"Are you sure we should go and do that today?" The blankets were still wrapped around me, keeping the warmth close to my bare skin. Staton moans, stretching his arms as far as he could above his head before wrapping them around me.

"I've never been more sure of anything in my entire life. I think we should go today." He mumbled, his eyes still closed, his voice full of sleep, his body relaxed as it intertwined with mine. The sun was saying good morning, peeking through the curtains to our bedroom. Waves from the ocean crash against the sand.

We were so lucky to have found a place like this, and this kind of paradise couldn't last forever.

"Fine, I think we should do it." I smiled. Butterflies filled my stomach at the thought of sneaking off with Staton.

"Really?" He mumbled, smacking his lips as he asked the question. I nodded in response. I wanted to marry this man more than I could ever imagine. He was the perfect guy and I'd be insane to not be with him for the rest of my life.

Getting married also meant we were making the commitment to never go home again. At least not in the way we left. I'd never have to live with my mother. I'd always have Staton and we'd always have to figure things out together.

"I don't see why we should wait any longer. I mean, we've already been engaged for over a week. That's like a lifetime for us young people." I winked, my fingers brushing through his hair. He had rolled over to wrap his arms around me, resting his head on my chest as he finished waking up.

I watched the ocean dance with the sand, pulling further into the sea every single time. Today seemed like the perfect day to get married.

"Well, should we get dresses, then? Are you going to wear that cute dress that I really like?" When Staton pulled away, he left a void in the bed, and the cold air from the room rushed to fill his spot. I shivered slightly, pulling the blanket further over my arms.

"What dress?" I couldn't pinpoint which one he was specifically talking about. Anything I wore, he would tell me how it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

"The white one with the puffy sleeves?" He pointed towards the closet.

"I guess I could wear that. It is the nicest dress I brought with me." When we left. I hadn't packed much, and since I didn't like dresses in the first place, I didn't spend a lot of time or space on them.

"I think I would really love it if you did. Now I just need to figure out what I'm going to wear to get married to the most beautiful girl In the entire world. No one will be looking at me, though. I didn't really bring a nice suit or anything." Staton dug through his drawers, looking for anything that would resemble wedding attire.

"I don't want you to wear a nice suit or anything like that." After grabbing the white dress out of the closet, I closed the distance between us. I opened the other drawer of shirts and pulled out a white button-up. After grabbing some nice jeans for him, I sat them all on the bed. "There, that's what you should wear. Plus, we don't want anyone to know where we are going, so we can't look too nice. They will start to ask questions."

Staton leaned forward to kiss me. "But first I need to take a shower."

~*~

"I can't believe we did that." I shook the piece of paper in my hands, shocked at the fact that it had our names on it and the words wedding document. It was official. The courthouse had gotten us in quickly and out almost just as fast.

"I didn't realize how easy it was to just go and get married." Staton leaned over my shoulder to look at the paper as well.

"Yeah, you are right. That was stupid easy and honestly not as expensive as I would have thought. My mother always complained about how expensive it was to get married. But that was less than a hundred bucks." I felt like a child on top of a mountain. The nerves in my legs made it hard to walk, but the support from Staton made everything better. We would always have each other now, no matter what.

"Maple, you are my wife." Staton seemed to be in shock.

"No more Maple Baker, it's now Maple Hanover." I smiled. I've felt like a Hanover for a while now. There was no reason to be a part of the Baker family anymore, and as soon as Staton and I started getting serious, there was no reason to not switch it. The change was exciting for me.

"Well, Mrs. Hanover, what should we do with the rest of our day to celebrate?"

"I have just the idea."

~*~

Once Staton pulled the car into the driveway, I felt my body relax. We were finally home, and we could finally head to bed. Today had been one of the best and longest days of my life. We somehow managed to fit so many things in such a short amount of time. It quite impressed me with our skills to just get things done when it was just the two of us. When you added in the rest if the group, now that's when things got hard.

"Are you ready to head in there and see what everyone else has been up to all day?" Staton asked, killing the engine on the car. I took a deep breath. It had felt so nice to not have to worry about anyone else for a moment.

"No," I mumbled, tugging at the end of the white dress. A small strand of material had frayed at the seam. If we had been back home and my mother had seen this, she would have thrown the whole dress away. This made today even more perfect. It felt like it was exactly what Staton and I would have wanted.

"Me either honestly, and if we had somewhere else to go, I'd say let's just run away from the people we ran away with." Staton chuckled.

"We could always go and get a hotel," I said. But there was no reason to spend the money on a hotel room when we had already spent so much on such a nice dinner. Seafood on the beach was much more expensive than I remembered it being before we ran away. But then again, before we ran away, I had a charge card that I never had to worry about the amount on it. I never had to pay it or see that number. It was always just taken care of for me. Now that we were on our own, I had to live off of what I made at the grocery store, and so far that wasn't much. The minimum wage was better here in California than in most states, but it didn't mean shit when it came to the inflation they had to deal with because of it.

"Why did we decide to stop and stay in California?" I questioned, realizing how ludicrous it was for a group of five young adults who've never had a job and never had to live on their own to stop in one of the most expensive states in the country. Why couldn't we have made it somewhere cheaper, easier to live in?

"We got lazy. We thought we had run far enough, and this was just easy. It's difficult here though and if it was just the two of us, I would have never stopped here. I would have headed east. Not sure why we went down instead of to the side. If we really wanted to put enough distance that our parents couldn't just come and get us within a few hours, then we went about it all the wrong way."

Staton was right. We really were dumb in everything we had done the first few weeks. If it were just him and I there was no doubt we would have been in South Carolina by now.

"We should head inside before they start asking too many questions." I opened the car door.

"Yeah, you are right. We don't want them bombarding us with questions." He shook his head.

When we walked through the front door, we were both shocked to see the three of them sitting around the coffee table playing card games. Were they better off without us as well?

It felt like we were circus animals. Everyone's eyes were locked on us like we had three heads sticking out of our shoulders.

"Well, where have you guys been all day?" Breygan leans back against the couch, placing his hand on Aria's shoulder, and pulling her close to him. She sank right into him with no questions, which shocked Staton and me even more than they had been fighting once again when we had left this morning. They were always fighting and yet somehow never seemed to be away from each other.

"We decided to spend the day together and go on a little date, nothing big," Staton muttered. Placing the keys by the front door. A small part of me hated hearing him say the words 'nothing big'. I know we didn't want everyone else to know, but it was the biggest day of my entire life. Even bigger than running away from my parent's house. This was going to be an important day for the rest of our lives.

"Yeah, a random date. Why are you guys dressed so nice then?" Aria asked, jumping up from her spot next to Breygan to inspect our outfits closer. I felt like an animal in a cage, everyone watching my every movement. Out of nerves and the habit I had formed in the last few hours, I started spinning the wedding band around my finger.

"Ah-ha!" Julia shouted from across the room. "You guys didn't!"

She jumped up and rushed over to us, grabbing my hand to inspect my finger. She then grabbed Staton's hand to see he had a matching one on his hand. Shaking her head, she dropped both our hands and gave us a hurt look.

"I can't believe you got engaged without us." Julia held her hands over her heart, and as the words left her mouth, Aria and Breygan were at our sides, too. Our secret was out of the bag. Well, partially out of the bag.

I looked at Staton in a panic. Should we tell them the truth or let them go with the idea that we were just engaged? I didn't want to have to pretend to plan a wedding for the next, however long. Especially after our conversation on the beach when we had our girl's day. They would never leave me alone if they thought there was a wedding to be planned.

Our marriage certificate was what would give us away. Staton had been holding it, intending to rush it to our room as soon as we were inside the house. They bombarded us so quickly that it wasn't able to happen. Julia grabbed the paper quickly, holding it close to her face to read.

"Holy shit!" She lowered the paper when the realization washed over her.

"What!" Aria shouted, reaching for the paper. I snatched it out of their hands so they wouldn't ruin it. Holding it close to my chest as a blush burned on my face.

"They are already married, aren't they?" Breygan asked. Though he wasn't as ecstatic as the girls, you could hear the sense of hurt in his voice as well. I wasn't sure why he was at all interested in our love life and if we got married or not. Maybe he knew that if Staton and I were married that Aria would start asking him questions about their relationship and what his intentions were. She had always wanted to get married, even when we were younger.

"Yes." Julia was frustrated now, and it seemed like she didn't know what to say. Without saying anything, she turned on her heel and left the living room.

"I can't believe you didn't tell us." Aria followed her. Her words sounded just as hurt. It felt like she was imagining how she was going to kill us.

"You've really done it now, haven't you?" Breygan muttered, folding his hands over his chest.