Chapter 31
Chapter Thirty-One
Meeting his family. Big step . She should have been nervous, right? Instead, all she felt was warmth.
Draven bought her a small whiteboard so she didn’t have to flip through a notepad to converse during the evening. His parents were out of the country doing “science-y” things, as Draven put it. Draven would meet his siblings at his grandmother Mimi’s nursing home to spend dinner with her.
Draven baked a pumpkin pie from scratch in their apartment kitchen as Thea watched with big, uncontrollable hearts in her eyes.
She grew dizzy watching the muscles in his arms bulge, the chords tense and release, as he carved into the pumpkin and removed the pulp. He noticed how turned on she was—evident from her swollen, bitten bottom lip and hardened nipples poking through the front of her dress.
Smirking, he wrote on a Post-it: “ I bought an entire can of whipped cream for when we get home tonight .”
To lick off her? Yes, please .
Still, Draven was not pursuing full-on sex with her. They “satisfied” each other all over the apartment, but when she tried to hand him a condom, he shook his head. They had discussed being sexually clean. They had discussed her being on birth control.
After asking him about why he paused whenever she pushed for more, he told her, “ I want you to know this is more to me than sex. I’ve never had sex with someone I’ve loved. I’d like to wait until then .”
Did that mean he did not love her yet? Or was he waiting for her to say it first?
Love was a big word; it should have had more consonants and vowels. People threw four-letter words around without meaning them all the time. “Love” should be changed to something that won more points during a Scrabble game, like “Queistiousnyheinburg.” Fewer people would say it without meaning it if it were more difficult to pronounce.
I’m falling into Queistiousnyheinburg with you, Draven . Especially when he baked in front of her and wrote notes about how his grandmother taught him cooking tricks and how they used to have baking challenges together.
“ What should I know about your family? ”
Draven pursed his lips as he wrote back, “ I come from a long line of geniuses. Mimi was a doctor. My parents are scientists. Summer is a prestigious cellist prodigy, and Geo is going to med school to save the world from disease. I am the lowly drummer among them .”
Thea frowned, but Draven shrugged. She wrote, “ They must be proud of you for how successful your band is .”
He shrugged again, but his shoulders seemed stiffer. “ I’m not out there curing diseases .”
“ Summer plays music .”
“ She plays in front of diplomats and politicians .”
“ Draven, if I see you trying to blow up balloons for your pity party, I will pop each one ,” Thea replied sternly. “ Your art is just as important as what they do .”
The side of his mouth curved up but dropped back to create a flat line. “ My family is great, but sometimes it feels obvious that I’m the black sheep. The disappointment .”
Did he have any idea how similar they were? Because in moments like this, it felt like Draven peered into her past and her soul.
No matter what her friends said, he was not a rebound. This was not a “vacation from life” like her parents thought.
Why can’t everyone else see it?
* * *
As he drove them to dinner, he turned on heavy rock music with a loud bass and drum, so Thea felt the vibrations in her seat and on the dash speakers. They head-banged to the rhythm until he pulled up to a massive mansion-looking nursing home. Thea gaped at its size and splendor as Draven laughed off her dramatic reaction.
Holding the door open for Thea, Draven clutched his pumpkin pie tighter. His stomach transformed into Boy Scout-level knots—the impossible kind that earned someone a new badge.
He had never introduced a woman to Mimi or his siblings. He had no idea what type of questions he should prepare for. All he knew was that Thea would meet them, and maybe she would want to come to future Thanksgivings.
Maybe she will want to stay with me .
Ever since her parents visited them, he caught her staring off into space around their apartment, deep in thought. Was she thinking about what parts of her new life were “real” or not? Was he real to her? Or temporary?
After all, women used him as an escape. How much longer until she wakes up and realizes she doesn’t want me?
Upon checking in with the front desk, Draven reached for Thea’s hand and walked her toward Mimi’s room. Their fingers interlocked, squeezing mutual little “ I’m here. Don’t worry ” pulses in their own unique Morse code. Draven only let go to knock on the door.
His sister Summer ripped open the door, yelled “Drave,” and hugged him.
“Shit, Summer, the pie,” he warned, trying to hold onto it as she tackled him into a welcoming embrace. Her long blond hair floated everywhere, coming close to his dessert.
“Oops, sorry.” Summer laughed and hugged Thea as well. “And don’t think I forgot about you, you sexy little—”
“Summer,” Draven warned again.
“Sorry, sorry.” She snorted, grinning—not sorry at all. “I see you two are together now. Did I call it or what?”
“How is Mimi doing?” Draven asked.
Summer’s smile faded, and tension stabbed at his back. “She’s doing okay. She was a little confused when I got here, but she knows it’s Thanksgiving now. She has been asking for her ‘Baking Buddy.’”
Draven swallowed, his mouth dry. Dementia sucks . Mimi often forgot Draven’s name over the last few years, but she always remembered him as her Baking Buddy.
“Oh look, I learned some sign language,” Summer said. She then signed something at Thea.
Thea blinked several times in a row.
“What did you say to her?”
Summer giggled and sashayed away, further into his grandmother’s unit.
Thea wrote on her whiteboard. “ I think your sister just flirted with me .”
Draven shook his head and snorted. Taking her whiteboard, he wrote, “ Summer is gay and thinks you’re hot. It will most likely happen again .”
Thea nodded and held out her hand for him to take again.
Here we go .
Twenty minutes later, Thea played Mimi in foosball while Geo, Summer, and Draven cheered them on, losing their minds and drunk on the excess sugar in sparkling grape juice.
“She’s the perfect opponent,” Mimi shouted over them. “She doesn’t hear my trash talk. No distractions. It’s all about pure talent.”
Thea had better hand-eye coordination than his grandmother, but in the end, she let Mimi win. Thea smiled at Draven as the ball shot through her un-defended goal, making it clear that she let Mimi win for him .
I think I love her .
Later, Thea spotted Mimi’s bags of almonds and jumped up and down, writing on her whiteboard, “ Do you like spiced nuts? ” She then gathered all the needed spices and ingredients, turned on the stove, and began candying almonds in cinnamon and brown sugar.
Mimi had turned to Draven and asked, “Can she live with me?”
“Get your own roommate, Mimi. She’s mine,” he shot back through a wide smile.
As Thea served the hot, sugary nuts to his grandmother and siblings, she mimed for Mimi to blow on hers before eating them.
When she spotted that Mimi’s glass of water was empty, she filled it before Draven could grab it himself.
I think I love her .
When they asked Thea questions, she used her voice-to-text app to understand. She wrote back replies that had Mimi and Summer cackling with laughter while Geo nodded, ever the too-serious one.
“What do you do for a living, Thea?”
“ I’ve been picking up jobs as a movie makeup artist assistant. I also wipe Draven’s tears when he watches a horror movie. Both pay basically nothing .”
“I like her, boy,” Mimi said, avoiding making it obvious that she could not remember Draven’s name.
Considering Thea still had her voice-to-text app open, she knew what Mimi said and blushed.
“She’s pretty much perfect, huh?” Draven replied to his grandmother, watching Thea stare at the phone app as it typed out his words.
Thea’s blush darkened.
I think I love her .
When Mimi and Geo got distracted by a story Summer told, Draven sneaked a kiss onto Thea’s forehead. She blinked, smiled, and yanked his head down so she could kiss his forehead too. And his nose.
Do I love her? Would that be crazy? Too fast?
When the nursing home brought up their plates on the Thanksgiving trays they ordered, they sat around Mimi’s long dining table.
Sweat dampened the back of Draven’s neck as he prepared for the annual go-around-the-table question.
Summer started, “What are you thankful for, Mimi?”
“I am thankful for my family and the way you all visit me even though I’m in this place,” Mimi said. “I am thankful for this man right here—” Mimi tapped the table in Draven’s direction. “—and the way he pays out of the roof to keep me here. Did you know they had lobster last week for dinner?”
Mimi laughed throatily, coughing a bit toward the end. “I feel like a queen,” she said. “And I am also thankful for my unbeatable foosball skills.”
They went around the table, leaving Thea and Draven to answer last.
Thea wrote, “ I am thankful for my life and all I have. I am thankful for the chance to be here with all of you .”
Draven winced at the fact that she was only here because her own family uninvited her to Thanksgiving dinner because they disapproved of her recent life choices. What if Draven really wasn’t good enough for her? When would she realize it?
Everyone stared at him, expecting his answer next. Here we go . He had rehearsed this. He could do it. Shaking like a high schooler expected to converse in a foreign language, Draven nervously ran a hand through his hair.
He signed so Thea could understand it.
He signed, “ I am thankful for my amazing girlfriend. I am thankful for the time we spend making each other laugh and feel appreciated. I am thankful for her ex messing up and leading her to me. I am thankful for the way she makes my apartment feel like home. I am thankful for the way she makes me feel seen and heard more than anyone else .”
Thea stared at his hands from her seat beside him. Wide-eyed. Lost in thought. Unresponsive. Comatose.
Seconds felt like minutes as they ticked by, and Draven waited for a new topic of conversation to bloom.
Thea erased her whiteboard to jot down a new message.
She wrote, “ I am thankful for my amazing boyfriend Draven, who is a musical genius and the sweetest man I’ve ever met. I am thankful that my past life fell apart, so I could create a new one I love more. I am thankful he will be a part of it. And later, I am sure I will be thankful for his homemade pumpkin pie .”
Thea placed her whiteboard down, took his hand from off the tabletop, and kissed the back of his palm, as if he were a Southern Belle treasure and she was a Regency gentleman.
He thought, Oh God, I love her .