“You really think you could get married in a month?” My mother gaped at me. “I know you. You need more than a month to plan an intimate little birthday party.”
She wasn’t wrong, but if I wanted everything to be perfect by the time filming started, I didn’t have a choice. Sleep would have to wait. Our fake marriage couldn’t.
* * *
“So, um, Mike, there’s something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about.”
Gia’s dad was bent over the hood of a ’69 Mustang he’d been restoring. He was a retired mechanic who’d owned one of only three auto body shops in town, and still liked to tinker with old cars whenever he had the chance.
He looked at me out of the corner of his eye. “I’m listening.”
He was a big dude, even bigger than I was, and I was no lightweight at 6’2, 210. He had a long gray beard and thick curly gray hair. He favoured plaid shirts and faded jeans, and had old-school ink decorating his powerful forearms. He’d made me nervous in high school and I was ashamed to admit I still felt a little uneasy around the man.
I took a pull from my long neck bottle before clearing my throat. I hadn’t rehearsed what I wanted to say, but standing face-to-face with him made me wish I had. “So, Gia and I stayed in touch while I was living in L.A., you know, just messaged each other on social media, texted on birthdays and holidays.” I wanted to give him a little back story so he didn’t question whether I’d forgotten about her when I left our hometown. His daughter was unforgettable.
He rolled his eyes as he straightened, wiping his dirty hands on a rag. “Social media. I don’t know why y’all waste so much time on that crap. Don’t you have anything better to do?”
I chuckled at this assessment. He wasn’t wrong, social media sure as hell could be a time suck. “It’s not all bad. It’s allowed your daughter to build a successful business.”
He shrugged before closing the hood of the car. “I guess.”
“Anyways, as I was saying, Gia and I stayed in touch while I was gone and re-connected when I got back to town. She helped me a lot after my dad died—”
“I remember.” He pointed at me. “Your old man was one of the good guys. And he’d be real proud to see you back here, doin’ right by him and your grandaddy. They loved that land. Always meant for it to stay in the family.”
Praise didn’t come easily with Mike, so I appreciated his acknowledgment that I’d done the right thing, especially since that hadn’t always been the case. I had a lot of things in my past that I was ashamed of, but I liked to think I was becoming a better man, and Gia was playing a larger role in that than she realized.
“Thanks. I’m glad I came back. Feels like the place I belong.” My friends in L.A. thought I was crazy to come back here, but I didn’t need a gut-check to tell me I was doing the right thing. “I admit, I don’t know as much about farming as they did—”
“I seem to recall you were more interested in sports, girls, and partying when you were in high school to be of much use to your daddy on the farm. If you’d worked alongside him like you should have, you wouldn’t be so clueless now.”
Ouch. Mike was a straight-shooter and his barbs often landed right between the eyes.
“Don’t get me wrong.” He reached into the bar fridge and twisted the top off a beer bottle before bringing it to his lips. “I never thought you were a bad kid. If I did, I wouldn’t have let Gia hang out with you.”
It wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement, but it was probably the best I was going to get from my future father-in-law. “She meant a lot to me.” I waited until he looked me in the eye before I added, “Then, and sure as hell now.”
His dark eyes narrowed as he smoothed a hand over his long beard. “What are you trying to say? Is there something between you two?”
The moment of truth, and my heart was battering my chest. Fortunately, I wouldn’t have to look him in the eye and lie to him. Every word out of my mouth would be the God’s honest truth where his daughter was concerned.
“We’ve been seeing each other.” I leaned against his work bench, hooking the heel of my boot on a lower shelf. “Spending a lot of time together, in fact. Resurrected our friendship, and let’s just say it’s led to more.” When he gave me the stink-eye, daring me to continue, I added, “I’m in love with her.”
“You’re in love with her? ‘Bout damn time you admitted it. I could have told you that back when y’all were in high school.”
I sputtered; the air trapped in my throat getting caught when I tried to laugh. “Seriously? You thought I was in love with her way back then? I’m not even sure I knew what love was at eighteen.”
“You knew.” He nodded. “Just like I knew when I met my wife that she was the one. Our folks thought we were too young to know what love was, but I didn’t give a shit. I knew. She knew. That was good enough for me.”
“I guess people married a lot younger back then—” I shut my mouth when he scowled at me.
“Yeah, people weren’t so damn fickle. They weren’t afraid of hard work and commitment. They didn’t have to go off and ‘find themselves’,” he said, looking disgusted as he made air quotes around the words. “Before they grew up and put down roots right where they belonged.”
I admired that. Lord knows I wasted a lot of time drifting, wasting time on shallow people and making bags of money I thought would make me happy. Instead, all they did was draw more shallow people into my life.
“I want to put down roots now. On that land that meant so much to family. I think I could build a nice life there. Have a family.” I drew a deep breath before I said, “With your daughter… if we have your blessing?”
His stare turned cold as he sized me up. “You’re saying you want to marry my daughter?”
