"How's Corey?" I asked. His daughter was twelve now and I never got to see her as much as I wanted. With Robert's hours at the power plant, I knew he didn't get to see her as much as he wanted either.
"She's got a boyfriend," Robert mumbled. "They talk on the phone every night and text all weekend long. She keeps wanting me to drop her off at the movies with him but I put my foot down. She's too young."
I laughed a little. "She'll be thirteen next month. Before you know it, she'll be off at college."
"Shut up," he grunted.
"She's a good kid, Robert. Don't lock her down too tight or she'll put even more space between you."
He sighed. "I know. I told her I'd consider the movie thing when she turns thirteen. I'm hoping that this doesn't last that long."
"Yeah, but she'll just have another boyfriend by then."
"Yeah." He nudged me with his shoulder again until I lifted my head to look at him. "Shoulda had at least one boy first so he could run the little motherfuckers off for me."
I rolled my eyes for the second time that night. "Yeah, that'll work out great."
"You're not telling me anything her mother and our mother haven't. I know she's growing up but every time I look at her, I see the same little girl with no front teeth and her braids falling apart. I'm just not—" He stopped and cleared his throat. Talking about anything emotional was difficult for Robert so I expected him to leave it at that, but he surprised me by continuing, "I'm just not ready to let go of that part of her yet."
I wrapped an arm around his flat belly. All my brothers were big, but they all had jobs that required hard physical work, so they stayed in shape. I was taller than my father, but they were all close to six feet or over, so they always made me feel small.
"A little bit of that part of her will always be there, especially for you because you're her daddy. But you have to let her grow up and make her own choices. That's the only way she'll learn to make the right ones."
"How'd you get to be so smart when it comes to pre-teen girls?"
I laughed. "Because I once was one, goober."
He hugged me back and released me when Clayton and D.J. came back with the food.
After the food was distributed and we all settled in to eat, I realized I needed to say something.
"Guys, there's something I need to say to you and I want you to listen and take me very, very seriously," I said.
They all looked up, plastic forks in their hands, with the same wary expression and I had to suppress a laugh. At that moment, they all looked like my father, even though Robert had the same coloring and features as my mother. It was an expression he often wore when my mother said something similar in nature.
"I want you to promise me that you won't do anything to J.J. No immature pranks, no showing up at his place in the middle of the night to scare him, no threats of bodily harm. We're getting married and he's going to be a part of our family. I don't want to start out with something like that between us. I haven't always liked the women you brought home before, but I always respected your boundaries." I saw frowns forming on D.J. and Clay's faces because they were the only ones married at the moment, and I waved a hand at them. "No, no, I love both of your wives now. I'm talking about some of the women you dated before. But my point is, even if they weren't my favorite people or I didn't like the way they talked to you, I kept my mouth shut and let you handle your own relationships. I expect you to do the same for me." I gave them each a hard look. "I want you to treat J.J. like the friend he's always been to you, is that understood?"
"Yep," they all said at once.
I should have known by their quick agreement that they were full of crap.
10
The week passed by in a blur. I did my usual cleaning jobs but Cam and Sierra insisted that I take the week off to "prepare" for the wedding.
I met J.J. at the county courthouse Monday afternoon and we applied for our marriage license. He held my hand from the moment I met him out front until we reached the clerk's office. It was sweet and soothed the nerves that had exploded in my belly as soon as I pulled into the parking lot.
My mother insisted that I buy a wedding dress, even if it wasn't a formal one, and I agreed with her. I knew she and Colette would want pictures of the day. I wasn't sure how I felt about it considering why J.J. and I were getting married, but I knew that our child would probably want to see the pictures one day, too.
Mom took me shopping in Dallas and after a long discussion with the stylist at the store that required us telling her no to more than one dress before she finally understood that we truly meant it when we said we didn't want a formal gown, she found some lovely options.
The second dress I tried on was the one. It was a simple scoop neck sleeveless dress with flat pleats around the waistline. The A-line skirt flared out from there and the handkerchief hemline brushed my knees.
It was pretty, light, and made my slowly thickening waist look smaller.
As soon as I put it on, I knew it was the one. When I walked out of the dressing room, my mother's eyes filled with tears, which told me she felt the same way.
"Oh, Lee. As much as I would love for you to have a big wedding with all the trimmings, I think this dress suits you better than anything big or fancy would."
