16
Cox
When I picked up Sophie at noon, she came out wearing a t-shirt and jeans. Her hair was up in a ponytail and I indulged in a brief fantasy of wrapping it around my hand and yanking on it—while I had her on her knees. Naked, of course.
“Hi,” she said, flashing me a cheerful smile. “Ready to meet my dad?”
I blinked away the vision. “As ready as I’ll ever be.”
We got in my car and she gave me the address. Her dad lived on a quiet street with well-kept houses and neatly trimmed yards. I parked out front and went around to open the door for Sophie.
“Thank you,” she said as she got out. “We don’t have to pretend we’re really married, by the way. I’m going to tell him the whole story. Except the you’re buying him a house part. Don’t mention that yet. I need to work up to it.”
“Wait, he does know we got married, doesn’t he?”
Her eyes darted away. “No. I haven’t told him yet.”
“So I’m about to walk in there to meet your dad for the first time, and oh by the way, funny story, I accidentally married your daughter in Vegas. But don’t worry; we were shit-faced when it happened.”
“It’s not your fault. We were both there.”
“Oh yeah, I’m sure your daddy will see it that way.”
“I’ll explain it to him. He’ll understand.”
My eyebrows lifted. “You think so? The man you described as having the personality of sandpaper is going to understand?”
“Dad’s been trying to get me married off for ages. I bet he’ll be excited.”
“Is your dad a gun owner, Sophie?”
She just laughed and walked up to the front door.
I jogged a few steps to catch up. “Sugar, you didn’t answer my question.”
“No,” she said over her shoulder, her hand already in the air to knock. “And don’t worry. He’s not very fast. You can easily outrun him.”
“You’re not makin’ me feel better.”
She knocked but didn’t wait for an answer. She unlocked the door, opened it, and stuck her head in. “Dad? It’s me. Are you decent?” She glanced at me again. “One time my friends and I came over and he was in nothing but boxers. So now I like to make sure.”
The voice that answered was deep and rough as gravel. “Yeah. Come on in.”
Sophie led the way, giving me an encouraging nod. With a resigned breath, I followed her inside.
Her father was seated in a worn recliner. He looked up from his newspaper, a set of reading glasses perched on his nose. His deeply lined face gave him a weathered appearance, like he’d spent most of his life working outside. Gray stubble roughed up his skin and he wore a plaid flannel and jeans.
Surprisingly, he didn’t glare at me. In fact, his eyebrows lifted and the corners of his mouth twitched, like he was about to smile.
Interesting.
“Hi, princess.” His eyes flicked between the two of us. “This one looks good. Where’d you find him?”
She laughed. “Dad, this is Camden Cox. My dad, Melvin Abbott.”
“Mr. Abbott.” I reached out and shook his hand.
“Cox, huh?” He eyed me up and down. “What do you do?”
“I’m a developer. Mostly commercial real estate, but I have my hands in a few other ventures as well.”
“A suit,” he said, his jaw working like he was chewing the word and getting ready to spit it out. “You know how to fix a broken toilet?”
That was probably the most unexpected question he could have asked me, but I answered smoothly. “It’s been a while, but I could figure it out.”
“Dad, is your toilet broken?” Sophie asked.
“No.”
“Then why—”
“What about drywall? Can you patch a hole in a wall?”
“Sure.”
Sophie glanced around. “I don’t think you have any holes in your walls.”
“Can you change a tire?” Melvin asked. “Or are you one of those baby-men who’d call a service and wait helplessly on the side of the road?”
I cracked a smile. This guy was great. “I can change a tire. Learned how when I was ten.”
“Can you drive a stick?” He tossed the question at me like he was trying to find my weakness.
“Sir, I spent a lot of my childhood in rural Texas. By the time I was fourteen, I could drive a pickup, a tractor, my mom’s Nova, and my neighbor Mr. Hinkley’s full-size ’72 Ford truck. I can drive a stick.”
He nodded slowly, then took off his reading glasses and set them on the side table next to him. “All right, then.”
“Dad, what are you doing?”
“Just making sure.”
“Making sure of what?”
“That he can take care of you. Never know with these fuckin’ suits.”
Sophie sighed.
“Princess, can you hand me that notepad over there?” he asked.
“This one?” She picked up a yellow pad of paper and handed it to him.
He grabbed one of several pencils off his side table and decisively crossed something out, then set it down. “Won’t be needing that, I guess.”
“Oh, Dad. Please don’t tell me that was a phone number.”
“He works for the electric company. Climbs those poles and fixes shit. He was out here a couple of days ago and knocked on my door to say he had to cut the power for a little while.”
“You didn’t,” she said.
“Nice young man. Straight teeth. But if you’ve got this one—” He gestured toward me.
“I told you, no more,” she said, lowering her voice to almost a whisper.
“You know, you could have told me you were with someone already instead of that bullshit about taking a break. What were you worried about? He’s all right.”
Sophie’s palm hit her forehead, but I just stood by, watching with growing amusement.
“Now, if he can properly sink a fence post, you might as well get on with it and marry him now.”
“We got married already,” she blurted out, talking fast. “When we were in Vegas. Except it’s not what you think. We barely knew each other, and we were both really drunk, and we didn’t mean to. And obviously we can’t stay married, but we can’t get an annulment because it’s not that easy, which you’d think it was, because come on, a lot of people must get drunk-married in Vegas. I can’t be the only one to get myself into a mess like this. But no, we have to file for divorce, except we’re going to wait a little while so Cox doesn’t have to deal with bad PR.”
She stopped abruptly and took a deep breath.
Melvin blinked a few times. “The fuck you talkin’ about, Soph?”
I thought I’d help her out a little. “We got married in Las Vegas. It was surprisingly easy to convince the clerk at the marriage bureau that we were both of sound mind at the time.”
Sophie looked at me, but her eyes were unfocused. “That’s right. You said we’d already had some champagne, but I don’t think you told her about all the whiskey.”