Tiffany Wants to Get Married Now

“Tiffany, this is ridiculous. You’re far too young to get married.” Tom Hartman fought to keep his temper from exploding as he glared at his daughter. “You aren’t even out of high school yet.”

“I will be in a few weeks and I’ll be eighteen in August,” Tiffany reminded him. “Then I won’t need your permission.”

“So wait until August! What’s the rush?”

“Rex doesn’t want to wait.”

Tom tried not to grimace when he thought about Rex, his daughter’s boyfriend who looked as if he’d spent his formative years first stealing other people’s lunches and slowly moving up to their identities. “Why not? What’s the rush?” His face darkened. “Are you pregnant?”

“Are you kidding me? Ick! I don’t want kids! I just lost 20 pounds and I’m going to lose 20 more! No way am I going to get fat now!”

“Then why do you want to get married?”

“Well, to tell you the truth Rex is the one pushing for it but I don’t mind. I think it would be cool to be married now and if it doesn’t work out, so what? We’ll get a divorce.”

“No one should go into marriage thinking that way.”

Tiffany’s round face hardened. “Listen, Daddy, if you don’t give me permission then I’m going to go to my other dad and get him to give me his permission.”

“What are you talking about?”

“My other dad—Vlad with the hard to say last name. We still don’t know if he’s my father or if you are.”

Tom pushed away the pain he was feeling. “Tiffany, we’re working on getting that straightened out.”

“Well, what’s taking so freaking long? We all get blood tests and then we know. End of story.”

“And suppose I’m not your dad?”

“We can still be friends,” Tiffany replied.

Tom felt like his heart might break. Finding out that Tiffany was his daughter after so many years of being in the dark was like finding a treasure that he hadn’t known existed. That she could be so casual, so callous about their relationship made him want to cry. “I’ll call Vlad and set everything up. But you should know, Tiffany, that if it turns out I’m your biological father there is no way on earth that I’m going to give my permission for you to marry that boyfriend of yours. You’ll have to wait until August and even then I’m not going to give you my blessing.”

“Why don’t you take Rex and me out for dinner?” Tiffany suggested. “Maybe if you get to know him better you’ll see how good we are for each other.”

That wasn’t a bad idea. Tom would like to get to know Rex better—and find out why a man in his twenties was pushing so hard to marry a high school student. It had to be Tiffany’s money. Tom was sure of it. Now if only he could figure out a way to make Tiffany see the same thing.