50 Shades of Drake 3 and 4

Chapter Ninety-Five

    "So...you know."

    "You know?" Sandi asked him in disbelief.

    "It didn't take much to figure out." Aubrey glanced across the room, to where his dad was proving himself to be a natural-born flirt.

    His father was chatting up Destiny, telling her about new music that he was working on. Bless her heart, she hung onto his every word and smiled politely. While laughing, she turned her head and caught Aubrey watching her. Her laughter died down a little, and she quickly shifted her gaze away from him.

    His brows drew together.

    Sandi touched his arm. "Do you love her?" she asked him. "I mean really love her."

    Still watching Destiny, he silently nodded.

    "I can tell that she loves you, very much," Sandi told him. "If she didn't feel strongly for you, she wouldn't feel as bad as she does."

    "I don't care about what she did," he said softly. "I already told her that. But it feels like...it feels like she's slipping away from me. It feels like I'm losing her. And I don't know how to stop it." He turned his head and looked at his mother.

    Sandi chewed on the inside of her cheek and settled back in the armchair. "You were gone and she was under the impression that you wouldn't ever come back. During the time you were away from us, it seems like another man has managed to carve out a niche for himself in her heart. If you love her, and I mean truly love her, then you may just have to fight for her. Something that I've always admired about you, Aubrey, is your sense of creativity. I'm sure you'll figure something out."

~~~~~~

    It hadn't helped Aubrey to hear his mother voice his worst fear out loud, but after that serious discussion, she swiftly changed the subject. Sandi's nurturing disposition took over, and she interrogated him on how he'd been eating over the past several days. She insisted on cooking for him.

    "Is there anything I can help with?" he asked her.

    She shook her head. "No, I've got it. Relax. Talk to your father. He's flown up all this way, hoping to be able to see you."

    Aubrey walked over to the dining room table that his father and Destiny were seated at. "Is he talking about his groupie tales again?" he asked, bending at the waist and kissing the top of her head before claiming the seat beside her.

    "Not at all, son," his father said, grinning. "I was behaving myself. Kind of."

    Aubrey rolled his eyes and leaned in close to Destiny. "My father is in no way a representation of who I am as a person."

    "I'm still sitting here, you know," Dennis announced. "And I haven't lost my hearing. Not yet, anyway."

    "You know I'm just kidding," Aubrey said, a lazy grin stretching across his lips as he settled an arm across the back of Destiny's chair. He told her, "My dad is the only reason I have any kind of minimal street cred. Anyone who says I don't have an ounce of hood in me, all I have to do is point them in his direction. They'll see where I got it from. He's way more street smart than I could ever dream of being."

    Dennis chuckled at the praise, but then his expression turned somber. "How are you holding up? Your mother explained that you've been through...quite an ordeal."

    "It was a living nightmare," Aubrey told him. "But I'm fortunate to be here, alive, with the people who mean the most to me in this world." He turned his head and kissed Destiny's cheek.

    She closed her eyes and leaned into him.

    "How have you been?" Aubrey asked his father. "From what I hear, your tour was pretty lit."

    That inquiry was all it took for Dennis to launch into stories about his life on the road, domestically and overseas.

    Dinner was filled with laughter and love. Destiny noticeably relaxed over the course of the night. Sandi and Dennis were hilarious together. They told anecdotes, finished each others' sentences, or had verbal, playful banter throughout the entire meal. When dinner was over, Aubrey asked Destiny if he would join him for a walk outside.

    The sky was dark, with a grim moon suspended above them. Constellations of stars struggled to shine through Toronto's light pollution. Aubrey and Destiny strolled alongside each other in silence. After weeks of being cooped up in one place after another, it felt good to be outside in the open. Between being an unwilling guest at Palmer's residence, the hospital room, and the hotel room, he now had a touch of claustrophobia that he couldn't shake.

    "I love your family," she said, breaking the silence.

    He smiled. "Sometimes I wonder why they haven't gotten back together. And then I spend time alone with my dad...and I completely understand." He chuckled. "He's a bit of a flirt. I don't think he could turn it off, even if he wanted to. It can...get him in trouble sometimes, whenever he does try to settle down."

    "I noticed," she said, laughing. "I could see some of you in him, actually."

    His eyebrows shot up. He didn't know whether to feel flattered or offended. "Do you?"

    "You're also a natural flirt. You're so smooth with it, though, that to call it 'flirting' doesn't even do it justice."

    He laughed and shook his head. "I was much more of a flirt years ago," he admitted. "I was. Lately, not so much. I'm pretty direct. When I want a woman, these days, I just tell her. I don't really beat around the bush anymore." He paused and looked down at the ground as they walked. His dress shoes gleamed beneath the pale moonlight. "I flirt with you, because I'm comfortable being playful with you. That hasn't been the norm for me, for a long time."

    "Fair enough," she said, and deliberately bumped into him as they walked.

    He bumped back into her, and it almost felt like they were normal again, the happy couple that existed before all of this craziness with Palmer jumped off. He looked down at her, taking in how naturally gorgeous she was in her teal sundress. She was still wearing her hair curly for him. It was almost painful looking at her; her beauty had that strong of an effect on him. "Look...I know that we aren't in the best place right now."

    She looked up at him.

    "I just want you to know that I'm patient," he went on. "This rough period that we're going through right now...I feel like it's just a phase. We'll overcome it. I'm willing to do whatever it takes to make sure that we do."

    She slid her arm around his waist and buried her face in his chest.

    He stopped walking and wrapped his arms around her. "Whatever it takes. I'm serious."

    "I know you are." Her arms were tight around him.

    "If I hadn't been away from the office for so long already, I would take you somewhere," he declared. "We would go off for vacation. Unwind."

    "We've definitely been away from the office too much lately," she said, tilting her head back and looking up at him. "If I worked anywhere else, I wouldn't have a job."

    "Fortunately for you, your man owns and runs the place," he said.

    She laughed and pulled out of the embrace. They turned around and started heading back towards his mother's house. "You have it like that, huh?"

    "You know I've got it like that," he said, looping an arm around her shoulders and pulling her close to him.