“No sir, I’ve always thought Ellie was beautiful. It’s just that…” I pick up my beer and take a sip and a moment to gather my thoughts, “I like everything about your daughter.”
“Son, you better not be familiar with everything about my daughter.”
I’m a big man but, in that second, I feel as small as an ant. “No sir, I do not.”
; Jack smiles and places his beer bottle on the table. “Good to know.”
“Do I have your permission?”
Jack laughs. “Don't ask me. Ask her.” I turn around to see Ellie leaning on the doorjamb drinking a beer.
“Ask me what?”
“Cooper here wants to court you.”
Ellie smiles and my heart nearly stops beating. “Court me? You asked my father if you could date me?”
Feeling sheepish, I nod. “I did. I wanted to put it all out there.”
Ellie lifts a brow. “You put it all out there?”
I know she was giving me a hard time but did she have to do it in front of her father?
“You’re impossible, Ellie Hawkins.”
Jack chuckles. “The Hawkins women will try a saint, Cooper. Better to know that now before you get in too deep, and you better not have already been in too deep, son. I’m only steps away from my shotgun.”
I look to the doorway where his shotgun hangs from a rack on the wall in the living room. Normally used for coyotes attacking the herd, I wouldn’t put it past him to shoot me with it.
“Really, Dad?” Ellie takes my hand and pulls me up. “You too? I’m a grown up, and I’ll decide those things about my life.” She slides the almost full beer to her father. “Cooper and I are going to dinner. He doesn’t drink and drive.”
She yanks me behind her through the door.
“Good luck with that one, son,” Jack calls from behind us.
Seven
Ellie
“Be back later, Mom. Cooper is taking me on a date.” I drag Cooper past my Mom and out the door to his truck.
He helps me in and rushes to the other side. “I can’t believe you did that,” he says while buckling up.
“Me? Did you really ask my dad to court me?”
“I never said the word court.”
“And were you really talking about knowing me deep?”
He starts the engine and drives toward the highway. “Not in that context. Your dad has a way of turning things around to make them sound awful.”
I twist in my seat to look at him. “So knowing me deep would be awful?”
He slaps his hand on the steering wheel. “Now I know where you get it from. You are your father, only you have a vagina.”
“Yes, a vagina that’s in desperate need of attention. How dare you tease me in the bathroom and walk out! What would you have done if I’d pulled you to the edge in the showers and walked away?”