Chapter 30
Chapter Thirty
Thea’s feet balanced on Draven’s lap as she stretched out on the couch. With her laptop on her lap, she applied to more film set makeup jobs and emailed any makeup artists she could find.
Draven peacefully watched TV and stroked a finger up and down her shin and calf. She curled her toes into his thigh. The two of them could not keep their hands off each other. Though Draven still pressed pause whenever they got close to sex, he never left her unsatisfied.
The amount of orgasms… He had appreciated—an understatement—how she spread herself across the dining table like a feast. Hungry man . Alec had never made Thea feel wicked and sinful. She had never wanted to do things like that for him.
Draven inspires more in me . Yet another reason why he was not a “rebound.” Her friends would come around eventually.
Abruptly, Draven jerked on the couch, body jolting in alarm. Concerned, Thea sat up, moving her feet from his lap as he looked over at the door. He made a gesture to tell her someone knocked at the door.
She slowly stood and followed him over.
When he opened the door, the air shot out of her lungs because her parents barged right inside.
Her mother’s lime green dress was louder than any sound could be, seeming to trigger an alarm in Thea’s head. Ears ringing, she watched as her parents strode into the living room, passing Thea and Draven as they examined the space. Investigative officers without a warrant.
Mouth agape, Thea signed, “ Mom, Dad, what are you doing here? ”
Her father glared at Draven’s naked chest, then he scowled at Thea as if she were living in a strip club.
Thea motioned to Draven to go and put on a shirt. He hesitated but jerked his head in a nod and walked to his room to find one.
“ What are you doing here? ” Thea signed to them again.
They had never become fluent in sign language but knew enough to interact with their daughter. “ Alec told us about his jaw ,” her mom signed. “ Did that man hit him? What is going on? ”
“ Draven defended me. Alec had no right to be here and say the things he did .”
“ Thea, what are you doing? ” her father signed. “ This isn’t your life. Doing makeup to pay the bills? Living with…that? ” Her father made a gesture about how Draven had so many tattoos.
“ Draven is great. And I don’t want to work in finance anymore. I want to do makeup. It makes me happy .”
Her father mimed writing something down, informing Thea that he was already tired of signing. Right. She grabbed a notepad and pen and wrote her statement.
He read it and pushed his glasses up his nose, squinting—not because he had trouble reading, but because he did not like what she wrote.
Her father took the pen and pad. “ Thea, you and Alec are meant to be together. He is your perfect match. He can take care of you .”
“ I don’t need a man to take care of me .”
“ You clearly do ,” her father wrote. “ I assume makeup jobs don’t pay the full bill for this apartment, let alone half. Alec has a good job; he’ll provide for you. He understands you .”
“ Just because we’re both deaf and he makes good money does not mean we should be together ,” Thea shot back, her handwriting sloppy from the speed and force at which she wrote it. “ I didn’t like my life, Daddy. I’m trying to rebuild .”
“ You’re my daughter, and I love you, so I know when you need tough love. You’re taking a step back in life. Do you think this fantasy of doing makeup and living with some drummer is real life? ”
He pointed to where Draven had disappeared. “ Honey, what happens when he goes on tour? Will he still be paying for most of the rent, then? Do you think you can just jump into the movie business—one of the most competitive fields in existence? Alec is your normal. Finance is how you succeed in life. It’s safe .”
“ I’m not going back to a man who cheated on me ,” Thea signed.
Her mother crossed her arms and huffed.
Her father signed, “ The man made a mistake . He’s your best option, honey. You may never find another match like him. ”
“ I don’t want him. I like my life right now .”
Her mother signed, “ This —” She gestured to the apartment. “— is a temporary arrangement . We gave you several weeks to calm down. Now, it’s time to be a responsible adult and go back to a normal life. Forgive Alec. ”
“ This is my life now. Accept it ,” Thea signed.
Draven reentered the room wearing a black shirt with skulls on it.
Adrenaline coursed through Draven’s veins as if this were a paintball game, not simply Thea’s parents in his apartment. His gaze zigzagged between his woman and the people who gave her life. The intense glaring was not a good sign.
When he walked back into the living room, they stopped signing and looked at him. “Um, can I offer anyone a beverage?” he asked, clearing his throat. “I have water, soda—”
“What do you want with our daughter?” Thea’s father asked Draven.
Draven’s eyebrows rose, and he fumbled out the genius, well-articulated response, “What do you mean?”
“You’re letting her stay here for cheap. Why?”
“It’s hard for a drummer in a rock band to keep a roommate. Thea’s perfect for me,” he said. She is perfect for me . But not because she couldn’t hear his drumming. Because she was Thea .
Her mother clacked closer to him in her heels. “Thea was months away from getting engaged. She didn’t need you swooping in to offer her a place to stay. This apartment gives her an excuse to not go back to her normal life.”
Engaged? Normal life? “What would you call the last few weeks she has been living here?” Draven asked.
“A vacation,” her mother replied stonily. “She was always the studious, straight-A student. We knew a day might come when she had to break the mold and rebel somehow. But this stops now. You’re going to stop renting this apartment to her.”
Thea slapped a hand against her notepad, glaring at everyone in the room. Draven read her expressions well enough by now to know she was pissed that no one was signing or writing or communicating in any way that she could follow along.
“I’m not making Thea move out,” Draven said evenly, shocking himself, considering no part of him felt “even.” His equilibrium was uncentered, out of orbit.
The idea of Thea moving out and never talking to him again was a nightmare. No, worse than a nightmare. It was a chainsaw to the chest.
“You letting her stay here is giving her unrealistic expectations for her future,” her father said. “You understand that, don’t you? What happens when you eventually move? Where does she go? She had a home, a future career, a future fiancé all lined up.”
“She didn’t want any of it. And she has a home and future career here too.” Also, maybe a future fiancé. Hi, hello, new boyfriend here .
“It’s clear we are not going to get what we came here for, Margaret,” Thea’s father stated.
“This is ridiculous.” Her mother narrowed her eyes at Draven, practically spitting at him. “She’s a broken-hearted woman feeling confused and lost. Months from now, she’ll wake up and realize what a step back she has taken, and she’ll regret it. You think our daughter deserves to throw her future away to live here with you?”
Draven’s chest cracked at her words. Could they tell? Was blood seeping into his shirt? They don’t think I’m good enough for their daughter . Wasn’t that what his bandmates thought too? “Thea is a grown woman who can make her own decisions.”
And right now, she chose Draven. She chose to live with him and be with him. And one day, she might change her mind . She might wake up and realize this had all been an ill-timed vacation from real life to help heal a heartbreak.
He swallowed and shoved the painful, weary thoughts aside.
Thea’s mother and father turned back to their daughter, whose red face and flared nostrils projected her anger at being left out of the conversation with Draven.
Her mother signed something, and Thea’s wrathful glare fell away. Instead, she was left with pursed lips, furrowed brows, big, hurt eyes, and a vulnerability in her face that cracked a few more of Draven’s ribs.
What the hell did they say to her to make her look so sad? She looked like they slapped her.
Thea closed the door after her parents exited the apartment. She kept her palms against the piece of wood, staring at it, until Draven slinked up from behind and wrapped his arms around her, cooing and kissing the side of her neck and her hair for comfort.
“What did they say to you, baby?” he purred.
She turned toward him, and his heart broke at her barely suppressed tears. She pressed her lips together, but the edges curved down sharply.
“ What? ” he signed.
After a moment of recharging in his arms, Thea wrote on her notepad, “ They said they don’t want to see me until I choose to stop playing pretend . My own family uninvited me to Thanksgiving dinner. ”
A growl shook Draven’s chest, but the need to comfort her overruled the anger at seeing her hurt.
He wrote back, “ Then you’ll come to mine .”