50 Shades of Drake 1 and 2

Chapter Fifty-Eight

     Aubrey pulled his luxury car rental into the driveway of a two-story brick colonial house, put the car in the Park, and turned off the car. He glanced over at Destiny, who was peering wistfully out of the passenger side window. "Are you ready to go in?" he asked her.

    She turned and looked at him. "Not really."

    He smiled. "Everything is going to be fine."

    "My mom is a sweetheart," she told him. "She's the sweetest person you'll ever meet. I think she's going to love you. But my dad...he has a very quirky sense of humor. It takes some people a lot of time to warm up to it. He's very...silly. Unless you piss him off, and then he's a beast."

    "Everything is going to be fine," he repeated.

    "My little brother, Rico, is a good kid. He's in junior high school and he's into video games. If you know anything about video games, he will love you for life." She racked her brain for the information she felt that he needed to know. "My parents are very spiritual. Not religious, per se, but they are all about love and happiness and peace and treating people the way they'd want to be treated."

    Aubrey stared at her with amusement.

    She shifted her gaze down to her hands, which were clasped in her lap. "This is my family," she said emphatically. "My family is important to me. I just...I want this to go well."

    "You're worried that it won't?" he asked her.

    She shook her head. "I don't know what to expect."

    "You don't have anything to worry about. Here, I'm just Aubrey. We're dating. That's it. That's all they need to know."

    She flipped the visor down and surveyed her appearance. She gave her hair a subconscious pat and flipped the mirror back up.

    "I didn't expect you to be this worried," he said.

    "Earlier this week, I spent the night in a cage," she reminded him. "It's hard to feel normal after something like that. I know you hate the word normal, but I don't know what other word to use. I feel like some kind of freak. Like...if I walk in there, they'll be able to smell it on me. That I'm different, that I've been..." She looked at him, at a loss for words.

    He arched an eyebrow at her. "That you've been what?"

    "That I've been some superfreak who's been having sex in public and sleeping in cages and getting spankings even though I'm a grown ass woman," she finished in a fast, long string of words that ran into each other.

    He laughed.

    She frowned. "I'm glad you find it funny."

    He shook his head and tried in vain to stop laughing. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry." He closed his eyes and brought a closed fist up this mouth. When the laughter subsided, he said, "The feeling you've described, I've felt it before. When I first got into all of this. It goes away."

    "Knowing that it goes away eventually doesn't help me right now," she muttered.

    "I'm going to grab the door for you. We can't sit in the car for forever, and I'm starving." He pulled the keys out of the ignition and opened the driver side door.

    She waited patiently while he walked around the car and opened the door for her. She stood out of the car and smoothed out the skirt of the white lace dress he'd bought for her.

    He reached past her and closed the passenger door. Then he gently pushed her against the car and kissed her.

    She lifted her hands up and placed them on his chest, intending to push him away. She hesitated before pushing him away and returned the kiss.

    When he pulled back, he had a lazy smile on his face.

    "You don't know my parents," she told him chidingly. "They could have been looking out of the window this entire time."

    "Then they definitely just got an eyeful," he said in a low voice, offering her his arm.

    She accepted his arm and rolled her eyes.

    They walked along a stone walkway flanked by perfectly manicured grass. "Your family's house is beautiful," he commented.

    "My dad worked blue collar jobs for most of his life," she explained as they walked up the two short steps leading to the porch. "But he was very frugal. Saved up his money. Was a dependable worker. Slowly started moving up through the ranks."

    "Admirable," Aubrey remarked.

    She beamed up at him, glowing with pride for her father.

    Aubrey leaned down and kissed the top of her head.

    She reached out and rung the doorbell. There was a lot of commotion and yelling behind the closed front door before the door was yanked open. A woman who looked like an older version of Destiny grinned at both of them. Destiny detached herself from Aubrey and threw her arms around her mother.

    Her mother ushered them into the house and closed the door behind them.

    "Where's Dad?" Destiny asked, looking towards the living room entrance and then down the hall leading to the kitchen.

    "In his chair like always," her mother answered. "He's talking to your Uncle Kevin."

    "Uncle Kevin?" Destiny repeated. "Does that mean Sadie is here?"

    Her mother nodded and smiled, her eyes crinkling at the corners.

    Destiny excitedly looked up at Aubrey. "Sadie is the cutest little thing you'll ever see in your life," she told him. Then she remembered she hadn't even given the formal introduction. She gestured towards Aubrey. "This is Aubrey, Mom. You met him at graduation."

    "I certainly did," her mother said, hesitating only a moment before giving Aubrey a hug. "I've heard a lot about you."

    Destiny's eyes widened slightly as she exchanged glances with Aubrey. She laughed uneasily. "Let's go say hi to Dad."

    Aubrey placed a guiding hand at Destiny's lower back as they followed her mother into the family room. He leaned close so that his lips were right next to Destiny's ear. "I hope you only told her the good things," he said before playfully nipping at her earlobe.