Ever After Drake (22 page)

We say our goodbyes and I hang
up.

Drake doesn’t ask me what the call was
about, or what is going on. He just gives me a tiny, lopsided
supportive smile.

We spend our break period and lunch
catching up on work. We silently plan our lessons side by side. We
grade papers. We do what we’re supposed to do as
teachers.

After fourth period world history,
Drake appears in my doorway again. And quietly we walk down the
hall to the parking lot and his car.

It putters and squeals when he starts
it and I wonder how many more starts it has left in it. But it gets
us to the grocery store.

Drake grabs a cart when we walk
through the doors and side by side, we start down the
aisles.

How is it possible that I can breathe
when he’s around but feel as if I will drown when he’s away? He’s a
life raft and I am a sinking rock. We walk next to each other, not
saying much of anything, but just his presence is a million words
of comfort and understanding.

“
Bananas?” he asks,
picking up a bunch of them. I give a nod. We walk a few steps.
“Apples?” I nod. “Strawberries are a must.” I just smile back at
him as he sets them in the cart.

This is a gift of Drakes. He knows how
to make people comfortable and to put them at ease, even when their
world has been knocked off its axis.

I recall the first day of teaching,
the first day we met, the first day of school, when he found me
about to have a nervous breakdown. He sat with me in the dark, and
not sixty seconds later had me laughing.

“
I…” I start and stop. I
don’t exactly know how to say what I need to. “I’m here for you,
too. I’m here.”

He smiles. He slips his fingers
through mine and squeezes my hand. “I know.”

It’s as easy as that.

We gather the rest of our produce and
head for dairy.

I don’t know where things stand right
now, things between Drake and I. And I honestly don’t have the
emotional energy to analyze it too much. But for now, he’s here
with me and something feels okay for once.

I feel exhausted when we get back to
the car. After we load things into the trunk, I lean my head on the
glass window and watch the world roll by. I must doze off. When I
wake, Drake has taken all our things up to my apartment. He wakes
me with a gentle hand on my arm and I wake to his eyes.

“
Come on,” he says
quietly. He offers me his hand and I take it, letting him lift me
from the seat.

There’s something simple and gentle,
my hand in his, as we walk up the stairs. There’s no expectations
or past or future. It’s just the moment of two people who have
experienced something more than they thought they were capable of
surviving and standing together.

There’s a duffle bag sitting on the
floor just inside my door and I can Drake’s things threatening to
spill out of it. He must have stopped at his apartment while I was
asleep.

Together we put the groceries away.
And then I set about the task of making shepherd’s pie. While it
cooks in the oven, Drake and I sit on the couch, side by side and
watch some comedic show that’s on.

But my mind is elsewhere.
There’s that song again the one from the library, on the second day
we met.
Happiness.

Let it go, live your life,
and leave it.

Then one day, wake up, and
she’ll be home.

I don’t know that I’m there yet. I had
to let it go. It crushed me to do so, but I did it.

I tried to live my life, I tried to
leave it.

I woke up. In such a devastating
way.

Despite all that, I think maybe, just
maybe, I’ll be home soon.

CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE

Saturday, Drake leaves for a few hours
to attend Diana’s funeral. I go to Dicks to spend some time with
Skyler. He’s sad and he doesn’t quite grasp everything yet, but
he’s dealing.

On Sunday, Drake, Armando, Anthony,
and I all have dinner at my place.

And Drake stays at my place every
night and day for the next week.

We don’t talk much about what
happened.

We don’t talk about the
future.

We don’t kiss.

But he sleeps in my bed every night.
He holds me close, wraps his arms around me tight, and whispers in
my ear when the nightmares come. And I run my hands across his back
and trace my fingers over his cheek when his wake him in a cold
sweat.

Somehow, we’ve started living
together. Being a couple again without actually being a
couple.

On Tuesday, the last day of school
before the Thanksgiving Day break, Drake grabs my mail from the box
and we head upstairs. As Drake unlocks the door, he hands it over
and I start sorting through it.

“
How’d that big test go?”
he asks as he takes his messenger bag off and hangs it on a hook by
the door.

“
Okay,” I say as I start
sorting through the mail on the counter. “Most of the class
averaged a B plus. Surprisingly Lake aced it.”

“
He likes you, so he
tries,” Drake says with a smile as he sits at the bar and starts
untying his Chucks.

A smile pulls at my lips.

An envelope from an insurance company
catches my eye. It’s big and official looking. I tear it open and
start reading the enclosed letter.

It basically states that I am one of
the beneficiaries of my mother’s life insurance policy. I’m sure
Skyler is the other. Since my mother was young and in good health,
and worked for an insurance company, she had a good policy. And
there were basically no funeral costs, since there wasn’t one, and
she was cremated.

“
Holy,” I breathe when I
see the check and the amount.

“
What’s wrong?” Drake
asks, concern instantly in his voice.

I hold the check up for him to
see.

It will not make me rich. It will not
make me set for life, or for even more than a few years. But for a
teacher, it’s huge.

And in a way, it proves that my mother
was really trying all along.

“
From your mom?” Drake
asks.

I nod and there’s a tiny pinch at the
back of my eyes.

That’s all the cue that Drake needs to
cross the tiny amount of space between us and wrap his arms around
me.

He just knows when I need
him.

____

My phone rings and I grope for it
through the dim morning light. Drake grunts softly, his arm lying
across my stomach. Finally, my fingers catch the edge of my phone
and I drag it toward me. It’s a number I don’t
recognize.

“
Hello?” I say
groggily.

“
Kaylee, would you and
Drake mind swinging by the store on your way over here and grab a
pack of butter? I can’t believe I forgot it when I went out the
other day. And some whipped cream for the pie?”

“
Mrs. McCain?” I ask, my
sleepy brain struggling to keep up with her. Drake’s head pops up
from the pillow, a confused look on his face. He squints at my
phone through the dark.

“
Of course,” she says.
“Who else would you think it was?”

I rub one eye. “Of course, sorry. What
time is it?”

“
It’s eight o’clock but
there’s lots to be cooked before dinner,” she starts rattling. I
can hear dishes clanking in the background. “You do know it’s
Thanksgiving and we’re eating dinner at four, right?”

“
Thanksgiving?” I say, not
feeling up to speed with the conversation.

“
What time do you and
Drake think you can be here? I really need that butter by one at
the latest. Though I wouldn’t complain about extra hands if you two
wanted to come earlier. Can I talk to Drake?”

My brows have furrowed deep together
by this point and I hand my phone over to Drake with a confused
little smile. Drake looks just as confused as he takes it and holds
it to his ear.

“
Mom?” he says.

“
Honey, I know it’s early
and you two are probably still sleeping, but I could really use
some assistance. You know how useless Sage is in the kitchen and
your father and brothers are no help either.” I hear her, even
though the phone is pressed to Drake’s ear. “Can you two come help
out?”

“
Uh,” Drake stutters. That
look of his is forming on his face. “Yeah. We’ll get ready to
go.”

“
Thank you, see you
soon!”

And she hangs up.

Drake shuts my phone and looks at me
through the dim light. A small smile plays on his lips and he
chuckles.

“
I honestly hadn’t thought
about where I was going to go today,” I say, looking at
him.

“
Sounds like Mom isn’t
going to give you much of a choice,” he replies. He reaches up and
brushes his fingertips over my cheek.

I place my hand over his, pinning his
palm against my cheek. Until this point, I’ve just needed him here,
I needed him keeping me afloat and alive, and he needed me. That
was all we needed.

But we’re both thawing. We’re both
surfacing back to the real world. We’re waking up.

And we’re both here.

“
I think we’re going to
have to talk about stuff,” I say quietly, never losing his eyes.
“Soon.”

“
Yeah,” he says. I know
him well enough to be able to tell he wants to kiss me.

But we need to have that talk
first.

It takes a while, but we finally break
the moment and both roll out of bed.

“
So is your family one of
the types to dress up in their nicest clothes for Thanksgiving
dinner, or the
dress-in-whatever-clothes-will-let-you-eat-the-most-amount-of-turkey
types?” I ask as I turn for my closet.

“
Do you even have to
ask?”

I look over my shoulder toward him.
He’s in the bathroom with the door only half closed. He pulls his
shirt over his head and leans forward to start the shower. I admire
the toned lines of his arms and stomach for a moment.

“
So jeans and a shirt of
my choice it is?” I ask, my voice a bit breathy.

Drake turns and looks surprised to
find the door partly open, as if he didn’t realize. His eyes meet
mine, and suddenly I feel like we’ve just met again. A little
uncertain and not fully sure how approach, but with undeniable
chemistry. His lips go all lopsided and smiley. “That’ll do just
fine.”

A smile tugs on the corner of my lips
and I feel my face flush, knowing he knows I was checking him out
without a shirt.

Drake showers while I get dressed and
we both hurriedly get ready. We grab our stuff for the day and head
down to my car.

I can feel the change coming on as we
walk through the store. We’ve been there for each other but distant
the last week we’ve been living together. We’ve had boundaries and
an unspoken agreement of caution.

There’s a wave surging up and it’s
going to leave everything changed.

And I’m scared and look forward to it
all at the same time.

We get the items Robin requested and
drive the few minutes to her house. And the moment we walk through
the door, she puts us to work.

I’m in charge of the stuffing and
Drake gets charge of the mashed potatoes. Robin whirlwinds around
the kitchen, giving instructions, getting irritated when someone
gets in her way, making jokes about how it might not be perfect,
but it will fill our bellies.

“
I think…” Robin says at a
quarter to four. Her eyes dart from one dish to the next. “I think
we’re ready to eat.”

I survey the damage and
nod.

There’s food everywhere. The bar is
stock full of vegetables, stuffing, cranberry sauce, this pink
fluffy stuff that is apparently a McCain tradition, mashed
potatoes, a huge bowl full of homemade rolls. The turkey sits hot
and ready in the oven.

“
Boys!” Robin suddenly
yells. “Turn the game off and come eat!”

When no one responds, I walk into the
living room and watch them for a minute.

They’re all gathered around the TV,
watching some football game. I can see Sage pacing outside, talking
on her cell phone. But the boys cheer as someone scores a
touchdown. Lake gives Drake, who abandoned the kitchen the moment
the game came on, a high five, and Kale moans and complains about
the wrong team scoring.

“
Boys,” Robin suddenly
huffs, standing beside me. “We’ve been working on this fantastic
meal all day. Come and eat it before I have to get
loud.”

“
Yes ma’am,” Robert says,
standing and pressing a kiss to Robin’s cheek. Drake clicks the TV
off, giving me a little smile as he meets my eyes.

Yeah, something is going to change,
and quick.

With the help of the boys, we move
everything to the table and Sage darts inside. Robin offers grace
on the food and Robert starts carving the turkey.