The Marriage Pledge

by Jean Oram

  12

  Amy had barely spoken to him in two days and it was killing him. It felt odd not having her working by his side in the pub. She was always asleep when he came home, heading out just when he was waking up.

  If they made it over this bump, this was how their lives would be. Him working weird hours, her at home living a different life.

  “Can we talk?” Moe asked, cornering Amy out on the back deck. She was drinking a cup of coffee, her nose in a book.

  “About the fact that the whole Phipps family seems to be playing you, sabotaging you? That part? Or the fact that maybe owning the pub wasn’t meant to be, and if you buy it you’ll end up miserable?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I think we need some distance.”

  “From each other?”

  “The situation.” She was flipping pages, looking at them, but obviously not reading a word. “I called your cousin Dallas in Indigo Bay and he’s moved up our honeymoon. We can leave tomorrow.”

  “I can’t leave.” Things were precarious enough right now. If he left he could kiss the pub goodbye. “We can’t afford for me to lose my job right now. And what’s this about Kimi and Spencer? How have they been sabotaging things?”

  Her voice dipped as she said, “We need this trip, Moe. It’s just a few days and you have banked holiday time.”

  Moe growled in frustration. “I’d love to sit on a beach and pretend this mess doesn’t exist, and that it doesn’t matter. But I’m the one in charge of the pub. It does matter, and I can’t live for the moment while letting the future fall apart on us.”

  “Don’t you wonder how that paper got into your office? The soda order that Spencer—the gamer who never had a thing to do with the business—was able to solve overnight? My money is on him.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “He’d benefit. He could be meddling, hoping you’ll fail so he’ll get half the liquidation cash. Why wouldn’t he? It’s a lot easier than working.”

  “He’s been helping us.”

  “Did Scott tell you the jukebox is hot? As in stolen? There’s a nice chunk of your manager bonus gone. Scott’s probably getting the paperwork in place to march in and seize it right now.”

  “It’s hot?” Moe rubbed his chest with the heel of his hand.

  “And the suddenly spoiled vat of beer? Weird, right?” She set down her book and leaned forward. She was throwing so much at him all at once, and he needed some time to sort out his thoughts.

  “Honestly, what’s the worst that can happen if we go away?” she asked him.

  Moe pinched the bridge of his nose.

  The worst thing? Didn’t she know? Didn’t she understand?

  They were just too dissimilar. He’d always been her fallback guy, the one she’d never truly understand or love as more than a friend. She probably hadn’t even thought about how she was going to get a new job. Everyone knew she was trying to get pregnant and wouldn’t stay with a job for long before needing time off to have the baby.

  Moe’s hands flexed. “If you want kids you can’t just be spontaneous and follow your heart. You can’t just throw your hands in the air and walk away when things get complicated.”

  “I’m not asking you to! I’m asking you to step back and really look at this. All of it.” Amy stood, shoving her chair out of the way. “Things have a way of working out, and a few days away can give you perspective. That pub owes you nothing and you owe it even less.” Her jaw tightened and her eyes flashed. “Sometimes you have to let go and follow your gut.”

  “And sometimes, Amy,” he said, hearing the resignation in his own voice, “you have to stick with something even when it sucks and seems impossible.”

  She headed for the house, her moves stiff with anger.

  “I’ll see you when I get back. If you change your mind, you know where to find me.”

  Amy sat at the Tiki Hut bar on the beach, the Atlantic Ocean rolling in waves behind her. Indigo Bay was gorgeous, the weather perfect, the accommodations adorable, but she was miserable. She was staying in a pink cottage meant for honeymooners. It had a heart decoration on the door made out of driftwood, and flower petals had been strewn across the canopy bed upon her arrival, champagne chilling in a bucket of ice. Everything was perfect except her heart. It hurt.

  Which made no sense. The whole being-in-love thing with Moe couldn’t have been real. She was too flighty and he was too planned. She didn’t have what it took to be a true wife and he didn’t have the whimsy she loved.

  She rubbed her chest, wishing the heavy heartache there would go away. It felt like the longer she stayed here the worse she felt, and the more the pain spread throughout her whole being.

  “Would you like a piña colada?” asked Kelso, a young surfer type manning the outdoor bar

  “Why not?”

  “Good. It’s the only fancy drink I know how to make.”

  “Aren’t you a bartender?” For the past half hour, he’d been pouring drinks, then pausing to kiss the other staff member behind the bar whenever their paths crossed. It made Amy strangely wistful for Moe. She’d thought they were going to have that, and they almost had. But somehow…somehow things had gotten messy.

  “The regular bartender decided to get himself hit by a car. Kinda left us high and dry. I usually just help him out with settling tabs, and apparently didn’t pick up much when it came to mixing drinks.”

  Amy folded the square cocktail napkin in front of her and frowned. Maybe Moe was right. Maybe he couldn’t just pick up and leave Brew Babies. Marissa knew how to make a few drinks, but it was always Moe who mixed the complicated ones without even a second’s thought. Still, he could have found someone to step in for him so he could take his vacation days like he’d planned to at the end of August. And it sure would have given Roald a nice dose of reality. Brew Babies was nothing without Moe.

  But he’d chosen the pub and his commitment to it over her, not willing to trust her and give up on having a plan even for a few days. She got it, she did. But now what? She was on their honeymoon alone, a honeymoon that Moe had booked for them. And she wasn’t really sure where things were going from here.

  Amy flipped over her phone, hoping for a text.

  Kelso slid the drink toward her.

  “Thanks. What will you do about the bartender?” She took a sip of her drink. It was a bit watery, but tasty. Yet somehow unappealing, too.

  “He’ll come back or we’ll replace him.”

  Maybe that was what Moe was afraid of. Afraid that when he came back to Blueberry Springs after their trip he’d find himself cut out of the pub altogether. But why couldn’t he see that the Phippses were messing with things? They had to be. It was the only logical explanation, because even though Moe had been stressed and stretched to the limit, he didn’t do things like spoil a whole vat of beer under his watch, or forget to lock the pub.

  Or the house.

  She lost her keys, yes…but sometimes people took them to break into the house and pull pranks.

  Or plant documents.

  Her spine straightened.

  How could she prove that? There had to be a way.

  But she couldn’t, could she? And Moe knew that. It was a futile avenue to go down, one that would waste energy and make them appear as though they were looking for someone else to blame for their own shortcomings. Moe was playing carefully, trying to protect her, shelter her and make sure she had what she needed in order to fulfill her family plan. And she’d gone in all high-and-mighty with her sword, sacrificing herself. Well, stepping in front of the obviously speeding train. The worst was that as she’d gone down, she’d expected him to jump onto the tracks and join her.

  How unfair was that?

  He was right. And she’d acted selfishly, when she’d thought she’d been justified in her response.

  In other words, she’d blown it.

  She grumbled in frustration, catching Kelso’s notice.

  �
��Something wrong with the drink?”

  “No.” She gave him a frown, glumly pushing the glass away. “My husband is right.”

  “Don’t tell him that,” Kelso warned, with a laugh that was light and free. Just like Moe’s used to be when all he had to do was worry about tending bar.

  “I think I might have to. I thought I was in the Palace of Righteous Indignation, but I think I might actually be in the doghouse.”

  “They’re easy to mistake for each other,” Kelso said supportively.

  “Are you sure you’re not a real bartender? You’re a pretty good listener.”

  Kelso chuckled and uncapped a bottle of beer, sliding it across the bar to someone dripping water and sand. “Where are you from?” he asked Amy.

  “Nowhere you would’ve heard of. Out West. Mountains. Beautiful. Everybody minds everyone’s business. You can’t find a man because there are only twenty eligible in a one-hundred-mile radius. So you marry your best friend so you can have kids together. And then you fall in love and fight, and end up on your honeymoon alone, thousands of miles away. Did I mention we’re trying to have children together?” She sighed, sinking into a heap in her chair. “And that he was the best I’ve ever had.”

  “Blueberry Springs?” Kelso asked.

  Amy slapped her hands on the bar. “No way. How’d you know?”

  “I think Ginger McGinty may have mentioned your unorthodox arrangement while she was here the other month.”

  “What a small world.”

  “She set me up with my girlfriend. Rather, fiancée. We got engaged last night.”

  “Congratulations.”

  “Ginger’s a good matchmaker.”

  “She can find anyone for anyone.” Except poor Zach. But maybe his time would come.

  Kelso rolled his eyes upward as though thinking. “If I recall correctly, Ginger thought you’d found your Mr. Wonderful.”

  “Moe?” Amy sighed again. “Yeah. It never works out for us. I don’t know why. We’re kind of perfect together.” She thought back to their fight and how she’d been her own worst enemy, from the moment Roald had stepped into their day right on up to now.

  “This time it was me. I’m the one who messed up.”

  “You love him and left him? And now you’re knocked up?” Kelso glanced at her untouched drink meaningfully.

  “No.” She began shaking her head. “I’m not…” Wait. There was a chance she could be pregnant. It would explain her lack of interest in the alcoholic beverage and how her chest ached—and not just in the brokenhearted way.

  “The gift shop sells pregnancy tests,” he said quietly.

  “You really are a bartender at heart, aren’t you?”

  He gave a small smile. “So what were you really going to say? About Moe?”

  Amy studied the grains of beach sand scattered on the polished wood bar, then said, “He never fully lets go in our relationship because I never trust our love. I’m too afraid I’ll lose him.” Her voice was shaking as she voiced the truths she’d kept buried for so long. “But he’s the man who’s always there for me. He’s the one I always come back to.” She felt the conviction and strength of her words, the power of their truth building inside her. “Moe is my man. He always has been. I need to find a way to make this right.”

  She needed her man at her side. Her best friend, her partner, her Moe.

  “Need the shuttle schedule for the airport?”

  She stood up, feeling warm sand sliding into her flip-flops. “And a plan. A plan to win back my husband.”

  Moe sighed and pulled out his vibrating phone. It had lit up with an invitation to join a video chat with Farrah. His mom. Not Amy, who was living it up in Indigo Bay while he tried to put their lives back together.

  Lives.

  His life.

  Their marriage wasn’t what she’d signed on for. He still couldn’t be the man she needed, and he wasn’t what she wanted in her life.

  His phone vibrated again.

  Twenty years of silence and his mom wanted to have a conversation? Today?

  She’d better be dying or something, because he was not in the mood for a hey, long-time-no-see chat.

  Moe tugged at his hair, then accepted the invitation, knowing it would be at the back of his mind all day if he didn’t.

  A familiar face filled the screen. Inquisitive eyes like Lily’s, brown hair like his own. She looked like her photographs from the family album. Fun and free, only older.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Wow. You’re so handsome,” Farrah cooed.

  “Thanks,” he said awkwardly. He didn’t really remember her as a woman who cooed.

  She laughed nervously. “Sorry. I hope this isn’t weird. Your name came up online as someone I might know, and I thought ‘why not?’ and sent you a friend request. When you accepted I had this spontaneous need to chat and see your face and hear your voice.”

  Spontaneous need. She’d had one of those back when he was a kid, and it had encouraged her to walk out on her family. Just like Amy’s spontaneous need to take on Roald had gotten her fired. And then her spontaneous need for space and perspective had sent her across the country.

  If she was pregnant, what would they do? It was obvious their marriage wasn’t going to work. But they’d still have to figure out how to be a team and work together instead of have one of them unilaterally decide to throw the entire plan out the window.

  “I held off on videoing you, though,” his mother was saying, “and then today I just couldn’t any longer! Now here we are.”

  “Here we are.”

  There was something childlike and free about her bubbly personality that reminded him of Amy. That freedom and fun-loving side he’d always envied a little bit. But there was also a seriousness in the way she was openly studying him.

  Her focus flicked to something behind him. He glanced to see if someone had joined him in the room. He was still alone.

  “Where are you?” she asked.

  “The brewing room in Brew Babies. Here in town. I’m a bartender.” Barely. He could wake to find a pink slip, or a withdrawal of the purchase offer tomorrow, if he wasn’t careful.

  “I heard you’re more than that.”

  “I’m just a bartender,” he insisted.

  “I heard you’ve been quietly managing the place for years,” she said with confidence, “and have made it into a thriving place to hang out.”

  Who had she been talking to? He supposed she must still have friends in town, even though to the best of his knowledge she hadn’t been back in years.

  “I also heard that you got a very generous offer to purchase the pub.”

  “You’ve been talking to Lily,” he stated. He’d told his sister all about the pub the same night he’d told her he was getting married.

  “I called her up after I heard the news about what happened in her restaurant last year. We’ve been talking. She didn’t tell you?”

  “No.”

  “Oh.” Her voice had gone flat, the obvious hope that had been buoying it gone. “Well. Are you going to buy it?”

  “I haven’t decided,” he fibbed. What else did he have in his life if not this pub? He wasn’t so sure he still had Amy.

  “Do you want it?”

  “I could be an owner.” And he could see himself running the place, single, happy enough.

  She laughed, deep and rich, her voice filled with affection when she said, “You sound like your father.”

  “Maybe he has a point. This could be my chance to move myself and future family upward.”

  Future family? Where and when was he going to find one of those?

  “Is that what you want?” she asked gently. “Is that what will make you happy long-term? Because if it will, grab it with both hands.”

  “I’m working on it,” he said, well aware of the defensive edge to his voice.

  “What? Don’t you want it?”

  Man, she was pushy.

  “Rodney,
you can talk to me.”

  “I said I’m working on it. And everyone calls me Moe.” And no, he couldn’t talk to her. She was basically a stranger.

  “Fine. Moe. So? Tell me about how this pub is going to change your life for the better.”

  “You know, most mothers who haven’t talked to their kids in a few decades usually start with innocuous topics like the weather. Not pushing them to pour their hearts out about their career choices.”

  “Oh, Moe,” she said, her eyes crinkling. “You haven’t changed a bit.”

  “Look,” he snapped, her persistence and caring tone getting under his skin. She didn’t have the right to walk into his life and immediately start caring. “I don’t want to turn out like my dad, where I’m never home to tuck my kids in at night.” His heart ached just thinking about missing out on his kids’ childhoods, and on how close he and Amy had come to creating a family, a home, finding love. He forced himself to continue. “I don’t want to miss every family supper. I don’t want my wife to feel as though she’s raising our family alone.” He stopped, staring his mother down through the screens that separated them. “That’s how this pub will make me happy. Long-term.”

  She didn’t avoid his gaze, but stared right back at him. “Well, it seems as though you’ve turned out all right, despite all of that.”

  “Because I’m avoiding your mistakes.”

  “Well, don’t avoid them all,” she said, a slight edge to her tone, “because I did some stuff right.”

  He was too angry to reply. He was pretty sure, when it came to the big stuff, that she’d definitely messed up.

  She took a steadying breath, and he got the feeling she hadn’t just got in touch on a whim, but had planned it. He wondered if their conversation was going better or worse than she’d expected.

  “Will being the owner give you the freedom to be there for your family?” she asked. “Will it make you happy? Because happy parents matter a lot to kids, not what it is that actually makes them happy. It’s rarely a job, and more often who they come home to. When your father and I started fighting all the time I realized I was ruining our family’s happiness. I saw how our fighting and snippy comments brought you down, and would soon bring down Lily, too, once she was old enough to understand. That wasn’t what I wanted for you.”