The Marriage Contract

by Natasha L. Black

  Jordan nodded as I talked, a grin spreading across his face. “Sounds about right,” he said.

  “She’s just really cool. She’s funny and smart and completely different than anyone I have ever known.”

  “Sounds like you really like her,” Jordan said.

  “I really do,” I responded. I felt heat creeping up my cheeks. I was almost dizzy, like I had forgotten to breathe during that rant. Why?

  Because it was true. I did really like her.

  I tried to shake it off, to shake off the butterflies in my stomach that came when I talked about her that way. My brain was playing into the lie, like an actor. I was convincing myself, temporarily, of stronger feelings than I actually had. It made sense. I had to sell it.

  “Well, I think it’s really cool,” Jordan said. “Don’t be afraid of anyone’s reaction. You do you. And if you want to keep it quiet for right now, I get that, too. I don’t want you to feel pressure from me and Hannah at all in either direction. I won’t even tell Hannah if you don’t want me to.”

  “I think Chloe will take care of that, if there’s something,” I said, thinking on my feet.

  “Good point. As far as I know, she already knows,” he laughed. “But I am glad you told me. It’s exciting, even if it goes nowhere. I haven’t seen you this interested in a girl in, well, ever.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I think for now we will keep it quiet. Just to make sure she gets really settled into the job first and people don’t jump to the conclusion that she’s being treated differently because of her relationship with me.”

  “Understood,” Jordan said. “Now, I think I’m going to go on home and change and grab something to eat before I head into work.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said. “Get on out of here and let me see if I can figure one of these out.”

  Later that night at work, I decided not to address our idea with Chloe just yet. She had her reasons for wanting to take some time and think about it, and even if she decided she didn’t want to do anything at all, I could just tell Jordan about the whole plan and I was pretty sure he would think it was funny. And if not, we’d both be in the doghouse.

  Still, as much as I didn’t want to scare her off the idea, we spent much of the night pretty openly flirting with one another. I wasn’t terribly subtle in the way I would bring her tables’ food orders while she was standing there, just so I could be hip to hip with her for a moment. Plus, I found myself working on a couple of new dishes based on what she told me her favorite foods were. By the time the shift was halfway over, I knew I was completely distracted by her. In the best way possible.

  12

  Chloe

  Hannah and I decided to hit up the department store before she went into work since the nanny showed up early and I had nothing else to do. Rather than cutting her hours, Hannah figured I could join her in a run to the store, and then I could figure out what I wanted to do when I got back. There were a few household things Hannah needed to grab, and I figured doing a little shopping, even at a big-box store, would help me destress a little. So far it had only amped me up.

  “Crap,” Hannah said, looking at her phone that had just rung.

  “Tell him we’re on the way,” I said. “I’ll walk back or catch an Uber or something. It’s only like ten minutes with traffic, right?”

  “No, it’s not Jordan.” She showed the phone to me, and my shoulders sagged. It was my mom.

  “Give it here. Might as well.”

  Hannah handed over the phone, and I slid the answer tab over. Pulling it up to my ear, I prepared for the worst.

  “Hello, Mother,” I said.

  “Chloe?” my mother asked on the other end, surprised to hear me. “I should have known you would run off to see Hannah.”

  “What do you need?” I asked, cutting her off and apparently doing no good whatsoever. Hannah walked ahead a little and got to the car, unlocking it and opening it up. I went ahead and got in the passenger’s seat. There was nothing about this conversation I was intent to keep secret from her.

  “She’s just like you. Petulant, ungrateful, and arrogant. Won’t listen when other people are trying to help her,” she continued.

  “What help?” I asked, fed up with yet another rant about my cousin. “No one helped her. They just wanted to pay her off so they could control her.”

  “Well, you don’t have to worry about that, do you?” Mom sneered.

  “You mean the trust fund?”

  “And the credit cards. And the phone. How does it feel to be completely in the dark and destitute? That’s what your life will be if you don’t learn to behave and come home.”

  “So, I come home and suddenly I get to have access to your bank account again?” I asked incredulously.

  “Come home and marry Adam,” she said. “That’s the offer. You come home and marry Adam, and we will forgive you for this awful experience.”

  “Hell no,” I said.

  “Excuse me?” she shouted, familiar indignant anger in her voice. It was the same immediate zero-to-ten anger that I heard every time I did anything that she saw as being disobedient. Not immediately obeying her commands, not going to social functions, eating the wrong kind of “fattening” salad dressing. Always zero to ten.

  “Cut me off, Mom, I don’t care. I don’t want your money.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “What would you do? Go hooking? Is that what you are doing? Sleeping with men for money?”

  “Is that the only thing you can think I would do for money? Is that my only worth to you?” I asked angrily. Hannah’s head fell back into the headrest of her seat, and she shook it back and forth in disbelief.

  “Don’t you put words into my mouth!” she yelled. Suddenly, I knew what I had to do. I took a deep breath.

  “I’m not going to marry Adam. I’m seeing someone else, and I’m in love with him.”

  “What?”

  “What?” Hannah said, equally as loud in my other ear.

  “He’s the one, Mother. The one I want. I will never marry Adam or anyone like him,” I said.

  Hannah’s jaw was nearly to her chest, and she was turned in her seat toward me. I tried to ignore her, but even as angry and worked up as I was, it was funny. I had to close my eyes and look away so I didn’t start laughing.

  “You are being childish,” my mom said. “You fell in love with the first man you met? Please. You will be divorced in a year, and then where will you be? Broke and homeless in Oregon of all places. How dare you do this to your father and me after all we have done for you? We even put you in that college and let you study journalism. Do you have any idea how embarrassing that was? We put up with so much from you, and you repay us by acting like this?”

  “I have to go,” I said, my voice even. I had to keep my emotions in control because the humor of Hannah’s reaction had disappeared in the wake of that rant. “I have to go to work and see my fiancé,” I said, acid in my tone. “Don’t bother calling me again unless it’s to apologize.”

  I pulled the phone away from my ear and pressed the End Call button. It was at that point that I wished for the old cell phones like my parents had when I was a kid. The ones that actually flipped closed. It would have been so much more satisfying.

  I sat the phone down in my lap and stared straight ahead. When Hannah didn’t move from where she was for a moment, I looked at her quickly and then moved my eyes back out the window. Sighing, I turned slowly back again.

  “Are we going to work, or are you going to just sit and stare at me all day?”

  “You have got to be kidding me,” she said.

  “What?”

  “What? You’re in love with someone? And you were going to see them at work? Considering this is your day off and there’s no other guy but…”

  There was a pause as I stared at her without emotion. Very slowly her eyes opened even wider. Wide enough I thought they would fall out of her head.

  “No,” she said, shaking her hea
d and laughing. “No freaking way. No freaking way!”

  “Yes freaking way.” That was that. I’d already lied to Mom, might as well go all the way.

  “Cuz!” She pushed me in the arm hard enough to move me in the seat. “Why didn’t you say something? Why didn’t he say something? What the hell is going on? And fiancé? What the hell?”

  “Okay so I might’ve embellished on the fiancé part. But I can totally see it happening with him. It’s still kind of new, obviously,” I said. “But it’s been going on since that first day he came over to take me out to the diner, I guess. We hit it off, and I wanted to thank him for helping me, and we just kind of… fell into it.”

  “Tell me everything,” she said. “Tell me everything right now.”

  She was squealing, and I laughed in spite of myself at how excited she was. I felt bad lying to her, but I had to keep the charade up. Besides, the joy on her face and in her voice at that moment was intoxicating. I wanted to feed it and watch it grow.

  “Don’t you have to get to work?” I asked. “Won’t Jordan be upset?”

  “Oh, he’s going to be fine,” she said. “Especially when I tell him why I am so late.”

  I laughed.

  “Maybe you should let Matt tell him,” I said. “Once he knows I told you, he won’t keep it a secret for long.”

  “Come on,” she said. “This is too much. Tell me, tell me, tell me!”

  “What is there to tell? I just told you everything.”

  “The hell you did,” she said. “For real, are you guys in love?”

  “Can you keep yourself calm?” I asked. “Or will this be one of those scream-and-break-my-eardrums situations?”

  “I make no promises, but I have the keys. I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Fine,” I said. “You start driving, and I’ll start talking.”

  Hannah dutifully turned the key in the ignition and began to pull out of the parking lot.

  “It started with him sitting across from me at the bar while I was drunk,” I started. It was a lie, everything I said to her, but in a way all of it was true, too. That was the confusing part. I was embellishing things that really happened, but I was also not entirely true that some of those things didn’t happen. The way he looked at me. The way I felt when I saw he walked into the room or came up to me to talk.

  I told her about talking to him outside on the porch, and my mind wandered from embellishment to fantasy. I told her that he kissed me. That I kissed him back. That we shared a passionate moment right there, against the wall, and that’s when we both knew. There was no holding back.

  “I didn’t want to move too fast,” I said, trying to bring myself back to reality and at the same time explain some of the inconsistencies of our story. “We both knew that I was still very upset from leaving home and I was vulnerable. He’s such a gentleman, Hannah. He didn’t want to go too far or do anything that would be seen as taking advantage of me.”

  “That sounds like the Anderson boys. Hot, successful, and gentlemanly. I might be biased,” she said.

  “Me too.” I found myself realizing that didn’t feel like a lie. Butterflies fluttered in my stomach, and I smiled. A real, genuine smile.

  Shit.

  I was either really good at this, or something I didn’t want to admit was happening.

  “So, what? Is that why you moved in with us instead of him?”

  “Exactly,” I said. “It’s too soon to move in together.”

  “I get it. And you really think he’s the one?”

  “I do. Hannah, something real is happening here, and it’s happening fast. We wanted to keep it quiet for a little while, but Mom just kind of forced my hand. I’ll tell Matt I told you, and I’m sure he will either tell Jordan or say it’s fine for you to. Just give me a little time to give him a heads-up.”

  “Okay,” she said. “But you have to hurry. I can’t keep this secret for long.”

  13

  Matt

  A long night of work without the distraction of Chloe meant I needed something else to occupy my mind when I got home. So, having not spent much time dedicated to vegging out and playing video games in the newly updated apartment, I did just that. I had to admit, I was far more comfortable and didn’t feel as childish when I had real furniture and not makeshift crap. Mounting the TV had been a good plan, too, and I was able to lean way back in the couch while I played, getting super comfortable.

  Which was where I found myself at six in the morning.

  I had fallen asleep a few hours before, long enough that the video game and the television had gone to sleep mode as well. The room was mostly dark, except for the light above the sink in the kitchen, and I stumbled my way to the bed to crash for a few hours more. I was supposed to go in to work the next day a little early, so I knew I had to get up and get a shower before I headed out, meaning the alarm needed to be set for noon.

  When it went off, I hit the snooze far too many times and rolled out of bed groggy, frustrated, and kicking myself for staying up so late. At least when I slept, it had been sound and dreamless. Turning the shower’s hot water on, I prepared for a good long period of staring at the tile, trying to wake up.

  Just as I was getting out, still sopping wet and smelling like someone had set fire to a bourbon distillery, I was startled by the sound of someone at my door. The knocking was light, and I thought it might just be a mail delivery or something that I could ask them to leave at the door. I wrapped the towel around myself and padded out there, staring through the peephole.

  It wasn’t a mail carrier, though. It was Chloe, carrying a paper bag and a drink container.

  Grinning, I opened the door, enjoying the reaction of Chloe’s surprised face when she saw me standing there in nothing but a towel and still dripping wet.

  “Oh,” she said.

  “Hey, Chloe,” I said. “Come on in.”

  “Uhh,” she said, “is this a bad time?”

  “No, no, it’s fine. Come on in. Is that coffee?”

  Her eyes were roaming over my body, and I found myself loving it. Stammering, she looked down at her hands and seemed to see the bag and cup container for the first time. Then it dawned on her, and she looked back at me, making great visual pains to only look into my eyes.

  “Yes. Coffee. And lunch.” She held up the bag. “I thought we could eat. And talk.”

  “Alright then,” I said, moving aside so she could come in. As she brushed by me, I smelled the perfume that she had been wearing recently and felt my cock twitch. If I was going to stay decent, I was going to have to put on clothes before my towel unwrapped itself.

  “I’ll be back in just a sec, okay? Make yourself at home,” I said.

  She nodded, and I left the room, feeling her eyes on me as I walked into the bedroom and shut the door. But not all the way. Just in case.

  Tossing on clothes that would be appropriate for work, I went back into the living room and sat down on the massive couch. She had spread out the lunch on the coffee table, and I realized just how hungry I was. My stomach rumbled when it caught sight of the burritos, and it dawned on me she had gone to a Mexican fast-food place.

  “Gourmet this afternoon, huh?” I asked, holding up the bag.

  “I had never been there,” she said sheepishly. “I always wanted to try it. The commercials made it look so good.”

  “Their food is pretty incredible,” I said.

  “I stopped by the one in the row of shops under the apartments across the street. They had a big sign that advertised their burritos and, well, this happened,” she said as she gestured vaguely at the table.

  “I’ll be honest, I love this stuff,” I said. “I can make burritos with the best of them, but these guys are great. And they’re like a buck fifty. Can’t beat that.”

  “Yeah, I guess,” she said. I realized she really didn’t know. The last few weeks had been a crash course on how much things cost. Before then she had always just swiped her parents’ credit card
and never saw the consequence of spending money. Finding fast-food Mexican and the cheapness of it was like a rite of passage into adulthood.

  We dug into some of the food, and I watched with glee as she tried each piece and freaked out about how much she liked it. It was adorable, and when she had put a few things away, and we were both into our second cups of coffee, our casual small talk seemed to come to an end. It had felt the entire time like she was waiting to say something, and I wanted to let her get to it on her own.

  “So, I made a decision,” she said.

  “Oh? Like what? You now officially like fast food more than five-star chefs?”

  “Well, besides that,” she said. “Because this is ridiculously good. But no, it’s something else.”

  “What?”

  “My answer is yes. Let’s get married.”

  I paused and watched as the silly grin spread across her face, feeling it spread across mine, too.

  “Really?” I asked. “Alright.”

  “We need to talk about how this will work and when we tell people,” she said.

  “Uh-oh, that means someone might have found out.”

  “How did you know?” she asked.

  I shrugged. “Soul mates, I guess.”

  I grinned, and she returned it. We both sipped our coffee, and I watched as deep red flushed up one side of her neck and colored her cheeks.

  “Maybe,” she said. “I might have kind of blown the whole thing to Hannah. But I told her we weren’t engaged yet, or else she’d wonder where the ring is.”

  “So, she thinks we’re together, though. Which means Jordan knows by now,” he said.

  “I asked her not to tell him,” Chloe said. “I wanted her to give you time to tell him yourself. So we had our stories straight.”

  “Okay, good. I’ll tell him. So, what’s the story, what’s the plan?”

  “Well, I figured we could really do it up at work tonight. Teasing, flirting, you know. Maybe share a kiss or two to seal the deal,” she said. She was saying these ideas tentatively, as if she was worried I would be offended at the idea of kissing her. How little she knew.