She returned my smile. “I guess it kinda was our first date, huh?”
“That’s what we’ll tell our grandkids, anyway.”
The smile stayed on her face as she looked out the passenger window. Then I heard her softly say, “I’m sorry we had to cut it short.”
“Don’t worry about it. We’ll have plenty of picnics in the future where we’ll stay out as late as we want.”
“I hope so.”
I gave her hand a small squeeze before letting go to turn the wheel. “I promise.”
“I hope I didn’t embarrass you.”
My attention snapped to her face instead of the road. “Embarrass me? No! How? You couldn’t embarrass me.”
“I can’t imagine your last date had to be home before nine.”
Well, that was true. My last “date” had been six months ago, and it’d ended the next morning.
There hadn’t been a second date.
“Baby, you don’thaveto be home before nine, you’rechoosingto be home before nine because that’s what your parents asked you to do, and you’re a respectful daughter.”
“I guess that’s one way to look at it.”
“Why look at it any other way?”
She thought about it for a second and shrugged. “Yeah, you’re technically right. No one’s holding a gun to my head. Butlet’s be honest—it’s not like I have much of a choice if I want to stay in my parents’ good graces.”
“You could choose not to stay in their good graces… but you don’t because you’re a good daughter.”
“More like a desperate one.”
I shook my head. “I don’t believe that. Your family is important to you, otherwise you would have left like Mary did—before you even got pregnant with Ruthie.”
“Yes, my family is important, but I think there’s more to it than that. I’m not nearly as brave as my sister. She knew she’d be okay alone. I was too scared to leave the nest.”
“You’re leaving it now.”
“Only because my parents were going to kick me out by marrying me off to Kevin. Thankfully, you were kind enough to give me an alternative.”
“I’m not marrying you out of the goodness of my heart.”
“I know; I get that it’s quid pro quo. You’re helping me not get disowned, and I’m helping you with your reputation. Hopefully we’ll discover we like each other in the process.”
That’s not at all what I meant.
And I wanted to punch my own face for ever offering that lame-ass reason why I wanted to marry her.
“I already know I like you. I wouldn’t have asked you to marry me if there’d been any question about that.” She stayed quiet, so I decided to push a little. “And I’m pretty sure you like me, too. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have said yes.”
“Obviously I like you,” she snapped. “I wouldn’t have kissed you like that if I didn’t. Contrary to popular opinion around here, I don’t go kissing every single man I’m alone with.”
****
Jessica
Or maybe I did—considering the only single men I’d ever really been alone with were Jon and Alan. And, I guess Kevin, but I wasn’t counting him.
