The Marriage Contract by Natasha Black (best novels for teenagers TXT) 📕

this time. I wasn’t dreading an evening holed up in the spare room alone or curled up by myself on the couch watching TV and wondering if he was going to come out and join me. And hoping he didn’t come out and join me. And wishing he would come out and join me.

And hating myself for both of them, and for not being able to just deal with the situation I’d put myself in.

What a massive and wonderful difference a week makes. That day off I woke up feeling madly in love and content with the whole world. It was an incredible feeling being wrapped up naked in Matt’s arms without a care in my mind. I didn’t have to worry about anything or try to come up with ways to be convincing anymore. I didn’t even have to try to hide what was really going on in my mind and my heart and pretend everything was exactly the way we planned it.

Because it wasn’t anymore. For either of us. We loved each other, and I wanted everyone to know. If it wasn’t awkward and dangerous and straight out of a bad TV movie, I would have climbed up onto the roof and shouted out to all of Portland that I loved my husband. Hopefully, Matt would have been right there beside me in that fantastical scenario, loudly proclaiming his love for his wife. If not, at least I hoped he would be down on the ground prepared to rescue me if I tumbled.

I didn’t even have to think about where this relationship was going. We’d already gone there. It was an almost blissful feeling, and I couldn’t get enough of it.

“What do you want to do today?” Matt asked, tilting his head to kiss my forehead.

“I don’t know,” I said. “We could pretend to be hopeless visitors to the city and go wander around all the tourist attractions.”

He nodded slowly. “We have gotten really good at pretending things.”

I laughed and gave him a playful smack on the belly. That earned me getting flipped over onto my back and tickled as he kissed and chewed on the side of my neck.

A while later, we tumbled out of bed and made it out to those tourist attractions. I had been in Portland for some time by that point, but nowhere near long enough to feel like I knew everything about the city. There were still plenty of parts of it that Hannah would talk about, and I would have no idea what she meant.

We had a long list of places to see but ended up in Washington Park, and I never wanted to leave.

“This is incredible,” I said, turning around slowly in the middle of a hiking trail as I looked up at the canopy of foliage over our heads. It was unlike anything I’d ever seen before.

Matt laughed as I continued down the trail, trying to keep my head tipped all the way back so I could keep looking at the trees as I went.

“Look where you’re going. I don’t need you falling in the middle of the arboretum.”

“I don’t want to miss any of it,” I said. “There are trees in here I’ve never seen before.”

“I’m pretty sure there are trees in here almost nobody has seen before,” he said. He gave me a questioning look. “I thought you socialites liked to jet-set all over the world and see everything.”

I made a face at him. “I’m not a socialite. Besides, traveling was usually to places like the islands, Greece, Europe. That kind of thing. We didn’t do a whole lot of hiking through the woods.”

He laughed again. “This isn’t hiking through the woods. There are only about twelve miles of trails in here. I’ll bring you to Forest Park one of these days. One of the main trails there is thirty miles by itself.”

“We could get lost in there forever.” I reached for his hand.

“I know that was meant to be a sweet and romantic sentiment but considering it’s about five thousand acres and a lot of it is just straight-up woodland, it’s really a distinct possibility.”

“You’re no fun,” I said with a playful pout.

He tugged my hand and pulled me back to wrap his arms around me and give me a deep kiss.

“If you want to go get lost somewhere, I will get lost with you,” he said.

“Thank you.” I threw my arms around his neck and gave him another kiss. “That’s all I ask.”

We wandered through the park for another few hours, roaming the trails and sitting in the Japanese garden before exploring the rose garden. He told me it was a test garden, trying out new breeds of roses from all over the world. There was something humbling and astonishing about that. Even though I’d only been in Portland for a few months, I was feeling strangely proud of it.

We’d originally planned to get dressed up and have a fancy date night that night, but when we got home, we were both worn-out from the long day at the park. Instead of going out, I got in a hot bath while Matt ordered Chinese food.

Soaking away in the bubbles and anticipating a night in nothing but one of my husband’s T-shirts, eating on the couch, was officially far better than putting on heels and dealing with a crowded restaurant.

The next morning Matt found me in the kitchen, leaned against the counter eating cold leftovers straight from the takeout container.

“That’s a well-balanced breakfast,” he said.

I looked down into the container. “It’s beef, broccoli, onions, and rice. I think that’s pretty balanced. Protein, vegetables, grains. The rice is even brown. Besides, what makes it good enough for dinner but taboo for breakfast?”

He thought about that for a second. “Societal expectation.”

I made a face at him. “Yes, because we embody that so thoroughly.” Using my chopsticks to pluck a piece of beef out of the container, I held it out to him. “Come on. Take a walk on