Theo woke to a headache so exquisite it felt personally engineered for him. The taste in his mouth was raw, like he’d sucked down a bottle of gin and then bit into the glass for good measure. Sunlight carved a sharp parallelogram across the hotel’s white duvet, painting his left forearm in the colors of a melting slot machine. He rolled toward the light, expecting to find the edge of the world, and instead found a body, warm and deeply asleep, pressed up against his side.

  Kristina. His wife.

  The memory crashed in as a full-system reboot: the chapel, the polyester priest, the twist-tie ring that still cinched his finger, slightly sticky, dyed red from the hotel’s fake maraschino cherries. Her laughter ricocheting off the plastic altar. Her hair wild as a thundercloud, eyes rimmed with the trace of smudged mascara, lips bitten open by the effort of not crying. And now, her, here, face-down in the pillow, mouth open in a tiny O, breathing so softly he had to stare to catch the movement.

  He stared, then looked away, then stared again. He was not built for this much beauty at short range, not after a night like last night. She’d collapsed on the sheets wearing nothing but his undershirt and the wedding veil they’d lifted from the “selfie station” at the chapel. At some point in the night, both had come off, and now the bare length of her back ran from nape to tailbone, lit by morning sun, freckled and perfect and absolutely not a dream. She looked small in the expanse of the bed, the covers barely disturbed except for the island of heat where they’d lain, clutching each other like survivors of a plane crash.

  He needed a glass of water and about twelve hours of sleep, but for a long time he just watched her, cataloguing every line and shadow, memorizing the details in case she vanished when he blinked.

  It was only when he reached for his phone—out of instinct, out of the low-level terror that Marcus had documented the whole thing for social media—that he saw the first anomaly.

  There, on the dresser, beside the minibar’s collection of novelty Pringles and the twin wedding-certificate mugs, was a stack of glossy 8x10s. Atop the pile, angled to catch the light, was a headshot of Mia Amor, with her signature.

  He froze. The photo looked staged, but not in the way of a high school yearbook or LinkedIn. It was electric: Mia’s gaze bored out of the photo, teeth bright, hair arranged in a corona of controlled chaos. She wore a gold jacket, one he’d seen last night from their mid-tier seats in the MGM arena, the kind of garment that required its own architectural license. Next to the stack, half-draped over the back of a chair, was that same jacket and electric wig. Both gleamed, even in the morning’s hangover haze, and beside it, a pair of sunglasses so oversized they could have blocked out the desert sun.

  Theo’s mind started to grind through the facts. He forced a reboot, replaying the prior twelve hours: the concert, the whiskey, Kristina’s hand in his, the cab, the wedding, the bed. The person beside him was Kristina—sweet, funny, self-effacing, a disaster with hotel minibar cocktails and a champion at making him feel seen.

  But on the dresser, as if left there on purpose, was the face and the persona of Mia Amor, global pop phenomenon.

  He was still staring at the two images—Kristina in sleep, Mia in the photo—when the body next to him stirred. She groaned softly, rolled onto her back, and blinked into the sunlight. It took her a beat to see him, then another to see the expression on his face.

  She didn’t flinch, but she did pull the sheets up to her chest, suddenly aware of her own nakedness. She propped herself up on an elbow, the sheet pooling in the crook of her arm, and watched him with an expression equal parts amusement and dread.

  “Morning,” she said softly. Her voice cracked, smoke-rough from the night. “You okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  Theo didn’t answer. His hand went to the ring, turning it on his finger until the plastic bit into his skin. The photo on the nightstand stared back at him — her face, lit by stage lights, unmistakable now that he’d seen it.

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  “Is that…” he started, his throat tight, “…your way of telling me something?”

  She followed his gaze. For a second, she didn’t move—just breathed, her eyes flicking between the photo and him. Then she exhaled, long and resigned.

  “Theo,” she said, almost a whisper. “I was going to tell you. Just…not like this.”

  He couldn’t tell if she was apologizing or preparing him. Her eyes stayed on him—unflinching, but trembling at the edges.

  “I was going to tell you,” she said. “I mean, I should have told you. But last night was—” She trailed off, then let out a sigh. “My name is Kristina De Los Santos. But…professionally, it’s Mia. Mia Amor.”

  He let the words hang. It felt like waiting for a program to finish compiling, an endless loop where the code kept doubling back on itself.

  He replayed her name in his head. Kristina De Los Santos. He’d heard it at the chapel last night, when she gave it to the officiant, but his brain had filed it away under “beautiful girl, possibly hallucinated,” not “secret identity of the most famous singer on earth.”

  She was watching him now, reading his thoughts as if they were printed on the bedsheets.

  “You’re Mia Amor,” he said, the words tasting weird in his mouth. “I mean—” He gestured helplessly at her, then the photo, then back at her.

  She laughed, but it was a nervous sound, stitched together with old anxiety. “I was trying to be just Kristina, for one night. Guess I blew it.”

  “But you don’t look—” He trailed off, suddenly aware of how dumb it sounded.

  “I know,” she said. “That’s the idea. Out there, it’s all…lighting and makeup and a team of professionals who make sure I look like someone else. Here, it’s just—” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, the nervous gesture amplified by the way she avoided his eyes. “It’s just me.”

  He stared at her. She did look different—softer, smaller, the sharp edges of stage persona filed down to something real. Her curls were less contained, her skin less perfect, the planes of her face not so much glamorous as incredibly, heartbreakingly human. But now that he saw it, he couldn’t unsee it. The curve of her mouth, the little hitch in her laugh, the way she held herself with both confidence and the hint of defense.

  “Wow,” he said, not because he couldn’t think of anything else, but because that was the only word that would squeeze out.

  She propped herself up again, pulling the covers with her. “You okay?”

  He nodded, but his hands were shaking. He stared at them, willing the tremor to stop. He’d written code that launched satellites and kept entire businesses from going under, but this—this was something else.

  She reached for him, hesitating just before touching. “Hey,” she said, voice gentle. “If you want to leave, I won’t be mad. You don’t have to do this.”

  He shook his head, finally meeting her gaze. “I don’t want to leave.” He let the words settle, feeling the weight of them. “I just…I can’t believe it.”

  She smiled, but there was a sadness to it. “I’m sorry.”

  He thought about last night. The way she’d clung to him at the altar, like she was drowning and he was the only thing keeping her afloat. The way she’d said “forever” like it was a dare, not a wish.

  He reached for her hand, the one with the matching twist-tie. She let him take it, her fingers cool and soft in his.

  “Do you regret it?” she asked, barely above a whisper.

  He looked down at their hands, then back up at her. His eyes were shining, but not with tears. “No,” he said. “Not even a little.”

  They sat like that, hands tangled, the sunlight crawling up the wall behind them. He thought about how nothing made sense, and yet everything did. That all his life he’d been waiting for someone to make him feel like the universe wasn’t a series of intractable problems, but a sequence of perfectly solvable moments. And here she was, in bed with him, in his life, asking him to believe.

  He squeezed her hand, just enough to let her know he was in.

  She let out a breath, then grinned, the mask of Mia falling away. “You know this means you’re stuck with me now, right?”

  He grinned back. “Could be worse.”

  She lifted his hand to her lips and kissed the knuckle, the gesture both goofy and sincere. “You’re a very weird man, Theo Wilson.”

  “And you’re a very weird woman, Kristina De Los Santos. Or Mia. Or both.”

  She leaned in, resting her forehead against his. “Kristina baby. Can it just be us for a while?” she asked. “No stage, no crowd, no anything?”

  He nodded, and in that moment, nothing else got in.

  They stayed like that, curled in the gold light, long enough for the city to remember them. The bed was a mess, the minibar was empty, and somewhere out there, the world was waking up to the news that its biggest star had vanished into the Vegas night.

  But for now, it was just them. Husband and wife. Two names, one impossible story.

  He closed his eyes and let the light soak through his skin, the future roaring ahead like a jackpot waiting to drop.