“You rolling this shit, pumpkin?” Tar asked as she readjusted her AR monocle’s camera for her daughter’s viewing experience.

  Eureka took a motor oil-flavored Hot Cheeto and ate it. “Yew know et, Mum.”

  Gordon elbowed Tar, snickering, wiping away one tear made of pure joy and one tear made of smugness with his finger. “It’s beautiful. You’ve really outdone yourself choosing this joint, Tar.”

  Mac motioned to loosen his tie, not realizing it was a clip-on. Sweat dripped onto his ruddy collarbone as he waited at the top of the courthouse steps serving as their impromptu altar. Tar snickered.

  Back in her office, Eureka messed around a little more on her new stenographer’s keyboard.

  Now how the fahk do I type “You”? OH. Is et… Just “U”?

  She hit “U”.

  Fahkin’ knew et.

  “Mum. Give me loike ten seconds ta read the rest of the manual. We’ll dew this chaptah loive.”

  Nine seconds later, Hannah bust through the double doors, marching up just slow enough for Eureka to emphatically Fat Finger Freddy her soundboard button labeled “Mendelssohn’s ‘Wedding March (For Kazoo and Recorder in C Major)’” and sting the first few notes for a cheap laugh with her Twitch audience.

  “Yew loike thet shit don’t yew, yew slags? Clip et,” Eureka taunted, smirking into her webcam.

  Her chat exploded in a supernova of mirth.

  “Yamerooooooo!”

  “You asshole. I just spit Dr. Perky all over my desk.”

  “Kazoo got my ass LMFAO”

  Even from the bottom of the staircase and watching the spectacle through Tar’s monocle, Eureka could see that Hannah’s eyes were glowing pink. Her freckles glowed in the May sun, boiling the tears off her stained cheeks.

  This girleh… “Fake wedding” my detachable buttcheeks.

  Mac accepted delivery of his bride, “Savannah,” his eyes getting misty. “Heard the clerk was giving you shit, Banana.”

  “Cardiac… they told us to go outside because they couldn’t sign off on it ‘in good conscience’ if we said the rest of our vows in there. Felt like I was buying your truck all over again,” Hannah chuckled dryly, lifting her veil and sniffling a snotty, ugly smile as she greeted her groom, “Jack.”

  “OI! Quit screwin’ around. We’re loive fer fahk’s sake. We’re burning daylight ovah here, I wanna get this big, fat, stupid wedding over wiv’ so we can party at the park, eat some pizza catered by the shittiest counter in San Jose, and therefore the world, raid bloody H-Mart fer chips, candy, soda, and Bacchus-X, and go home ta play video games and watch cheesy romcoms awl noight!”

  In a feeble, snorting breath, Mac’s gut rocked with spasms of barely-held-in laughter; this wedding was serious business and they needed proof that it happened. Hannah didn’t fare much better, holding her knees as she doubled over in giggles, the seams on her simple white dress ripping where it covered her butt.

  Tar wos SO roight ta onleh give them a N$1,000 stipend fer this mission.

  Hannah’s eyes widened as they briefly flashed white before returning to an even deeper shade of pink. “OOP! Hahahaha!”

  “Ha—Savannah!”

  She turned to Mac’s horrified face and smirked.

  “Knew my ass was too big for that dress. We’re on a budget here, Jack! Found it on the clearance rack! Used up all my Kohl’s Cash for this one to sneak it in y’know?”

  Jack and Savannah are such stewpid fake names, but I cannawt believe et’s working this well. They’re barely even acting!

  “Yeah, what did I expect? I wanted both the buffalo and barbecue wings at Mama Luigi’s. Guess the compromise had to be made somewhere,” Mac joked. “Anyways. You ready to say your piece and peace out before some patrol car-ass hall monitor type sees this shit and tries to bundle all of us in on a slam-dunk RICO charge? I’m sweating my balls off here, Carol.”

  “Yeah. Eureka, if you would?” Hannah smirked, now confident in both that her wedding wouldn’t be ruined any more than it already was and playing as Savannah Carol St. Clair getting married to Davey “Jack” Meyers.

  Another riot started to brew in Eureka’s chat.

  “This couple is so patrol-car stupid doo doo delulu. I love them.”

  “KOHL’S?!”

  “What a beautiful wedding. I cri every tim.”

  Gordon and Tar staggered back, their faces now fully exposed to the truest fakest love in the West. Putting a hand in front of his color-changing driving visor, Gordon fought the glare coming from the top of the courthouse steps. “Tar.”

  “Yeah, Gordon?” Tar answered, the dread evident behind her black sunglasses.

  Eureka’s live feed datamoshed as the radiation reached the lens.

  Resigned to his fate, Gordon conceded. “It’s… real.”

  “I know! Ma, I love you. See you soon,” Tar grunted.

  Click. Clickclickclickclickclick! Tar’s monocle feed cut out. Eureka opened and closed her Microsoft Teams window.

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  Fahk. Mum. Mum! Gordo! I hate yew, Microsoft Teams…

  The feed went back to normal, Mac and Hannah having to take a pregnant pause to cut the tension. Puzzlement painted their faces as they turned to Gordon and Tar with both their hair alfalfa antennae perked up and their eyes turning beady.

  Tar let loose a shaky breath. “Holy fuck. We—”

  “Almost died…” Gordon finished her sentence, hunching over and resting his hands on his knees.

  Wot da fahk just happened? Enyways… Toime ta officiate this folly. :3

  “Dearly beloved, we ahr gathered heahr today ta witness the union of Davey ‘Jack’ Meyers and Savannah Carol St. Clair in marriage. Thet’s yer cue ta hold hands, yew dorks.”

  Hannah reached for Mac’s hands, squeezing them like a Labrador retriever holding her plush ducky in her mouth.

  “Go on…” Hannah prompted.

  Eureka flipped through the overloaded two-inch, three-ring binder containing all the incantations for the ceremony on her desk, the kind fifth-graders used because their teachers told them that that’s what college students used. “Hang on, lemme skip awl the boring parts everybodeh sleeps on…”

  She thumbed over the relevant page, and picked up the ceremony from there. “Dew yew, Savannah, take Jack ta be yer lawfully wedded husband? Ta have and ta hold, in sickness and in health, fer richer or poorer, fer better or worse, fer as long as yew both shall live?”

  “Couple goals.”

  “I’ll take thet as an ‘I do.’ And dew yew, Jack, take Savannah ta be yer lawfully wedded wife? Ta have and ta hold, yadda yadda yadda?”

  Mac chuckled, forcing a tear to climb back into his eye. “One-hundred emoji.”

  Eureka turned away from her webcam and faked a cough, rolling her eyes. After quick-editing a glitch effect in her webcam’s feed, she spun her chair back around, recomposed and recombobulated.

  “Now Jack and Savannah will share the vows they’ve written fer each other. I’m kinda curious what made Santa Clara County Clerk 27 kick yew doofuses out. Mum said she was the most lenient one. Chat’s dying ta know as well.”

  Hannah opened her mouth to start, but Eureka wasn’t done yet. “I sweahr girleh, if yew waste our toime reciting some trite banter ripped straight from the thirteenth circle of Tinder, I’m leaking yer wedding announcement to yer PARENTS wiv’ a cryptic, anonymous clue and Mum will take away yer company iPad. Now speak.”

  Crossing her fingers behind her back, Hannah winked at Mac. Mac mirrored her.

  “Ma—Jack. I promise to always lie for you, bail you out when you slip, and cap all the haters. You might be a menace, but you're my menace. Amazing how we got this far. Love you forever. Professionally. Not! Fingers crossed. In Minecraft. In Grand Theft Auto. For tax reasons. For corporate espionage reasons. To infiltrate this couples' retreat hosted by Dr. Prudence Stern and her wife posing as Jack and Savannah. To save brunch. To reiterate, we’re just doing this as outlined in our job descriptions,” Hannah vowed to her dying day, staring into Mac’s soul like she wanted to grab and make out with Mac’s sweaty, clammy face that looked unfairly dashing framed by his wrinkled, plain, brownish-gray suit right then and there.

  At this, Mac’s eyes shone, smirking out his own bastardized promises. “What she said! I'm so happy we're getting married, y’know? It's just good business sense to partner up with someone who never ever leaves you behind, even when the mission gets tough. Who always laughs at my dumb jokes. Who always keeps my back warm at night. And who always fights for me, just to name a few benefits of becoming your business partner for life. To boot, you’re also like, a total babe. Do you wanna make out about it now?”

  The war raged on in Eureka’s chat, this time debating like the Model U.N. club at Chico State at the end of spring semester’s finals week. Which is to say, they were asymptotically approaching a vape and beer-fueled breakthrough.

  Scores spammed the Mr. Destructoid and the MonkaS emote.

  “PROFESSIONALLY? They’re animals.”

  “AYO? Eureka, delete the VOD girl.”

  “We might actually get hit with the RICO for this.”

  “Hi Mom!”

  “LORE?”

  Eureka had had enough. “Fahk me… Awright awready! By the power vested in meh by Applebee’s, Eatin’ Good in the Neighborhood, I now pronounce yew husband and wife. Yew may kiss or wotevah da fahk! My coworkers, chat.”

  Stooping down, Hannah tipped Mac’s chin up with one hand, her other hand still keeping her fingers crossed behind her back. Mac tiptoed to reach her lips, also taking care to keep his fingers crossed behind his back. It was long, heated, and even made awkward when two bailiffs trying to get out of the courthouse to go to [99% sure: the Shell station] nearby for their lunch breaks opened the double doors behind them. Hannah moved their kiss off to the side to let them pass, a white blur in Eureka’s feed.

  Nobody knew how high the PogChamp streak count got the moment they kissed. Twitch just stopped counting after 51,293.

  The happy couple parted.

  Eureka was now turbo DONE with their shit. She sighed, then deadpanned to Mac, hoping he picked up her distress signal to wrap it up quickly. “Okay. Jack. Dew yew have the rings, mate?”

  “Sure do. Got a great deal for them! N$80 for a set of real-deal sterling silver bands from the county. Pretty awesome, eh Sugar? C’mon. Let’s get on with it so we can play at the park.”

  Thank fahk Mac is emotionally intelligent.

  “Oh Jack…” a lovestruck Hannah stuck her left hand out, still keeping her fingers crossed behind her back with her right hand.

  Mac put it on her finger. Hannah did the same. Tar fired off some snapshots with her phone, forever immortalizing their wedding in a Google Photos album and to print out some 4x6s for her new corkboard.

  Below them, Gordon turned to face Tar. “Tar?”

  “Yeah, Gordon?”

  “That was one kick-ass wedding. I’m so glad you’re this crew’s XO.”

  Tar sniffled, letting a single tear fall as she adjusted her AR monocle, the high noon sun glinting off them as she did so. “I know, friend. Awfully rainy today, huh?”

  Gordon didn’t get the reference. “What?”

  “Never mind. Let’s go to the park,” Tar brushed the cringe off, hitting the transition into the next beat of the plot.

  WHOOOOMP WHOOOOMP! SKRRRRR!

  The wedding party spun around to see five unmarked police SUVs pulling up at the bottom of the courthouse steps.

  A squad of five happy, shiny, young-ish couples, all dressed in matching black Adidas tracksuits, German Army Trainers, with the gum sole of course, glowie-spec shades, and matching plain Giants fitted caps, jumped out, flashed their copper badges under their shirts like they meant something, barged up the stairs, separated Mac and Hannah, handcuffed them, and led them down the courthouse steps.

  Tar, I really fahkin’ hope yer bonkers plan ta get them shipped off ta Dr. Stern’s Mountain Retreat for Dysfunctional Couples works.

  Before anybody could react, the oldest couple in the squad addressed the wedding, speaking with one sickening, wholesome, lovey-dovey voice. “We’re from the California Department of Marital Oversight Inspection Service. We were watching your wedding on Twitch. You are both under arrest for relationship fraud and for holding a wedding for under N$1,200 all in. You have the right to remain silent, get a lawyer, and all that jazz. Get the fuck in the car—and don’t you dare make out in the backseat. It won’t help your case.”

  “The fake is of far greater value. In its deliberate attempt to be real, it's more real than the real thing!” Mac and Hannah zinged at the rest of the crew, trying not to bust up laughing taking their seats as the happiest (allegedly) fake couple in the world in their honeymoon ride: a 2048 Chevy Tahoe Police Package, painted all black.

  We’re so fahked.

  Tar and Gordon just giggled.