it in the till, counted out twenty-three dollars in change, and laid the cash along with the gold-embossed paper on the ledge.

"You have one year from today to solemnize the union," I said, reading the standard closing script without breaking eye contact. "If the ceremony is not performed by an ordained officiant within the State of Nevada, this document becomes void."

"Oh, we’re doing it in ten minutes," Ava giggled, snatching the gold paper before the ink was even dry on the clerk's signature. "Pastor Pete at the Little White Bell is already on standby."

Ryan grabbed the paper from her hand, rolled it into a loose tube, and pointed it at me playfully. "See you at seven, babe. Save me some of those potstickers."

They turned together. Ava caught his arm again, leaning her head against his shoulder as they walked toward the double doors where Max was waiting with the camera raised high.