"What's the idea?" Maya asked, some color back in her cheeks now that she dove into her breakfast.
"Well, we're married."
"Not for long," she said, pulling her lips in a thin line.
"What if we stayed married?" There I said it.
Maya stared, blinking at me with the type of horror like I'd accidentally scored a winning touchdown for the other team in overtime during post-season.
I shifted uncomfortably in my seat.
She crossed her arms and tossed me a serious look that sort of turned me on.
I should've gone back to eating my eggs, but I wasn't hungry anymore. Not when the fluorescent lights of the buffet flickered over my future.
"So this"—Don't say mistake— "thing we did could actually be beneficial. Long term," I said.
She stopped the blinking and stared with a glazed look that made me rethink my word choices and all thoughts about how this might work.
"As a bonus, I actually like you. That's a trait you want in a husband."
Maya's terror was now past a crushed car and well into house-sized square footage.
I should say something else and take back the words.
That didn't happen because I didn't want to take them back. Yeah, being married was a little extreme. So what?
There were loads of other reasons, too. More logical reasons.
"My reliability factor would go way up. And it could help you, too, right?" I asked. "I mean, there's gotta be something out of this for you."
"You." Maya pointed to me, her words dazed. "Really want to stay married to me?" She pointed at herself.
"Yes." I nodded.
More of the glazed staring came from her side of the table, this time with a small tilt of the head.
I set my fork aside, since there was no chance I'd be eating any more breakfast soon.
I wanted to know her. That was the first thought I’d had when I walked through the door of the condo, and Elvis took a dive into Maya's cleavage and tried to push down her top.
Of course, I rememberedthat.
I remembered the party, and Dan, and the shoe situation outside the M&M Store. Remembered a few pulls of my margarita.
After that, there was a whole blank section. I didn't remember a thing about what went down after we drank those margaritas.
Small tastes came back at odd times: little breaths of a memory. Personally, I'd never done the long-term thing—never made it that far along.
"The problem with a normal relationship is that there are too many expectations," I said, leaning into the conversation. "I mean, I've got other priorities and don't have time to do this for real. But here we are, and we could do it like this. You want a solo career? I've got some connections to help with that."
Last night drunk me bought Maya a ring, and that was more than half a marriage right there.
"What we have between us isn't love at first sight or love at all." Maya tapped her fingertips on the table. "It's not a love story."
"Of course it isn't," I agreed. "Not a real one, anyway. That's what makes it perfect. Neither of us is coming into this with expectations. We stay married. I play football. You do whatever you want to do."
"I was wrong." Maya sat back in her chair, but now, she blinked again, and the glazed look was gone.
