Chapter 39
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
CAITLIN
“What’s the deal with you?” I ask, glancing over at Drew as he drives down my childhood block. “You’re all fidgety.”
“No, I’m not,” he says, one hand tightening on the steering wheel and the other reaching towards the dashboard, turning the heat off and then back on, adjusting the temperature three times, then turning the radio volume up, then down, then up again before he freezes, his eyes flicking to his hand and then back to the road.
“Fuck,” he mutters, yanking his hand off the dashboard and settling it back on the wheel, leaving it there for less than a second before he moves it to my leg, gripping my thigh in his big hand. “I think I might be nervous.”
I grin at him because with his fidgety nerves and the aviator sunglasses tucked haphazardly into the neck of the green sweater that makes his eyes glow, he’s so fucking cute. “Well, they say the first step is admitting you have a problem.”
Drew lets out an exasperated sigh. “I do have a problem. The problem being I have no idea how to act around a real family because a dead mom, an asshole dad, and a years-long parade of my dad’s awful girlfriends means I barely even remember having one of my own, and now I have to go have dinner with your family which is, arguably, the most wholesome family on earth.
I mean, your dad started a neighborhood bar that your brother now runs, and he’s, like, so in love with your mom you can practically see the hearts shooting out of his eyes when he looks at her.
It’s Norman Rockwell shit, Catie, and you expect me—an outsider who essentially followed you home like a stray cat and forced you to keep me—to go in there and be part of all that without any preparation at all? ”
I bite my cheek to keep from laughing at his little outburst and cover his hand with mine.
“Should I point out this isn’t the first time you’ve been around my family? You were with everyone at the lake and you spend a lot of time with Tyler’s family, which is my family too, so why are you freaking out now?”
“It’s not just now,” he mutters. “I never know how to act around so many people who love each other so fiercely and clearly have their shit together. And also, this time is different because now I’m yours, so that’s a whole thing too. What if they think I’m not good enough for you?”
Smiling, I squeeze his hand. “First of all, this isn’t 1950.
No one has to approve of my relationship with you, but even if they did, there’s nothing not to approve of because you’re the best person I know and you love me, which means my family will love you.
Second of all, literally nothing about my family is wholesome and none of us have our shit together.
There are a zillion of us and our branches are so tangled together even I have a hard time keeping track of it all.
At any major family gathering, it’s pretty much guaranteed that someone will talk about the sex they just had, my grandma will say something wildly inappropriate, and at least one couple will sneak away to have actual sex in a bathroom or a closet or on the nearest flat surface they can find.
I’m pretty sure that’s not exactly the normal, everyday life Norman Rockwell was going for.
And my family doesn’t do outsiders. If you love one of us, you belong to us, and the Parkers love themselves a stray.
How do you think my family got so damn big in the first place?
My grandma just kept adopting everyone’s friends and partners as our own until the population grew bigger than some small countries.
And not for nothing, but if anyone should be nervous, it’s me.
I’m about to tell my parents and my brother I’ve been keeping an extremely not minor secret from them for a pretty long time, and they’re going to be extremely not thrilled about that. ”
Drew blows out a breath and gives me an appraising look. “That actually makes me feel a lot better.”
I huff out a laugh. “I’m so glad my decision to keep my painful chronic health condition from my family makes you feel better about sitting down with them at the dinner table.”
Eyes turning serious, Drew lifts his hand from my leg and slides it over my stomach.
Instead of flinching away, I take a deep breath of my own, focusing on the way the warmth of his palm seeps through my shirt.
“How are you feeling? And don’t bullshit me,” he says when I open my mouth to respond.
“Be real with me, Princess. I want to know so I can help.”
Emotion punches through me at his words as I think about all the months and years where no one asked how I was feeling.
Where I didn’t let anyone in enough to know to ask.
The times I suffered in silence and pretended everything was fine when nothing about this has ever been the least bit fine.
“I’m okay. Really,” I say when Drew raises a skeptical eyebrow.
“The bleeding is what it always is, but whatever they did in the surgery made it so I’m not in excruciating pain this time. Just the normal amount.”
Drew dips his pinkie under my sweater to stroke along the waistband of my leggings, and it’s the strangest combination of sexy and soothing. “The normal amount for you is probably a level of pain that would send most people to the emergency room.”
I just shrug because he’s not wrong. “I’m made of sterner stuff.”
“I wish you didn’t have to be,” he says immediately. “I hate that you have to be.”
“It’s not my favorite thing,” I admit, and even being able to say that out loud to another human feels groundbreaking. “But it doesn’t feel quite as bad now that I don’t have to white-knuckle through it alone.”
“Never,” he says fervently. “You’ll never have to face it alone. You have me and you have your friends, and now you’ll have your family.”
Drew swings the car into a parking spot at the curb and I stare up at the house that holds all my memories, feeling anxious and a little bewildered but above all, like it’s time.
“I’m glad you’re with me for this,” I tell him as he clicks the button to release my seatbelt, picking up my hand and pressing a kiss to my knuckles.
“I’m glad I don’t have to do this alone either.
Don’t be nervous. My family is your family now. ”
Emotion swims in Drew’s eyes and he puts his hand on my cheek, stroking his thumb over my jaw. “I love you,” he says quietly. “Thank you for letting me be yours.”
Covering my hand with his, I let his words settle as I turn my head to kiss his palm. “Always. I love you too. Let’s get you to your first official Parker gathering in your I love Cait era. I promise you’re going to love it.”
“My long-lost granddaughter finally returns!”
My grandma swans into the foyer, grin wide and arms open.
I brace myself for a tight hug that definitely won’t feel the best in my current condition.
But instead of hugging me, she goes straight to Drew.
Standing on her tiptoes, she wraps her arms around him and pulls him close.
He freezes for a second, blinking like he’s not sure what to do with himself.
“Give into it, honey, remember?” she says quietly. “You deserve a hug.”
At my grandma’s words, Drew’s entire body relaxes, melting into the hug, his face filling with so much longing my heart squeezes.
I thought I understood how much the way he grew up affected him.
But watching him struggle to keep himself under control while wrapped in my grandma’s arms, I realize I didn’t know a thing, and I make a silent vow to fill his life with as much family as possible.
So many Parkers and Hanleys and Wrights and Sullivans and Wyles he won’t know what to do with himself.
There will be so many people in and out of his life that we’ll probably make it weird and he might end up hating it, but I’ll never stop doing it anyway.
Drew Ellicott was born for family, and I’m going to give him the biggest one he could ever dream of.
“And you,” my grandma says, releasing Drew and turning to me, resting her hands on my shoulders, studying me intently. “What brings you here?”
I resist the urge to fidget under her scrutiny, knowing better than most that Rachel Parker sees far more than anyone wants her to see.
“Dinner, remember? Jack is crowing about his latest sourdough experiment that everyone needs to taste, and my dad got a wild hair to smoke a brisket for a hundred hours or something because he has too much time on his hands now that Jack has taken over the bar. I was summoned, and I brought backup in the form of a six-foot-two wide receiver sourdough savant who will be able to tell Jack everything he’s doing wrong, which will be fun for me. ”
Drew coughs out a laugh, but my grandma just raises an eyebrow, like she’s not buying any of my bullshit. “That may be why you’re here, but that’s not the reason you came. Tell me the real reason, Cait.”
I feel Drew reach out and take my hand, squeezing as if to say, I’m here, and I know my grandma clocks the movement when she glances down and then back up at me, her face softening with a smile.
“Fine,” I mutter. “Since you’ve decided to be psychic today or whatever, I do have something to tell everyone.
But I’d rather tell everyone at once. Once is more than enough for me. ”
“I suspect it is,” she murmurs, wrapping me in a tight hug. “Proud of you,” she whispers in my ear. “Whatever it is, we’ll fix it together. Family is where you lay your hurts, Cait. I think it took you a little while longer than the rest of us to learn that lesson, but I’m glad you’re here now.
“And I’m glad you’re here too,” she says, turning back to Drew and then looking from him to me and back again. “I had a feeling about you two that first day you came to the girls’ office looking for a lawyer. Took you a minute, but you finally got her, didn’t you?”