The Marriage Contract (Anderson Brothers)

“I agree,” she said, shocking me.

I laughed, trying to keep from being too excited. “You sure you would want to be ‘hitched’ to me?” I asked, doing the finger quotes in the air.

“I figure if the marriage is going to be fake anyway, might as well be with someone who’s decent.”

We paused as we stared at each other over the table. Both of us were grinning, and I felt like neither of us breathed for a long, long minute.

“Are we really going to do this?” I asked. My voice had dropped only a little, but the seriousness was there, just behind the whimsy.

“Maybe we should take a couple days, see how we feel about it,” she said. “Not because I don’t think it’s a good idea, just to make sure neither of us suddenly realize we’re insane.”

“Fair,” I said. “Okay. A couple of days. No pressure.”

“No pressure,” she repeated.

“Here you go,” the man who ran the deli said as he approached our table. He placed both baskets with our sandwiches in front of us and a giant basket of fries along with it. I was thankful for him breaking the moment, and we dug into our sandwiches, returning to our conversations about nothing in particular while we ate.

By the time we got to work, I couldn’t stop thinking about the idea. Chloe had gone right into the restroom to change, and when she came out, I was already in the kitchen doing prep work. I didn’t see her for much of the shift as it got busy early and, as it was a weekday, was full of folks coming in for dinner. By the time the dinner rush was over, it was wall-to-wall mozzarella sticks and French fry orders, and I never had much time to come out of the kitchen to do anything.

My line cook was side by side with me, rolling through the orders with his music blaring. It helped that I didn’t have to talk to him and could just think about the idea while I worked. The more I thought about it, the more I started to see where it could work.

Sure, it was deceitful, but I knew that when I went back to Astoria for Mom’s birthday, she would be right back to hounding me again. Birthdays always turned on the “before I die” switch for her, where she would guilt the single ones of us about how she wanted to make sure we were all with someone and stable before she kicked the bucket. Now there was only me to catch that lecture, and the last thing I wanted was that.

Chloe and I could be married as far as either of our families knew and still pursue our own lives and our own stuff. I could keep my apartment of solitude or she could move in or I could help her get her own place. All options were on the table. The idea of having her live with me in the guest room was one that had its own appeal, but I didn’t want to let myself go down that road too far.

I imagined family get-togethers where we would pretend to be married. It would take a little bit of acting, but I was game. We would also have to do some heavy-duty deception at work, since both Hannah and Jordan would have questions, but that would all resolve itself. We could claim we eloped and didn’t want a reception.

It could work.

It did not hurt that she was hot and funny and smart. The two of us having the obligation to spend time together certainly wasn’t the worst part of the deal. And, if she met someone or I met someone, we could always have an “amicable separation.”

Not that I thought I would be finding anyone. Not if I had a chance at spending my free time with Chloe.

I took my break in the first lull of the evening and went outside to get some air. Passing by Hannah, who was heading back in, I had a little bit of privacy out there, and I sat down on the top step with a beer. Strictly speaking, drinking on the job was bad form, but the glass bottles I had in the kitchen with us were going out of date and either needed to be used or tossed since we had the vendor come in and restock us for customer use. I cracked it open and took a long sip. Nothing quite hit the spot on a hot day when I was sweating and tired like a good lager.

My pocket started vibrating, and I pulled my phone out of it. The contact info said it was Mom, and I immediately worried something was wrong. I hit the Accept button and prepared for the worst.

“Hey, Mom, is everything okay?” I asked, trying not to panic. She didn’t normally call in the middle of the evening, especially since she knew we were usually at work.