“What do you mean when you say you were wrong?” Rissa asked, her hand stroking Hogan’s back bringing my nerves up to DEFCON 1 level when I saw how tightly bunched the muscles in his arms were.
Avoiding eye contact with him and focusing on the parent that was smiling at me, I explained, “We haven’t grown stronger because we were already rock solid. I’ve never been a romantic guy – I think I’m allergic to it,” I chuckled, the smile dropping from my face when Hogan’s eyes narrowed at me. “But she’s it for me, and I’d give her all the romance in the world if she wanted it. Hell, I’d give her a kidney if she wanted it.”
Swear to God I heard him mutter something about my balls.
Smiling brightly at me, Rissa held up a finger. “Will you give us a second?” she requested, standing up and tugging on Hogan’s arm. “I’m just going to have a word with my husband in the other room.”
I’d practiced this speech five times with Garrett and six times with Jarrod. Hell, I’d even asked for a cheat sheet from Ellis to help me get through this without their dad killing me. Not once through all the rehearsals and rewrites had the possibility of them needing to discuss it in the other room come up. Turning my hands so that I could see the points I’d written on my palms, I re-read them and thought about what I’d said. I hadn’t missed anything or worded it wrongly, I was sure of it.
A cough from the doorway had me quickly turning my hands palm down again, and I looked up and saw Hogan standing and looking unsure. “You want to marry Rose?”
Blinking at him, I nodded, unsure of where this was going.
Tilting his head to the side, he listened to something behind him and muttered back, and then turned back to me. “How much do you want us to pay you for her?”
Thinking I’d misheard, I thought through all the connotations of his question. “How much do I want for her?”
Shifting slightly as Rissa peeked her head through the small gap between his arm and the wall, he shrugged. “Yeah. How much are you expecting us to pay you for her?”
Standing up, I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at him. “I’m not sure if you’re trying to buy me off, but I’m marrying her no matter what.”
Trying to push past her husband and elbowing him when he refused to budge, Rissa explained, “What my husband’s trying to ask - badly I might add,” she glared at him, “is how much you want from us for taking her off our hands?”
It was like I was in an alternate universe or something, because I could have sworn they were offering me money to marry the most amazing woman in the world. It didn’t make sense. “I’m still not sure I…”
Rissa cracked before Hogan did, holding onto his arm and laughing so hard she almost slipped down the wall. “I’m sorry…it’s your face. You just look so confused,” she wheezed, holding her size and laughing even harder.
“That’s because I am confused,” I muttered, still trying to figure it all out.
This time Hogan allowed it when she went to push past him, following behind her to sit back in their seats. Wiping under her eyes, Rissa took a minute to get her composure back.
“Years ago, when my granddaddy asked my mee maw’s daddy if he could marry her, he pulled this exact same stunt on him. Years later, remembering it, my granddaddy pulled it on my daddy,” she explained, smiling brightly at her husband. “When we had Rose, he told Hogan that it was now tradition so he had to do it because he’d be able to tell if he was the man we wanted our daughter to spend the rest of her life with. At the time, Hogan had called bullshit and said there was no way he was going to do it, until he met you.”
“So, you were testing me?” I clarified, not at all pissed off like you’d expect. I was fucking relieved. For a minute, I thought I was going to have to take her dad down for trying to buy me off, but now I saw it for what it was. I also saw where Rose got her sense of humor from, and I knew that in years to come, I’d be doing this exact same thing to the son of a bitch who thought he was man enough to marry my daughter.
Not beating around the bush, Hogan held my eyes and said more seriously than I’d ever heard him say anything before, “Absolutely.”
“Did I pass?”
Thinking over it for a second, he unfolded his tall body from the couch, and then took a step toward me. “Welcome to the family, son,” he rumbled, holding his arms out.