The Marriage Contract

bad feelings. No fights or disagreements. Just two people who clicked enough to have fun, but not enough to become a couple. After two or three months of seeing each other rather regularly, we kind of petered out, and one day I awoke to a text message that was almost word for- word what I would have typed to her. I hadn’t seen her since.
“Thank you,” she said. “I have to run, though. It’s been great seeing you.”
“You too,” I said as she waved and walked away toward the parking lot.
When she was out of view, I opened the door of the coffee shop and went inside, battling with myself on how I felt about it all.
As I sat down at one of the tiny tables, waiting for the coffees to be made, I thought about Lauren and her upcoming wedding. My feelings weren’t hurt, I knew that. I didn’t have some long-pining love for her or anything. There were no worries about what we could have had or what we’d missed out on. I was genuinely happy for her. She was a good person, and she deserved to be happy.
But there was a nagging sensation I couldn’t get rid of. Part of it was loneliness, I guessed. As much as I professed otherwise, it was there, always somewhere in the back of my mind. I was always a little lonely, especially now that Jordan had Hannah. Also, she had found her partner right after dating me, and here I was still playing the field. Or at least, theoretically playing the field. It had been a while since I had been on what I would refer to as a date.
As a matter of fact, I hadn’t even really been looking. Chloe had been the first girl I’d really noticed since Lauren and I split up. I shook that thought off. Chloe wasn’t an option, so there was no need to bring her into all that. We had a perfectly fine, friendly time, and that was that.
Still, I was alone, and everyone else was with someone, and I wondered how long I could keep that life up for. My apartment being my place of solitude was one thing. My life being full of solitude was something completely different.
The barista called my name, and I grabbed the coffees, heading back to the bar with them in one of the little cardboard containers. When I got in, Hannah’s eyes lit up, and she came around the bar to greet me and take hers out of the box.
“You have no idea,” she said. “I have been craving their coffee for days.”
“Well, why didn’t you get any?” I asked.
“Trying to limit her caffeine intake,” Jordan said, coming up to grab his. “Otherwise, it passes on to the baby.”
“She’s up enough as it is,” Hannah said.
“I can imagine,” I said. “Well, you’ve got the whole evening shift to work it off with us tonight, right?”
“Right,” Hannah said. “So, bombs away.”
Hannah took a big swig of her coffee and shuddered.
“Good?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said. “That’s the good stuff.”
I laughed and shook my head.
“You alright, man?” Jordan asked, catching me by surprise.
“What, me?” I asked. “Yeah, I’m good. Why?”
“I don’t know. Something looked off,” he said, shrugging. “I know having Mom at your place for a few days had to be a bit stressful.”
“It was fine actually. Nice to have some home-cooked food for a couple days.”
“Well if you got yourself a –”
“Don’t even say it,” I cut him off with a raised palm. With that, Jordan held up his hands in mock surrender and walked away, sipping his coffee.
I went into the kitchen, hoping to be inspired. Humming a song I’d heard on the radio earlier, I pulled out my knives, grabbed the cutting board and a bowl, and began chopping up onions. I was going to figure out Mom’s pesto if it killed me, and one of these days it was going on the menu.
The bar was pretty chill that evening, leaving me to do more thinking about Lauren and the random meeting with her than I wanted to. I disappeared for most of the evening into the kitchen, working on dishes and sending them out in record time, but coming no closer to figuring out the secret to the pesto. It was almost quiet enough that I could hear the cocktail waitresses take the orders from my service window and get started on the dish before I even got the ticket.
I put another ticket up and waited for Hannah to come back and give me a new one when I saw her make her way back empty-handed. She walked into the kitchen, exchanging her tray for a new one, and sat down for a moment in one of the chairs I kept back there.
“Bit slow out there tonight,” she said.
“Yeah.” I leaned against the wall.
“Oh, I wanted to tell you thank you for what you did for Chloe. She really appreciated it and wanted me to tell you how thankful she was.”
“Tell her it was nothing,” I said, wondering if that was the truth or not. “I’ve been there before. I’ve had those nights where all I wanted was to forget and destress and I went a bit too far. If it hadn’t been for Jordan, I don’t know if I would have made it.”
“Well, she was very thankful anyway,” she said.
“Good. Glad I could help.”
Jordan walked over from behind the bar and put his elbows on the serving window. I glanced behind him and saw Cris easily handling the group there.
“Speaking of Chloe, you won’t believe this,” she said.
“What happened?” Jordan asked.
“Her parents cut her off.”
“What?” Jordan said, elongating the vowel sound in a funny way.
“Yeah, she had one of the credit cards with her name on it but on their account. She was paying for her car with it, and she got a call this morning saying it didn’t go through.”
“Wow,” Jordan said.
“Is she okay?” I asked, suddenly realizing that I was genuinely