She gave me a suspicious look, but handed over the phone anyway.
“Fine. I’ll get the full report after anyway,” she muttered.
I smirked as I slid off the couch and padded toward the sliding door before stepping onto the balcony. The air was cooler out here, brushing over my bare chest as I continued our conversation. I held the phone up to my ear, swallowing the nerves building in my chest as her father cleared his throat.
“I’m listening, Theodore.”
We exchanged a few pleasantries, and I asked about his latest test results and how he was feeling. He gave me the usual—“Estoy bien,” which might as well beI’m surviving. I didn’t press him. Instead, I shifted gears.
I took a breath.
Then, in Spanish I asked,
“Señor… Quiero pedirle suo…mano en matrimonio”
There was a long pause, and my hands turned clammy as I waited for his reply.
“¿Mi mano?”
I nodded like he could see me. “Sí. Suo mano. Para casarme.”
A minute passed. Then her father bursts into laughter.
Okay. Not the reaction I want from the man I’m asking to marry his daughter.
“¿Conmigo?”
My eyes widen in horror.
“No! No, no, with your daughter!¡Carmen! Perdón, perdón—her hand,no usted.”
“Ajá,” her father teases, still laughing. “Bueno, qué pena.I was already getting excited.”
Fucking stupid-ass pronunciations and Fuck-ass Italian words still stuck in my brain.
I groaned. “Merda.I’m still learning. ‘Suo’means ‘her’in Italian so…I got it mixed up.”
“‘Su’means ‘your’in Spanish,” He chuckled. It turned into a light cough, but he brushed it off. “Está bien.Carmen still gets tripped up, too.”
I laughed with him at how similar the words sounded, but it was tight in my throat.
“You don’t need to feel pressure to ask me,” he said, switching back to English. “I haven’t been much of a father to her in a while.”
I shook my head. “That’s not true, sir. You’re still her dad. And she loves you.”
He grew quiet.
“I don’t even know if I’ll make it to the wedding,hijo,” he said quietly, then repeated it in Spanish.
“Don’t say that,” I said. “Who’s gonna walk her down the aisle?”
He was quiet for a while, then, “Why do you want to learn Spanish so bad?”
I leaned against the railing. “Carmen. She said you wanted our kids to speak it, so… we agreed to learn it together.”
He laughed weakly. “You are a good man, Theodore.”
“You are, too.”
