Page 47 of My Redneck Baby Daddy

He studied me. "You think loving her means you won't ever mess it up?"

"No, sir. I know better than that, and so do you." I shook my head. "I can't promise her I'll never hurt her. Any man promises you that is lying to your face."

"Then what?"

"I can promise that when I do, I ain't running."

He stood there in the middle of his own shop with his arms folded, and something in his face came loose about a quarter inch.

"Well then," he said. "Go tell Rue all that instead of standing in my damn tire shop telling me."

She opened her door at seven with a red pen still in her hand.

I didn’t have a ring, and that was on purpose.

"I need to say something," I said, "and I need you to let me get all this out before I go crazy."

Rue crossed her arms. "Fine."

"I wanted you before those test, Teach. Before we ever slept together." I’d rehearsed the whole way over. "Somewhere back in September I quit making plans by myself. I started buying the coffee you like. There's three of your books in my truck right now because you leave them everywhere, and I ain't moved not one of them."

"Bobby Jo..."

"You said you’d let me finish." I rubbed the back of my neck. "I wanted you at my kitchen table with your papers all over it. I wanted your sweaters in my closet."

Her mouth twitched. "Don't make fun of my sweaters."

"I'm trying to tell you I love you."

Everything in her face went still.

"I want Sunday dinner at your mama's with your daddy grunting at me over the mashed potatoes," I said. "I want my mother calling you too much, which she's already doing. I want Regina and Hamilton walking in my house without knocking. I want to complain about your books for forty years and I want both of us there when our people get old."

Rue's eyes had filled all the way up.

"That baby didn't make me choose you," I said. "Our baby just showed up before I got around to telling you I'd already done it."

She put her hand over her mouth.

"I ain't asking you to marry me tonight. I don't want an answer you give me because you're pregnant. I'd turn it down if you did." I shrugged. "I just wasn't letting another day go by with you not knowing."

She came off that doorframe into my chest.

"I love you too," she said into my shirt, softly sobbing.

I got my hand down low on her stomach, flat and careful, over a whole lot of nothing, and she put her hand on top of mine and held it there.

Then she looked up at me with her glasses crooked and her face a mess.

"And for the record, my sweaters are cute."

"Let's not ruin this by lying."

She smacked me in the chest, and I caught her hand and held onto it.

Chapter 15

Rue