We sat side by side on my parent’s loveseat. Although I made a constant attempt to erase the smile that was plastered on my face, I came far from succeeding. Jess also wore an ear-to-ear grin, making denying of our excitement impossible.

Without looking up from his Kindle, my father spoke. “When are you going to make your e-books into paperbacks? I’d like to have that book you dedicated to me in paperback before I die. Is that a possibility?”

“Should be available in days.”

He grunted. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

“I’m serious. Jess just finished formatting it.”

He lowered the Kindle. After glancing at Jessica and me, he picked up his glasses. A thorough look followed.

“What the fuck’s going on with you two?” he asked.

“What do you mean?”

“Both of you look like guilty idiots. Cats that ate the proverbial canary.”

I looked at Jess and shrugged. “Nothing going on here.”

He glanced over his shoulder. “Anita! Get your ass in here.”

Wearing her apron and covered in flour, my mother rushed in the living room. “What is it, David?”

He waved his hand toward us. “Look at these two fools. What in the hell’s wrong with them?”

“Well,” she said. “They’re not idiots.”

He forced a sigh. “Look at your son and his respective lover and tell me what in the hell is going on.”

She wiped her hands on her apron. “Looks like they’re sitting on the couch.”

He scowled at her, and then scowled at us. “You two know something that I don’t. Lest you forgot, young man, I don’t like being in the dark.”

I stood. “Mom, Dad, we have an announcement. We’re getting married.”

My father grabbed his Kindle. “It’s about goddamned time.”

“This is so exciting,” my mother gasped. “When?”

“We haven’t decided.”

“Where?” she asked.

“We haven’t decided that, either.”

“Sounds like a line of shit, to me,” my father said dryly.

“We’re getting married, Pop. Seriously.”

“Don’t see a ring.”

“We did a fist bump,” Jess said. “At Starbucks.”

He pulled off his glasses and squinted. “A what?”

She clenched both her fists and pounded them together. “Fist bump.”

He shot me a glare. “That’s what you and your cronies do before you go pull each other’s puds, isn’t it? That’s not a way to secure a woman, you idiot.”

“Works for us,” I said.

He rolled his eyes. “Congratulations.”

“David Wilson Hildreth!” my mother shouted. “That sure didn’t sound very sincere.”

“I’m happy they’re engaged. I’m not happy about how he did it.”

“It doesn’t matter,” my mother said. “What matters is their love for one another.”

He raised his Kindle. Frantically, his finger flipped across the screen. He turned it to face me. It was clearly a page from a book, but I couldn’t read it.

“Erik Ead didn’t pound Kelli’s fist,” he said. “He put a ring in a coffee cup.”

“That’s a book,” I said.

“A book you wrote,” he complained.

“Well, we’re engaged. That’s the news of the week.”

“Who won Scrabble?” Jess asked, hoping to change the subject.

He laid the Kindle on the end table. “I don’t remember.”

“What?” my mother asked.

“Who won the Scrabble game?” Jess shouted.

“Oh,” she said. “I did. Six sixty-four to six-twenty.”

“Six-twenty?” Jess asked. “Isn’t that a low score for you?”

“Bad night,” my father replied, gesturing to me. “Proof that dip-shit here isn’t the only one that can have a brain-fart.”

We watched bits and pieces of a golf tournament and talked for a few hours about everything except marriage. When it was time to go, my father stood and opened his arms.

Jess gave him a hug.

After he broke their embrace, he clenched his fist and extended a shaking arm. “I’ll be honored to have you as an official member of the family.”

Jess pounded her fist into his. “Thanks, Pop.”