The Marriage Pledge

by Jean Oram

  He was watching her, trying to figure out what game she was playing. She wasn’t sure herself, only that the talk of having babies had her pulling up a few choice memories. Hot memories of her and Moe locked in a sweaty embrace.

  She licked her lips.

  “You need a little manhandling from time to time,” he said, his own voice rumbly and low. “It breaks your human-contact dry spell.”

  “My dry spell isn’t as bad as yours. You’re practically a monk.”

  “Hence my affinity for brewing things. I have all this…” he lowered his voice again “…energy to redirect.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  It was getting deliciously warm in the pub.

  “Is there anything you like to do other than brew things?” She picked at a spot on his shirt where he’d been splashed by grenadine while mixing up an Alabama slammer for an early customer. When she looked up at him again, his eyes were dark pools. “To burn off that excess energy.”

  He allowed his gaze to travel down her torso, as if he was considering the possibilities. “I still haven’t said yes, you know.”

  “You will.”

  And she swore her spine would melt the moment he did indeed say yes.

  Moe sat at the kitchen table, waiting for Amy to come home from a baby shower for who-knew-who. It seemed all their friends did was have kids these days, no doubt adding pressure to Amy’s own quest to reproduce.

  He’d looked over their medical insurance and hadn’t found a single loophole they could leverage to go the artificial insemination route and have it covered.

  Amy came in, slamming the front door behind her, a sure sign she was deep in thought. She entered the kitchen and stopped in the middle of the room.

  “What?” she asked.

  “In vitro is really expensive.” She already knew that, obviously. “Our health plan doesn’t cover it.” He closed the binder where he kept his medical receipts and insurance papers. “Money’s going to be a bit of an issue.”

  It was down to choosing between a baby and the pub. And they couldn’t afford either one.

  Amy joined him at the table, throwing herself into the chair across from him. “I’m sorry. I should have looked into this before we got married.”

  “I could cancel our honeymoon,” Moe said, glancing at the sheet of numbers he’d been working on. “That’ll save us a few hundred.”

  “I was looking forward to our getaway.”

  “You just want to be pampered.”

  “Of course. Plus, the adventure of going somewhere with my best friend who never seems to leave town adds a certain appeal.”

  “I leave town.”

  He glanced at the numbers again. Going on the trip wasn’t going to make a big difference, and he had been looking forward to the freedom of traveling with Amy.

  His wife reached over and snagged his sheet of calculations. She skimmed it, able to decipher his scrawls. She slid the paper back to him.

  “Well?” he asked.

  She gnawed on her pinkie nail before giving him a tentative look, her nose scrunched adorably. “Is it wrong that I want to vote that we keep the cheapo honeymoon and procreate the old-fashioned way?”

  His mouth went dry, and it was as though his eyes had become a pair of runaway horses. No matter how hard he tried to pull up, they continued to drift down Amy’s physique. He knew exactly what the old-fashioned way would feel like, sound like and taste like.

  He inhaled swiftly and leaned back in his chair. She was his friend—his wife of convenience.

  A wife who wanted him to hit the sheets with her like a real couple trying to conceive.

  His mind was unable to find its way through the thick haze of longing in order to list pertinent questions he should ask so they could formulate a plan.

  Amy leaned forward, her hand outstretched, her rose tattoo flexing as she quickly made her case. “We’ve always seamlessly fallen back into being friends any time we’ve gotten intimate. It was never uncomfortable or awkward. We could do it again.”

  “Twice.”

  She tipped her head to the side, confusion creasing her smooth forehead.

  “Two kids. We’ll have to do this twice.”

  Could he take her to bed, and then go back to being friends again? Sure, they’d accomplished it before, but this time felt different. He felt different. Like he might not be able to make that smooth transition back to the friend zone.

  “I don’t know.” Moe pushed away from the table. He well remembered what it had been like living with two arguing parents before Lily was born and his mother ditched them. “It’s risky if we can’t settle back into being friends again. We live in one house. We’re married. Kids will be coming into all of this and we work together at the same pub.” There wasn’t enough wiggle room in their situation if things went wrong this time.

  “We’ll keep our separate bedrooms,” Amy said. “I mark off my ovulation on a calendar and we just… You know. Lights off, I come into your room and the magic happens.”

  Moe laughed despite himself. “The magic happens?”

  She was blushing, and it was endearing. But it wasn’t the magic that he was worried about. It was afterward, and wanting that magic at times when he shouldn’t.

  “Why don’t you ask your parents for financial assistance?”

  “I shouldn’t still be going to my parents every time I want something. I’m married. I’m thirty. It’s time to grow up, settle down and act like an adult.”

  Moe felt his right eyebrow involuntarily quirk in question. She always went to her parents, and they never failed to help. Had she already asked them, or had she decided it was finally time for a bit more independence? “So you’re not going to ask them?”

  Amy sighed impatiently. She was definitely getting the whole wife thing down pat. “Do you have some fresh ideas that are better than mine?”

  “Asking your parents was my better idea.” He moved to the kitchen counter and began running water to wash the pots and pans, unable to stay still.

  Amy followed.

  “We didn’t get married to have sex,” he said.

  Why did this feel like such a big deal? It wasn’t as though they’d never seen each other naked or something.

  Amy crossed her arms, her lower lip forming a tight line as she leaned a hip against the counter. “Was sharing a bed that much of a hardship in the past?”

  Moe laughed so he wouldn’t think about how much of a hardship it hadn’t been, making love to her. They were good together. Just not quite the right fit for long-term, and pushing across that boundary again felt like tempting fate and trying to cash in on what could possibly be waning good luck.

  “You aren’t friends with any of your exes,” he pointed out.

  “Except you.”

  “Except me. And this time the stakes are pretty high if things don’t settle out.”

  “We’re going to make things unsettled?”

  “You’ve spent time with me in the bedroom.” He stepped into her space, lowering his voice. “Things are going to get very unsettled.”

  Amy giggled. “Is that a yes?”

  “It means…” He’d leaned toward her like he was going to caress her, hold her, kiss her. He caught himself and straightened. “I’ll think about it.”

  Probably a whole lot more than he should.

  “We do still have that honeymoon booked…”

  She was literally trying to kill him with his own impure thoughts, wasn’t she?

  “It’s a getaway,” he mumbled, his throat tight with longing.

  The last thing he needed right now was to start thinking about a genuine honeymoon situation where he and his new wife created babies in the way nature had intended.

  5

  When Amy answered the door, her mother pushed past her, entering the house with a large potted plant in her arms and a canvas bag slung over one shoulder.

  “What are you doing?” Amy asked.


  “Since you and Moe are planning to have kids right away, I thought I’d bring you something to practice on.”

  Amy peered out the door as though expecting a small child to come toddling in after her.

  “This,” Faith said, pushing the plant into Amy’s arms, “needs watering at least once a week, fertilizer every two. It’s nontoxic.”

  Responsibility and commitment. In plant form.

  “I don’t have a green thumb.” Amy pointed to the languishing plant in the front window. It looked a tiny bit better than it had when she’d moved in, likely because Moe had babied it. In other words, actually cared for it a bit: watered it and trimmed back the dead parts. “And I hardly think a plant is the same thing as a child.” Amy tried to hand the pot back to her mother. “Anyway, neither Moe nor I can afford to have kids.”

  He still hadn’t given her an answer to her between-the-sheets solution. Sure, it had been less than thirty-six hours since her proposal, and he’d been working almost nonstop the entire time, but who was counting?

  Her mother eyed her suspiciously, refusing to accept the plant. Amy gave up and set it on the coffee table.

  “It needs more light.” Her mother moved it closer to the window before facing Amy again. “You got married to have children. And you can’t afford it?”

  “Well, not in vitro, that’s for sure.”

  Her mother shook her head. Her lips were pinched, thin and white. It was the I’m-not-impressed-but-don’t-know-what-I’m-going-to-do-about-you look. Amy was quite familiar with it, as well as the burst of problem solving that typically followed.

  She held her breath hopefully.

  “Your father and I are no longer bailing you out.”

  “I didn’t ask you to bail me out,” Amy said indignantly.

  “You think I don’t recognize that cute and hopeful look you just gave me? It pulls at me, right here.” Faith tapped her chest. Her shoulders were squared as she focused on adjusting her wedding band so the diamonds were facing outward. “You’re a married woman now, and your father feels it’s time I backed off and let you figure things out instead of jumping in to help. Especially if you plan on becoming a mother. The last thing you need is me hovering and telling you what to do. My own mom was like that and it drove me around the bend.”

  She placed her hands on her hips and surveyed the living room. After taking a few steps, she tipped her head to peer behind a tall bookcase. “You’re going to need to attach this to the wall. I don’t want my grandkids getting hurt if they climb it and it tips over on them.”

  “We can’t afford artificial insemination. There will be no grandkids.”

  “I’m sure the two of you can figure something out,” she said dryly. “You are married, after all.”

  She pointed to the framed mountain photos Moe had hung. “And I like this. It’s about time you displayed a few of these, after all that work and expense you went to learning how to capture such stunning images. You were good, you know.”

  “Sex wasn’t part of the deal.” Amy sat on the couch, the weight of her failures settling over her.

  Why couldn’t she have turned out more like her sister? Jillian had made it look so easy to be perfect. She would never have ended up in a situation like this. “What’s wrong with me?” Amy moaned.

  “Is that a rhetorical question or do you want a real answer from someone who loves you and has known you all your life?”

  Amy winced.

  “Well, for one,” her mother said lightly, as though Amy had chosen option number two, “you are the most scattered and unorganized person I have ever met. You also tend to expect other people to clean up your messes while you go your merry way, never learning from your mistakes. I feel as though I’m partly to blame for that, though.”

  Amy felt the sting of her mother’s words strike deep inside. “Do you wish I was more like Jillian?” she asked softly, voicing what had been in her mind for decades.

  Faith sat beside her on the couch, her face marked with sorrow. “Of course I want you to be more like she was. I don’t want to be worrying about you all the time.”

  “You don’t need to worry about me.”

  Her mom gave her a slightly exasperated look.

  “Really,” Amy stated, wishing she could say it with more conviction.

  “Honey…” She pulled Amy’s hands into her lap with a laugh. “You and your best friend got married, and you promised to give him children, but you didn’t even think about how much it would cost. Of course I worry about you. You’re paying for a wedding and a mortgage instead of making do in one of your old rentals, with a simple ceremony.”

  “The house was Moe’s idea,” she said, unable to keep the hurt from her voice. “And my rent was more than my share of the monthly mortgage.”

  “But Amy, honey, how’s Moe going to buy the pub if the two of you are spending your money and tying up your credit on everything else?”

  “He’s not buying the pub. He’s just the interim manager.”

  “That’s not what I heard from his mother.”

  “His mom?” Moe hadn’t spoken to her in years.

  “She’s been chatting with Lily, apparently. I ran into Farrah when I was in the city the other day. She was there for a conference and we got to talking. Anyway, Lily told her he was given an unreasonably lucrative offer, but he’s not acting like he’s going to take it.”

  Amy felt her mind stutter. Moe hadn’t said a thing about buying the pub.

  “What man doesn’t want to own the place he’s been building up over the years?” Her mother stood. “With things up in the air with the current ownership, I’m sure he’d like to take the offer and secure things.”

  That would explain why he’d been poring over their finances, and had suggested they cancel their honeymoon despite that flicker of hope and longing she’d seen in his expression.

  Now Amy felt selfish, as though she was luring him away from what he might want most. “Why didn’t he tell me?”

  But things were starting to click. He wasn’t happy managing the pub…and yet he was doing it. He’d accepted Kimi’s help, which meant he wanted to figure out how to run the place, be the one in charge. The owner.

  One of her mother’s eyebrows lifted. “He made promises to you and…” She shrugged. “You can’t always have it all. Money is a finite resource.”

  “But he shouldn’t have chosen me! He should have chosen the pub, if that’s what he wants.”

  What if she was wasting his life now instead of just her own? She had to find a way to make this work for him.

  She shook her head. “This marriage isn’t a mistake.”

  But she felt as though she was lying.

  Faith slung the canvas sack over her shoulder.

  “What’s in the bag?” Amy asked, her mind still reeling with Moe’s news.

  “Baby books. But maybe I’m a bit ahead of myself.”

  Moe stared at the vat of fermenting hops and tried to think through his situation with Amy—rationally. The problem was he was far too willing to help his wife create those babies without medical assistance, and that was making it darn near impossible to methodically work through a pro/con list about changing up their plans.

  They both wanted a family, and to have it all right here and now. Children, a spouse, a bustling cheery home. Secure and happy, surrounded by the sounds of people who were there for you, who loved you...

  The problem was they didn’t have all the time in the world to save up and make that dream happen. If they wanted it, they were going to have to amend their agenda.

  And have sex.

  Together.

  Repeatedly.

  He chuckled softly. Scarcely a hardship.

  He was going to say yes to the new plan, wasn’t he?

  Of course he was going to say yes. Had there ever been any doubt?

  But their friendship—that was going to be tricky to navigate successfully as things heated up, then cooled, then heated up again.


  He held the container of pH strips in his hands and stared at the tank. For the life of him he couldn’t recall what the levels should be for the mash at this stage of the beer’s fermentation. There was supposed to be a chart on the wall, but he didn’t see it. He set the strips aside, wishing Cesar was still alive. He could use his experience and advice right about now. In the past month, Moe’s whole life had become super complicated. Down a father figure, up a wife, as well as an extra job.

  His phone buzzed in his pocket. He lifted it out to check the screen and nearly dropped it.

  There was a social-media friend request from a name he hadn’t heard in years. The last time, it had been spoken with bitterness by his father.

  Farrah Harper.

  His mother.

  His thumb hovered over the Accept button, then wavered over to Decline. His phone screen was shaking. No, it was him experiencing the tremors.

  Farrah hadn’t sent a well-meaning birthday card a few months late for his birthday in several years. Why was she reaching out now?

  She probably didn’t even know he was married.

  Or maybe she’d heard and she wanted to be a part of his life, of his kids’ lives. His kids could have a grandmother. An unreliable one.

  His trembling thumb hit the Accept button and he cursed at the slip. He wasn’t done thinking this through.

  “Well, what’s the worst that could happen?” he muttered to himself, pocketing the phone again. He was now friends with his mother. He could probably anticipate another twenty years of being ignored.

  He sat on an old bar stool with wobbly legs that had been placed in the back room where the odd vat of beer was brewed on-site.

  “Now what?” he said to the empty room. He wasn’t ready to go home and face Amy and her proposal. Not yet.

  “Talking to yourself?” asked a female voice, making him jump. Seconds later, a long slender leg and pale blue high heel came into view. Kimi. She leaned against the doorjamb, arms crossed.

  “I’m a good listener,” Moe stated.

  “I do remember that about you.” She stepped into the room. “Everything all right?”