The Marriage Contract

by Natasha L. Black

“Yes, Mom,” Matt was saying into the phone. “Yes, engaged.” A pause. “To Chloe.” Another pause. “Hold on, I’ll hand you over.” He held the phone out to me. “She wants to talk to you.”

  Tentatively, I took the phone, wondering what kind of response it was going to be. There was squealing on the other end when I said hello.

  “My beautiful Chloe!” Mrs. Anderson yelled into the phone. “I am so excited and happy for you both. This is a wonderful day. You have made me so happy! My little Matthew has found his wife, and I have found my last daughter!”

  I grinned. As much as I was worried about what we were going to do now, and as terrible I still felt about lying to them, I was enjoying that moment. I was enjoying hearing her call me her daughter. It made me feel a little bit like I was at home. But not LA. Just home.

  “Thank you, Mama,” I said. Another round of cheers surrounded me, and I smiled as tears streamed down my cheek.

  21

  Matt

  Work was smooth sailing for the lunch rush which I was especially happy about since I was working a double. The evening shift was going to prove to be a busy one, though, since we already knew we had two bachelorette parties coming in. The idea of competing bachelorette parties was already mind-numbing, but it provided the opportunity for a few jokes between Chloe and me. How appropriate to have them there the day before we were supposed to get married? It was almost like we planned it.

  Jordan had been weird all day, though. He was planning on taking the evening off until he found out about the parties coming in and decided to at least stay until midnight. Hannah was off, and while he didn’t want to be getting home really late, he also didn’t want to leave us in the lurch. I figured that was why he was being weird, but as the day progressed, it seemed less like he was upset about the coming evening and schedule change and more about something else.

  I had a feeling what it was.

  Sure enough, as I was prepping the evening menu dishes, specially curated to include things like cherry pie and a special on sex on the beach drink, Jordan came into the kitchen. Usually, if Hannah was off for the day, Jordan went home for the middle portion and either gave Hannah a little nap break or took a nap himself. It was always obvious when he got a nap, because his mood was much better upon arrival.

  Yet, there he was, twenty minutes after the doors closed for the break and very much not asleep. He was also frowning. Frowning was Jordan’s tell. If he was frowning, it wasn’t that he was actually upset at someone or sad. It was his thinking face. Jordan could be mad as hell at you and you would never know because he kept his attitude up. Or, he could be terribly sad, and unless you knew what to look for, you’d never see it. But when he frowned, it was a dead giveaway that something was up.

  “What’s up?” I asked.

  “Not much,” Jordan said. “I just thought I’d come in while we have some downtime and talk.”

  “About Chloe?” I asked, cutting right to the chase. He grinned and looked down into the bag of chips he was eating.

  “You got me.”

  “What do you want to know?” I finished up on my chopping of the onions I’d need later and rinsed off the knife and board.

  “Well, I mean, I just guess I want to know if this is really what you want? Do you really want to go through with this? So soon?” he asked.

  “Of course I do,” I said. “I’ve never felt anything like this in my life. I thought you were excited for me?”

  “I am,” Jordan protested, “for real, I am. Just, as your brother, I needed to make sure you aren’t moving too fast, you know? Plus, with as close as Chloe and Hannah are, I’m looking out for her, too.”

  “I get that,” I said. “But I’m not moving too quickly. For God’s sake, Mom gave me crap every time we talked, and even you joked about how I never settled down. Now I find someone, and you all the sudden have a problem with me moving too fast?”

  “I didn’t say I had a problem with it,” Jordan said. “Just that I worry about you. You’re my brother, Matt. My little brother. It’s my job to keep an eye on you and protect you as best I can.”

  “I know,” I said, moving back to the butcher’s block and pulling out the chicken breasts I needed to cut up for the night’s chicken strip dishes. “I know it’s fast. We just met and everything. I know all that. But we clicked, Jordan. And when you know, you know, right? Mom and Dad got married after knowing each other for two weeks, and they were together until Dad died. Remember?”

  “That’s true,” Jordan said. “Look, I just want you to be happy. If that’s how you feel, then I’m happy, too. Happy for you and happy for our family.”

  “Good,” I said.

  “So.” He opened the small fridge that had our designated drinks and pulled out a couple of beers. He brought one to me and sat it down, popping the top with his keychain bottle opener. “When do you think you’re going to have the wedding? Or is it too early to start planning yet?”

  “It’s not too early to plan,” I said, grinning, “since we’re just going down to the courthouse.”

  “Oh,” Jordan said, a bit taken aback. “You’re not going to have a wedding?”

  “No,” I said flatly. He looked surprised, which I figured would happen. Jordan was always a little more dramatic than I was, so avoiding the spotlight like that would seem weird to him.

  “No?”

  “No. Look, it’s not that important to me. And for Chloe, she would only have Hannah on her side. Her parents want nothing to do with it, so a big wedding would just be a reminder of how no one in her life is there for her because she didn’t obey what they told her to do.”

  “I can understand that,” Jordan said after a moment’s contemplation. “What about Mom?”

  “FaceTime exists, Jordan.”

  “Right,” he said. “I can’t say she doesn’t have a valid point about not having people there. I can only imagine how terrible that would be to have your big day and have no one there for you.”

  “Exactly,” I said. “So, you’re cool?”

  “Me? It doesn’t matter if I was or wasn’t. This is your life, Matt,” he said. “But yes, I’m cool. I support you in whatever you think will make you happy, as long as it’s not something that is actively hurting you. And Chloe is a sweetheart and my wife’s cousin. So of course we’re cool.”

  “Good,” I said. “Now, either come help me prep for tonight or get the hell out of my kitchen.”

  Jordan laughed, and I waved my knife menacingly. He put his hands up in mock surrender and backed out of the kitchen before ducking his head back inside one last time.

  “Just in case I didn’t say it before, congratulations,” he said, and then his head disappeared as he made his way back to the main part of the bar.

  I was right about the night rush. It was absolute chaos from the time the doors opened. Both bachelorette parties arrived almost at the same time within minutes of us being open and were fully in celebration mode by the time they got there. One of them left before the rest of the bar really filled up, but the other one was still there at midnight when the place was jam-packed, and I was furiously working on appetizers to send out.

  The chicken strips I prepared weren’t selling, but the mozzarella jalapeno poppers were flying, and they, of course, took more time to make. It couldn’t be easy. The universe just didn’t act like that.

  I was in the weeds for quite some time, but eventually my line cook and I straightened things out and we had service running more or less smoothly. There was always a lull right at twelve-thirty, and I took the opportunity to sneak outside with a beer and take a few minutes to myself. I had no more sat down and opened the beer that the door opened behind me and Chloe came out.

  “I thought you’d be out here,” she said. “I was coming to see you in the kitchen on my break, but you were gone.”

  “Sorry,” I said. “I just needed to get a minute of air.”

  “Mind if I join you?”

  “How could I say no
to my fiancée?” I asked and grinned. She laughed and sat down next to me. I offered her the beer and she took a sip, then made a face. “What’s that all about?”

  “Beer,” she said. “I don’t like it.”

  “Then why did you take a sip?” I asked.

  “Because I was being polite!” she laughed.

  “You are an odd duck, you know that?”

  “I am,” she said. “But so are you.”

  “That’s the truth,” I said. “So, are you all ready for tomorrow? Big day.”

  “That’s an understatement. We’re getting married tomorrow.”

  “I know. It’s wild, right?”

  “It is,” she said. We fell into silence for a few moments. “I got the marriage license today.”

  “Oh?”

  “Yeah, I filed for them for us the day after the dinner. They came in surprisingly fast,” she said.

  “Anything else we need for that?”

  “Nope,” she said. “We’re all set. All that’s left is to go to the courthouse and have the judge sign it.”

  “Are you going to take my name?” I asked. I expected her to laugh and shake her head. Why would she? This was a fake marriage.

  “Hell yeah, I am,” she said, snatching the beer and taking another sip. Another disgusted face made me laugh again.

  “Seriously? You want my name?”

  “Not only is Anderson a better last name than Beckett, but it means I have no connection to my parents anymore. They won’t be able to say I live off their name. I will be my own person,” she said.

  “Fair enough.”

  “Plus, yeah, I like the sound. ‘Chloe Anderson.’ It has a ring to it,” she said.

  “It does. So, you’re sure you want to go through with this?”

  “Of course I am,” she said. “One hundred percent. You?”

  “Absolutely,” I said. “One hundred percent.”

  We both smiled, and I took a deep drag of the beer. There was only a little bit of it left, and I handed it to Chloe as I stood up.

  “Heading in?” she asked, taking the beer bottle with a confused look on her face.

  “Yup. Since you liked it so much, I figured you could finish it,” I said, grinning. She laughed and shook her head, and I left.

  I was happy with her answer. It was emphatic and happy and real. She wasn’t just doing this because it was her only choice; she was doing it because she thought it would be a good idea. She liked me. I liked her. We could make this work.

  I was happy. Maybe a little too happy. For as much as I knew, deep down, that eventually we would have to figure out how to have an amicable divorce once one of us found someone we actually wanted to date, for now, it was a great situation. Besides, if we kept having nights where we slept together, we weren’t going to have too much time to sleep with other people.

  Nope. Not going to go down that route. I needed to shut those thoughts away and focus on the immediate future. Tomorrow, I was going to go to the courthouse and marry a woman that I enjoyed the company of, and we were perpetuating a lie to make both of our lives easier. That was the point. Catching feelings now would not only be unhelpful, but it would be the dumbest thing I could possibly do.

  I had to push those thoughts to the side, go back to finishing up the flurry of dishes that needed to come out of the kitchen and close down the kitchen quickly, so when we shut the doors, Chloe and I could get some rest before an early day tomorrow. It was going to be a doozy.

  22

  Chloe

  Growing up, I never really thought that much about my wedding day. I knew it was a thing most little girls did, but it wasn’t what I was particularly interested in. When Hannah would come over, sometimes we would talk about dreams for our weddings, but mine changed each time because I could never remember what I had decided on before. Hannah was different. She’d had full-on plans by age ten and could tell me what it would look like down to the color of the pews.

  She liked to talk about the style of bridesmaid dresses and the flowers that would create the arch she wanted to say her vows under. They would coordinate in color, of course, and carry on through the details of the ceremony. But the reception would have its own theme and color scheme, which meant she and the whole bridal party would have different dresses to change into for the big reveal.

  I tended to whip out fantastical ideas like riding down the aisle on a giraffe or exchanging vows in an enormous aquarium or while skydiving. These ideas didn’t amuse Hannah, but they were the best I could do. I just couldn’t get myself into the mindset of a traditional wedding the way she did.

  I figured one day, when the time was right and I actually had a man beside me who I was going to marry, I would work out all the details. Who I was when I got older and who we were as a couple would form the plans so it would be an event special to us.

  Which, now that I thought about it, might have been exactly what was happening.

  That was because no matter what I might have thought my wedding day would be like, I certainly didn’t envision anything like this. And it had nothing to do with giraffes or extreme sports. But maybe a stretch could make it a destination wedding.

  That destination being the local courthouse.

  I stood in the lobby of the courthouse wearing a white sundress and a giant church lady hat with a white veil over it that Hannah whipped up for me. Arts and crafts might have been a secret hidden passion of my cousin’s, but they weren’t her strong suit. I appreciated the effort, though. At least I had something custom created at this thing. It could also count as my something new. The earrings I borrowed from her took up the old, borrowed, and blue. Efficiency before everything.

  Hannah stood with me, wearing a yellow sundress that looked enough like mine that it might have matched. It was the closest we were getting to her having a bridesmaid’s dress, so it worked. I looked over at her, and her phone camera flashed in my face. I cringed.

  “Well, I’ll give it to you. That was at least two minutes in between pictures,” I said.

  She took another flurry of images, then wiped away her tears. “Don’t you want to remember this day?”

  “I’m sure I’ll remember it,” I said. “I mean… I’ll be married, right? That’s hard to forget.”

  She gasped, looking like I had offended her and all the generations before me with that one comment.

  “Chloe! This is your wedding day. I would think you would want to hold on to these memories,” she said.

  Hannah had been doing everything she could to hang on to memories since the day started. Every couple of minutes had her taking dozens of pictures and welling up into tears. She was far more emotional than I was, and I realized I needed to lay it on a little thicker if I was going to get this ruse across.

  “Of course I do,” I said, throwing my arms around her. “I’m just trying not to cry. If I do, it’ll open up the floodgates.”

  She laughed. “You’re so right. Then we’d both be a mess.”

  On the other side of the room, Matt and Jordan sat in chairs, Matt facing the other way because Jordan insisted he at least follow enough tradition to not see me until we walked into the courtroom. He had laughed when I came into the lobby, threatening to look at me, but Jordan made it clear that he would, as best man, knock him unconscious, and we would redo it all tomorrow if he needed to. For the sake of our marriage.

  My heart fluttered at the thought of that, and I tried to tamp it down. I was getting married, yes, but it was literally just talking to a judge and pretending for our families. But I couldn’t help but think about how much I was feeling jealousy at the thought of him eventually dating other people, or how much I genuinely enjoyed being around him. Being with him.

  The doors opened and a man in a security uniform beckoned us in. My heart jumped. This was it. Here we went.

  “I have to turn around,” Matt said to Jordan across the room. “I can’t walk backwards to the courtroom.”

  “Fine,” Jordan s
aid. “I guess it’s close enough to your ceremony.”

  I laughed as Matt stood and turned, looking at me for the first time that day. His expression wasn’t difficult to read. He smiled wide and seemed to go silent for a minute before remembering to walk toward the courtroom. When he got to me, he offered his arm and I took it, and we walked up to the judge’s pulpit.

  The judge confirmed our names and that we had our marriage license. When he was satisfied we had gone through all the required steps to bring us to this ceremony, he started. It was several shades short of romantic; there wasn’t any talk of love and romance. He didn’t quote any scripture or recite any poems or love songs.

  In fact, the entire ceremony was little more than going through the bare bones of vows. I repeated after him when he told me to and listened to Matt do the same. Behind me, Hannah sniffled and cried. I even caught a glimpse of Jordan seeming to brush a tear from under his eye, not that he would ever admit to crying over his brother’s wedding.

  Then, suddenly, it was over. The judge told us we could kiss each other and proclaimed us husband and wife. We walked over to a small desk and signed the certificate, making it legal. That was it. It was done. The entire thing might have taken up ten or fifteen minutes.

  It didn’t really hit me until after Hannah cheered and Matt took my hand to lead me outside the building. When we stepped outside and I realized the world was just continuing right along exactly as it had been before we went in, the reality settled in. Something about nothing being different underscored just how different it actually was.

  I was married. It was just on paper, but it was official. I was Matt Anderson’s wife. And he was my husband. Now I could do exactly as I planned and stick it to my family, who had been so critical and demanding about my relationship. And Matt could feel better reassuring his mother she didn’t have to worry he would never get married.

  It was surreal as we got in the car, and he looked over at me and smiled. We had actually done it. We made this plan because it seemed like the best way to handle the issues both of us were facing. But maybe I didn’t actually think it was going to go through. And now it had. We’d done it, and now all that was left was seeing what was on the other side.