The Marriage Contract, Natasha Black [thriller books to read .TXT] 📗

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 said. “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