The Marriage Contract (Anderson Brothers)

“He came here,” Jordan said. No sooner were the words out of my mouth than Jordan’s phone rang. He pulled it out of his pocket and looked at it. His eyes rose to me. “It’s Matt.”

“Answer it,” I said as if I really had any control over his decision.

“Hey,” Jordan said into the phone. He paused for a second to let Matt talk. He nodded. “She’s here.”

That perked up my ears. I highly doubted he was talking about Hannah. Jordan made a couple of acknowledging sounds and ended the call.

“What’s going on?” I asked. “What did he say?”

“He was here, but then he left again. He just said that he went to your place to talk to you, but you weren’t there.”

“I must have just left. I had to go by the gas station, so that’s probably why we didn’t notice each other passing on the road,” I said.

“He’s probably on his way back,” Jordan said.

“Why don’t you sit down?” Hannah asked. “Relax for a bit.”

I wondered if they knew. It seemed like they probably did. If Matt came here after getting the news and they could tell he was worked up, they would have asked him what was wrong. But neither Jordan nor Hannah had said anything to me. Hannah hadn’t even asked about the pregnancy test.

I decided not to say anything. Not yet, anyway. I needed to talk to Matt first and figure out if we were on the same page before we started talking about the situation to other people. Right after I figured out what page that was. Instead, I shook my head.

“No, I came here to distract myself, so that’s what I’m going to do,” I said.

We got to work doing all the tasks that needed to be done before the bar opened. An hour later it was time for the bar to open, and Matt still hadn’t arrived. Jordan and Hannah were starting to get worried about him. I was completely panicking. Every worst-scenario possible was running through my head, and I started pacing, unable to stand still.

“It’s going to be okay,” Jordan said. “There’s an explanation for this.”

“There are a lot of possible explanations for it,” I said. “So far, I don’t like any of them.”

“You should go on home,” Hannah said.

“No. No, this is good for me. I can just focus on my job, and everything else will just eventually go away.”

That was one of those arguments I already knew wasn’t going to pan out as it was going across my tongue. They both shook their heads.

“This can’t be good for you. Go on home and get some rest. We already have somebody coming in the next hour to cover your shift. Go on. Just rest, and if we hear anything, we’ll call you,” Jordan said.

I wanted to argue, but I didn’t. The truth was, I was so tired, it was a fight just to keep my eyes open, and I didn’t know how I was going to get all the way through the rest of the night if I had to.

I got home and went inside. Part of me was hoping Matt would be there, ignoring his phone for some inexplicable reason. He wasn’t, and one more last-ditch call to his phone went unanswered. I took off my work clothes in favor of soft lounge clothes. Within seconds, my exhaustion won, and I fell asleep on the couch.

35

Matt

The emotions of the last day and a half had been overwhelming, but I had to get a grip on what I was doing. The next few hours would be extremely important. I had a mission, and if I was successful, I thought I might be able to make everything I had been through, everything Chloe had been through, worth it.

The plane touched down in LA early in the morning. I took the red eye not just because it was cheaper but because I wanted to be there at first light. I had only been to LA twice, and both times had been with one of my brothers on sightseeing trips more than anything else. Getting around the city without one of them with me and with no real memory of where I was going or what I was doing was going to be rough.

Or at least it could have been.

Tom had been extremely generous when I called him and explained what I needed. Annoyed, but generous. Tom was historically an early to bed, early to rise kind of guy, and my phone call caught him square in the middle of both of those time frames. Still, he had gotten up and done what I asked him without question or hesitation. The most recent text from his wife, Amanda, confirmed it. I knew where I was going and how I was going to get there.