Sidecar Crush

“How long do you think you’ll be in town?” Dad asked.

“A few days,” Kelvin said.

I glanced up at Kelvin, raising my eyebrows. Our return flight to L.A. wasn’t for a week. But since he’d insisted on flying in and out of Pittsburgh—as if there was something wrong with airports in West Virginia—we’d need to leave Bootleg Springs on Friday afternoon. Still, that was more than a few days.

“We’ll be here until Friday, actually.”

Kelvin cleared his throat but didn’t argue with me.

“Anyway, Dad, there’s something Kelvin and I wanted to talk to you about.” My heart started to thump harder and my fingers tingled. I didn’t know why I was so nervous to tell him I was getting married. It hadn’t been difficult to tell my mom. But I’d been more sure of how she was going to react. Dad? He could go either way. And as frail as he seemed, I didn’t want to shock him too much.

“All right,” he said, resting his hands on his thighs. His gaze flicked to Kelvin for a second before coming back to me.

“Well, you know Kelvin and I have been seeing each other for a couple years,” I said. “We’ve decided to get married.”

“Huh,” Dad said. “Is that so?”

“Yes,” I said, trying to keep my voice bright. “We can’t talk about it publicly yet, but we wanted to tell you while we were here.”

Dad crossed his arms and leveled Kelvin with a hard stare. “You’ve already asked for her hand?”

Kelvin blinked. “Asked for her hand? We decided to get married, yes.”

“Isn’t there something you’ve forgotten, son?” Dad asked.

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“I don’t recall you ever coming to me to ask my permission,” Dad said.

Kelvin’s brow furrowed, and he cracked a little smile. “Well, no, but that’s a very old-fashioned custom, don’t you think?”

“’Round here, that’s the way it’s done,” Dad said.

“Okay…” Kelvin said. “But Leah is a twenty-eight-year-old woman, not a girl being handed off with a dowry.”

“Daddy,” I said, putting my hand on his knee, “Kelvin didn’t realize that would be so important to you. That isn’t the sort of thing everybody does anymore. This is my fault; I should have told him.”

Dad looked at me, his eyes boring deep into mine. “You want to marry this man?”

“Well, yeah.”

He held my gaze a moment longer, scrutinizing me. I tried not to fidget. He sighed, like he was resigning himself to something unpleasant. “When’s the wedding?”

“We haven’t set a date yet.”

“It depends on our schedules,” Kelvin said. “We probably won’t have time for anything fancy. I’ve been thinking we’d just go to Vegas after Roughing It airs.”

I glanced at Kelvin in surprise. He’d never mentioned getting married in Vegas before. “You don’t want a wedding?”

“We could still have a wedding, babe,” he said. “But this way, we could work it in when we both have a few days free. Come on, you don’t want to get married by Elvis?”

My mouth dropped open. “No, I don’t want to get married by Elvis.”

He smiled. “You know, you’re right. If we have a big wedding, we could turn it into a great PR opportunity. We could sell the rights to the wedding photos.”

I gaped at him. “We’re not selling the rights to our wedding photos. What are you talking about?”

“I’m glad you brought it up,” Kelvin said. “We’d be crazy not to. That’s a huge missed opportunity. We should get planning now if we want to capitalize on your visibility from the show.”

He walked outside, pulling out his phone as he went. The screen door banged shut behind him.

“Really?” Dad asked.

I sighed. “I know, he seems… opportunistic. It’s just the way he is. That’s why he’s so successful.”

Dad raised his eyebrows. He wasn’t buying it.

“He’s just… not a Bootleg type of man,” I said.