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“Dad, I can explain,” Ashanti said. “Luke and I—”
“We’re together,” Luke blurted. His head bowed. “I care deeply about your daughter, Mr. Lane. Please accept us.”
There was a long beat of silence during which Ashanti felt like she would die from the tension.
At last, her dad cleared his throat and pointed at Luke. “First, wipe your mouth. I can’t take you seriously with lipstick smeared all over your face.”
Ashanti’s quick gasp of horror echoed in the room. She glanced at Luke’s stricken face and realized evidence of their kissing was stamped in proud red lip-shaped stains all over his pale skin.
Her eyes widened and she grabbed her purse, offering him a couple of wet wipes to clean it off. He arched his neck and she saw another red blot there. Ashanti pounced on it, scraping it off with her hands before her dad could see.
“That’s enough.” Her dad marched in front of them. “I can’t believe this, Zhang. I leave for a couple of months and you move in on my daughter? You understand how shady that looks.”
“That’s not what happened, Dad,” Ashanti hissed.
Luke held a hand out so he could explain. “It wasn’t planned, sir. But I’ve cared about Ashanti for a long time. I just recently realized those feelings went deeper than friendship.”
“I see.” Randal arched an eyebrow. “And what are your intentions now that you’ve discovered these ‘feelings’?”
“I want to date her, sir, with the intention of marrying her.”
Ashanti sucked in a breath. It was one thing to talk about marriage between them, and another to say that to her dad.
“Luke…” She nudged him.
“What?” he whispered. “It’s true.”
“Marriage?” His father chuckled darkly. “You’re threatening to take away my baby girl?”
Luke winced. “That’s not…”
“I fed her, clothed her, read her bed time stories, took her to and from school for years and now you think you can waltz in here and care for her half the way I did?”
“Dad, I’m not a little girl anymore.”
“You’re my little girl,” Randall snapped. “And I am your father. Apparently, not a good one if you chose not to mention that you’d gotten assaulted and had a new boyfriend while I was away.”
“It’s not like that,” Ashanti pleaded. “Luke was there for me through everything. He took care of me afterwards too. I’m fine.”
“So what you’re saying is… you don’t need me?”
“I’ll always need you.” Ashanti rose and went to hug her father. “But I’m an adult now and I want to make my own choices.”
Luke stood as well. “I love Ashanti, sir. I will make it my mission to treat her with the same respect and care that you do.”
“That’s a tall order, Luke.”
He nodded determinedly. “In my family, we don’t make promises we can’t keep.”
Randal narrowed his eyes and studied him. Luke didn’t flinch.
Ashanti cleared her throat when the silence grew overwhelming. “Dad, have you eaten? Nai Nai and I bought a ton of vegetables from the market today.”
“Nai Nai?”
“My grandmother,” Luke said.
“Your grandmother? You met his family?” Randal’s eyes widened with understanding. “That story you told me about. The one with the disapproving Indian family and the black girl, it wasn’t from a novel, was it?”
