I Agreed to Be Her Fake Boyfriend for One Night and Now She’s My Wife

He raised his glass higher.

“To Andrew and Sophia. May your marriage be as unexpected and perfect as your first meeting.”

We danced until our feet hurt. We took photos with everyone we loved. We cut a cake that had a tiny fondant figure of a couple at a bar on top, complete with a woman grabbing a man’s face—Sophia’s idea, obviously.

My best man gave a speech about how I’d called him that night.

“He said, and I quote, ‘I just met a girl who either thinks I’m her boyfriend or is having some kind of episode. I’m not sure which, but I think I like her.’ And I said, ‘That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Don’t get involved.’ And he said, ‘Too late. I’m already at dinner with her parents.'”

Everyone roared with laughter.

“So this is my fault, really. If he’d listened to me, none of this would have happened. You’re welcome.”

Later in the night, Sophia’s father pulled me aside.

“You know, when she first told us the truth about how you met, I was angry. I felt manipulated.”

“I understand.”

“But watching you two today, seeing how you look at each other, I realized something. The circumstances were unusual, but the connection was real. You can’t fake that.”

He put his hand on my shoulder.

“Take care of my daughter, Andrew. Even when she makes impulsive decisions and grabs strangers at bars.”

“Especially then,” I said.

He laughed and walked away.

At the end of the night, Sophia and I stood in the parking lot of the venue, both of us exhausted and happy.

“We did it,” she said. “We actually got married.”

“We did. How did we get here from a random bar to this?”

“You grabbed me. I said yes. Everything else just followed. Best impulse decision I ever made.”

“Best yes I ever gave.”

We drove to a hotel near the airport; we were flying to Italy for our honeymoon in the morning. But before we left, before we started that next chapter, we made one more stop.

We drove back to the bar. It was late, almost midnight, but the place was still open.

We walked in and sat at the same spots where we’d first talked after dinner with her parents. The same bartender was working. He saw us and grinned.

“Back already? The marriage didn’t take?”

“Just wanted to end where we started,” Sophia said.

He poured us two drinks on the house.

“To the weirdest couple I’ve ever met.”

We clinked glasses and drank.

“Do you ever wonder what would have happened if you’d grabbed someone else?” I asked.

Sophia thought about it.

“All the time. But I didn’t. I grabbed you.”

“Why me, though? Really?”

She looked at me for a long moment.

“Honestly? You were smiling. Not at anything in particular, just smiling while you sat there alone. And I thought, ‘That’s someone who’s okay with himself. That’s someone who might be okay with me, too.'”

“I wasn’t that okay with myself.”

“Neither was I. But we figured it out together.”

We finished our drinks and left the bar one last time as a married couple. As we walked to the car, Sophia stopped and looked back at the entrance.

“Thank you,” she said.

“For what?”

“For being at that bar. For being the person I grabbed. For saying yes when you could have said no.”

I kissed her.

“Thank you for grabbing me.”

We flew to Italy the next morning. We spent two weeks eating pasta and drinking wine and exploring cities neither of us had been to before.

On our last night in Rome, we sat at a restaurant overlooking the city and Sophia pulled out her phone.

“My mom texted me earlier. She said she’s been thinking about our story and…”

“And?”

“And she said she’s glad I panicked that night. She said, ‘Sometimes the best things come from our worst moments.'”