Fireworks 1 and 2

Chapter Seventy-Five

    Drake invited the young man inside his home and led him into the living room. Chubbs remained at the entryway to the living room with his hands clasped in front of him. Drake gestured for Shawn to have a seat. "If you're looking for Bri here, I'm guessing that you haven't talked to her in a while," he said, sitting on the couch.

    Shawn, a nice-looking young man with well-proportioned features, sat in one of the armchairs. He wore a Polo shirt, dark jeans, and sneakers. A diamond stud earring graced each ear. Hair longer on type and nicely styled, shorter on the sides. Very clean-cut. "Bri and I are...having some issues right now."

    Drake didn't want to let on that he knew which issues Shawn and Bri were having. The details were quite intimate, so he tilted his head to the side and asked, "Do you want to talk about it?"

    Shawn shook his head. "I'm just...I'm in the dog house. I fucked up."

    "Don't we all?" Drake asked, looking towards the patio door.

    Shawn laughed. "You too?"

    "I fucked up royally," Drake said, shifting his gaze back to Shawn. "I'm sure my fuckup makes yours look like a cakewalk."

    Shawn frowned in doubt. "What did you do?"

    "I started dating Mia without telling her that I was recently engaged," Drake said, unable to speak the words without feeling a heavy sense of grief. "And my would-be fiance showed up to my house, out of the blue. Mia had to find out that way."

    Shawn's dark eyebrows shot up. "Seriously?"

    "Yeah...that's why Bri and Mia aren't here. Mia was pissed. Understandably. She left, with Bri."

    Shawn grimaced. "What I did was probably just as bad," he said, lowering his eyes. He sighed. "Bri is pregnant. And when she told me, I was...less than receptive to the news. In other words, I freaked the fuck out."

    "Are you just...afraid of being a father in general?" Drake asked him.

    "Very scared," Shawn said, chuckling dryly. "And also, Bri and I were planning on having no children whatsoever. We talked about it. We were sure of it. And when she told me she was pregnant, I just...I didn't know what to do with that information. I didn't know how to process it. I just completely freaked out. She and I live together, but I went to stay with one of my boys. And now, I feel so horrible about that. I never really considered that she could be freaking out as much as I was. I was so focused on me, you know? On what I felt. I didn't stop and think about how she must feel."

    From the sounds of it, Bri was pretty freaked out, too, Drake thought. "Why didn't you call her or text her? Why did you come all the way out here?"

    "I could have called or texted, but I wanted to do something more dramatic," Shawn said. At this point, he leaned back in the chair and pulled a small, black box out of his jeans pocket. "I wanted to go the extra mile, to prove to her just how much I love her."

    Drake looked at the small black box. "Wow."

    "I mean...I love her, you know?" Shawn said, smiling wistfully. "I was a complete jerk. But I want to spend the rest of my life making up for that. If she'll let me." He opened the box and looked down at the ring inside. Hope and happiness lit up his eyes.

    Drake lifted his eyes from the box to the look in the younger man's eyes.

    Shawn sighed and closed the box. "I mean...that's if she even says 'Yes,' right? For all I know, she'll rip my head off for abandoning her."

    "Bri is very...assertive," *Drake worded carefully. "If there's one thing I've learned about her while she stayed here, it was that she definitely speaks her mind."

    Shawn nodded in agreement. "Tell me about it."

    "Don't let that discourage you, though," Drake said. "I can tell she loves you a lot. Pregnancy is a huge thing for a woman to go through."

    "So...what do I do?" Shawn asked, sounding helpless. "After a fuckup that colossal, what do I do to get her back?"

    Drake shrugged. "I'm in the same boat as you. I don't know if I should be giving advice."

    Shawn's brows drew together. "But you're Drake, man."

    Drake laughed and shook his head.

    "I'm serious," Shawn insisted. "You're Drake. If any man in the world speaks the female language, it's you. If anyone knows how to get through to a woman, even when she's pissed the fuck off, it's you. So...I mean...what do I do?"

    Drake scratched his right temple, gathering his thoughts before speaking. "Well, if you love her," he began, "and you really want to be with her, then you would do what I'm going to do."

    Shawn leaned forward and rested his elbows on his knees. "And what is that?"

    Drake grinned. "Go to the hotel they're staying at, tell her how you feel, and I mean really pour your heart out. And when you leave the hotel, make sure she's leaving with you."