The Drunken Contract

The thing about being twenty-nine and having your boyfriend cheat on you with his investor's daughter is that it makes you want to do things you would normally never do. Like order a seventh round of margaritas at a bar in Williamsburg that has exposed brick and a sign that says "No WiFi" in hand-painted letters.

"I'm not sad," I told the bartender, who was a guy named Dex with tattoos of constellations on his forearms. "I'm angry. There's a difference."

"Sure, Chloe," Dex said. "That's why you're ordering tequila like it owes you money."

"It does," I said. "Metaphorically."

My best friend Maya had given me the intel thirty minutes earlier: Mark and Daphne were having dinner at some super fancy place in the Upper East Side where the menus don't have prices and the waiters look like they've never heard of joy. Maya had said this with the kind of righteous fury that only comes from watching your best friend get destroyed by a man you both agreed was "fine but not worth the drama."

"He's a fine but not worth the drama guy," I'd said at the time, which was fair.

Now I was sitting at a bar in Williamsburg, and the guy next to me was ordering tequila too.

"Rough night?" he asked. He was maybe my age, thirty-ish, wearing a suit that was expensive but not try-hard. Asian—Chinese, maybe, or Taiwanese. He had the kind of face that looked better when he wasn't trying not to smile.

"You could say that," I said.

"Boyfriend?"

"Something like that."

"He deserve it?"

I blinked. "Excuse me?"

"The guy who made you drink yourself. Did he deserve it?"

I considered this. "He deserved a thorough drinking."

The man nodded seriously. "Fair enough. I'm Connor, by the way."

"Chloe."

"Nice to meet you, Chloe. Would you like another drink?"

"I would like to not meet you anymore, actually, but thanks."

He laughed, and it was a good laugh—dry and slightly self-deprecating, the kind of laugh that suggests he knows exactly how ridiculous he sounds. I hated that I noticed this.

"So," Connor said, ordering two more drinks without asking. "What do you do for fun, Chloe? When you're not getting betrayed by fine but not worth the drama guys?"

"I design user interfaces," I said. "Which basically means I make things that are pretty enough that people don't notice they're also kind of useless."

"I like that answer. I build AI systems that can drive cars."

"You build self-driving cars?"

"Technically, I build the software that tells cars how not to kill people. There's a difference."

"Do you?"

"Do I what?"

"Build things that don't kill people, or build things that are pretty enough that people don't notice they're useless?"

He thought about this. "Both, probably."

We drank. We talked. Or rather, I talked and he listened in the way that men who are actually interested in what you're saying do—which is to say, he leaned forward and asked follow-up questions and didn't try to impress me with his job title.

Which was weird, because his job title was impressive. AI startup founder. Silicon Valley. The whole thing. But he talked about it like he was describing someone else's hobby.

"So," I said during our fifth round—or maybe sixth, the tequila was doing its thing—"if you were going to propose something ridiculous right now, what would it be?"

He looked at me. His eyes were very green. I suddenly noticed this.

"Would you marry me?" he said.

I laughed. "What?"

"Marriage. You and me. It's a proposal. It's ridiculous. I said I'd propose something ridiculous."

"Connor, I just found out my boyfriend is sleeping with—"

"I heard. The investor's daughter. Very tragic. Very cliché. You deserve better, and also you deserve a drink and a distraction and possibly a husband."

"I don't want a husband."

"You don't know that. You've never been offered one by someone you just met who makes a surprisingly reasonable point about partnership."

"What reasonable point?"

"You said it yourself: we're both people who build things that are pretty enough that nobody notices they're useless. Together, we could build something useful."

I stared at him. "That was the most absurd thing I've ever heard."

"I know. That's why it's a good proposal."

I took another drink. The bar was dim and warm and smelled like citrus and regret. I looked at Connor—really looked at him—and thought: this man is completely insane. And he is also, for reasons I cannot explain, the most interesting person I have met in months.

"Fine," I said.

"Fine what?"

"Fine. I'll consider it. Not today obviously but—sure. Why not."

His face went completely blank. "You're saying yes to a hypothetical future marriage proposal from a stranger in a bar?"

"I'm saying yes to the idea that my life could include something ridiculous and wonderful and completely unhinged. Yes."

Connor stared at me for a long moment. Then he reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone.

"What are you doing?"

"Looking up Vegas chapel hours."

"Connor, no."

"Yes."

"Connor, yes."

I woke up on a stool in The Rusty Bolt with a headache the size of Texas and a memory that was approximately three fragments: tequila, a man named Connor, and the words "would you marry me."

"Ah," I said to the empty bar. "Ah ah ah."

Dex was behind the counter, polishing a glass. "Rough morning, Chloe?"

"My entire life is rough," I said. "Where's Connor?"

"Gone. Left about an hour after you passed out. Said something about 'locking in the details.'"

A cold feeling that was not quite fear and not quite dread settled in my stomach. "What details?"

Dex shrugged. "I don't ask. I just serve tequila and wipe counters."

I pulled out my phone. Twenty-seven missed calls. All from Connor. Three text messages.

The first: "Wake up. We have a wedding to attend."

The second: "I know this is crazy. But so is getting betrayed by a man who thinks 'fine but not worth the drama' is a personality."

The third: "Las Vegas. 8 AM. Or don't come. I'll understand. But I'll be there anyway because apparently I'm the kind of guy who proposes marriage to strangers and then follows through on it."

I stared at my phone. I stared at the bar. I stared at my reflection in the mirror behind the counter, which showed a woman with bedhead and zero regrets except the regret of never having ordered water.

"Fuck it," I said. And I went to Las Vegas.

The chapel was exactly what you imagine a Las Vegas chapel to be: pink, glittering, and smelling faintly of perfume and desperation. I was still wearing the same dress I'd worn the night before—black, slightly wrinkled, with a wine stain near the hem that I was choosing to interpret as "charming."

Connor was waiting for me outside. He looked exactly as I remembered him: tall, dark-haired, wearing a suit that made him look like he'd stepped out of a magazine about successful people who also happen to be insane.

"Good morning," he said.

"Good morning," I said. "Are we actually doing this?"

"Doing what?"

"This." I gestured at the chapel. "Whatever this is."

"Marriage?"

"Yes, Connor. Marriage."

He considered this. "I think so. Unless you've changed your mind."

"I haven't. I have however developed approximately forty-seven new questions, the first of which is: why?"

"Because last night you asked me what ridiculous thing I'd propose, and I said a marriage to you, and you said yes to the idea, and I'm a man of my word."

"That's not how this works."

"It is in Vegas."

We stood in silence for a moment. A couple walked past us, the woman wearing a cowboy hat and the man wearing novelty sunglasses that said "Just Married" on the sides.

"So," I said. "We're really married."

"Yes."

"To each other."

"Yes."

"Because of tequila."

"Primarily because of tequila. Secondarily because you're the most interesting person I've met in a very long time."

I looked at him. He was looking at me with an expression I couldn't read. It might have been sincerity. It might have been amusement. It might have been both.

"Well," I said. "Congratulations to us. I guess."

"Thank you," he said gravely. "I'm honored to enter into this legally binding contract with you."

We got married in twelve minutes. There was no officiant, no witnesses, no music. Just two people signing a piece of paper in a pink building while Elvis impersonators wandered past the window looking for tips.

When we came out, the Nevada sun was blinding. I squinted against it.

"So," Connor said. "What now?"

"Now?" I said. "Now we go home and pretend this never happened."

"Or," he said, "now we go to brunch and see what happens."

I should have said no. I should have said: Connor, this is the stupidest thing I have ever done, and I need to go home and think about it.

Instead, I said: "Do they have bottomless mimosas in Vegas?"

He smiled. It was a small smile, barely there, but it was real.

"I'll find out."

Three months later, I was sitting at our kitchen table—our kitchen table, which was ridiculous and hilarious and completely unexpected—eating pancakes that Connor had made at 7 AM on a Saturday.

"How did you learn to make pancakes?" I asked.

"My mother's Taiwanese neighbor taught me," he said. "She said every man should know how to make breakfast if he's going to live with a woman."

"Is that what we're doing? Living together?"

"Yes."

"As husband and wife?"

"Yes."

"Since when?"

"Since the day after we got married, when you showed up at my apartment with a duffel bag and said 'I can't believe I'm doing this again' and I said 'neither can I, but here we are.'"

I took a bite of pancake. It was perfect. Slightly crispy on the edges, fluffy in the middle. Just how I liked them.

"You've been making these for three months," I said. "Every Saturday."

"Every Saturday."

"Since we got married. Which was—what? Seventy-something days ago?"

"Seventy-four."

I looked at him across the table. He was reading the paper, which was ridiculous because he could get all his news from his phone. But he liked the paper. He liked things that smelled like ink and old trees.

"Connor," I said.

"Yes?"

"Do you love me?"

He set down the paper. He looked at me with those green eyes, and I thought about the bar in Williamsburg, and the pink chapel in Vegas, and seventy-four days of him making pancakes and remembering my coffee order and walking me home from the subway even though it was only two blocks.

"I don't know," he said honestly. "I think I'm in the process of finding out."

I picked up another pancake. "Good. Because I'm still working on it too."

"Take your time."

"Seriously, Connor. What if I never figure it out?"

"Then we'll figure it out together. Which is, incidentally, the most reasonable marriage proposal I've ever heard."

I laughed. He laughed. And I thought about how ridiculous my life had become, and how wonderful it was to be ridiculous with someone who made perfect pancakes and looked at you like you were worth noticing.

"Connor?"

"Yeah?"

"Next time, maybe skip the tequila."

"Where's the fun in that?"

I didn't answer. I just kept eating pancakes, and for the first time in a very long time, the future felt ridiculous and uncertain and absolutely mine.

---

OTMES-v2 Objective Tensor Code

Work: Marriage in Passing (结婚而已) — Variant V-04: The Drunken Contract Style: Dark Comedy / Urban Satire (黑色幽默) Date: 2026-05-26

Author Note & Copyright:

2026 - Authored by Z R ZHANG

Contact: datatorent@yeah.net

Author Note & Copyright: