Mine To Have (Southern Wedding 1)

"Oh, my," Gabriel says, trying not to laugh while he grabs his neck. "In my defense, I was just repeating what you said about Travis."

"Okay," Harlow interjects. "This is enough." She points at Gabriel. "You need to make sure everyone knows that he’s not a dipshit and that he was never married."

She then turns to Quinn. "You need to watch your mouth in front of people before I tell Mom that you are swearing in front of the kids.” Quinn just glares at her. "And you." She turns to me. "I’m sorry that this isn’t as easy as I thought it would be, but I’m sure the next time will be better."

"One can hope,” Quinn says and then Harlow glares at him. "Fine, I’ll be nice." She folds her hands over her chest. "Nicer than I am."

"Now"—she looks at me, and all I can do is smile—"time to go see my parents."

"And to think I almost didn’t come today,” Quinn says. "Let me go first and hand Dad Elodie. He can’t shoot him if he has a child in his arms."

I laugh and look around to see none of them laughing with me. "He’s joking, right?" I say as Harlow slips her hand in mine and turns to walk away from them.

We stop and talk to a couple more of her cousins, and I do get the glare more often than not, but I know in the end they are being somewhat friendly because of Harlow. Instead of calling me a dick to my face, they are waiting for me to walk away before doing it. "Auntie Harlow." Sofia runs to her, and I stop in my tracks at her beauty. Harlow’s face goes into a huge smile when she sees her, and her arms automatically open for her.

"There is my girl," she says, hugging her, and my heart slowly starts to speed up when I see them together. She is giving all of this up for me. I swallow the lump in my throat. We walk side by side as she talks to Sofia about everything going on in her life in the past two days. We walk through the grass, and I smell the food and look over to see her father, Casey, by the grill with her two uncles, Beau and Jacob.

"Here we go," I mumble to myself and see the three men, all with a beer in one hand and spatulas in the other hand, look up and glare at me.

"Smells good," Harlow says, letting my hand go while she walks over to her father and kisses his cheek. She mumbles something in his ear while she walks over to Beau and Jacob.

I take a deep breath, seeing her smile with them, and then they all look over at me and nod hello. All but Casey; he just brings his bottle to his mouth and takes another pull of his beer. I put my hands in my pockets, knowing that I’m going to have to sit down with him eventually and get it all out. I’m more nervous about that than anything else. Not having his approval will hurt Harlow, and I can’t do that to her. No one says anything to me, which is even worse than asking me if I’m married.

"Okay, we are going to go and see Mom," Harlow says, and I nod at the guys and turn around to walk with her.

"I can’t eat any of the food," I say, and she laughs.

"I’ll take the first bite." She stops walking and stands in front of me, wrapping her arms around my neck. "I’ll take one for the team."

"Never." I shake my head and lean down and kiss her lips. The minute I kiss her, everything inside me settles.

"It’s going to get better," she assures me, and all I can do is lean down and kiss her neck. I let her go and look over to see her father watching us. I stare at him, nodding, and then looking around to see Olivia with a little baby in her arms. Hazel sits next to her as I look back at Casey to see him still staring at me. I motion with my head to the side, and he just nods at me. "What the hell was that?" Harlow asks.

"That’s me facing the music." I take a deep breath. "Go sit with your mom, and if I’m not back in twenty minutes, come find me." I bend to kiss her lips and see that Casey is walking toward the barn.

"Twenty minutes, he can have you dismembered and skinned," she deadpans, and my eyes widen. "I’m kidding." She puts her hand on my chest, and I look down to see that her hand is very bare without a certain ring.

"I love you." I pick up her hand and kiss the finger where a ring should be. A finger that if I wasn’t such an idiot would probably have two rings instead of just one.