Fallen

Chapter 2

We pulled up to Karly's house and I knew I was in serious trouble...

Fuck me, this place is huge! I noted as I looked at the beautiful home before me...

I shook my head... one room in this place... probably the bathroom, was going to be bigger than my entire house.

I walked in awestruck. We parked in the garage, which I noticed, was bigger than my entire apartment. There were three cars parked inside, Karly's mother's Escalade, an F-250 pickup and Karly's little Toyota. Besides that, the entire garage was lined with power tools and assorted machinery. I saw an expensive table saw, a beautiful drill press, a metal working and a woodworking lathe, even a milling machine.

Holy fuck! I thought as I looked around. This was probably the simplest room of the house and yet it held a hundred times the value of my entire house, and that wasn't even counting the value of the cars!

Karly looked at me as I took in everything. "Don't you freeze up on me. It's all just stuff." She warned...

I looked at her and gave her a weak smile...

How am I ever going to give her all of this? I asked myself in wonder.

She smiled and pecked my cheek. "Come on, let's get inside." She asked me.

We exited the garage into a beautiful kitchen. Modern appliances, a free-standing kitchen island. Again, the entirety of my house could fit into the room with standing room besides.

Karly's dad, Joshua, looked up at as from the center island of the kitchen as we walked in. He was rubbing an enormous pile of steaks with seasoning and piling them up on a plate. "Hey! How are all of you? How were the roads?!" He asked with excitement.

I was a little taken aback. Joshua had struck me as a pretty reserved man the first time I had met him. Now, however, he seemed like a little kid. Maybe it was the difference between his public and his private face, or maybe he was just infected with the spirit of the holiday?

Marsha walked up to him, draped her arms around him and gave an enormous kiss.

Well, now I know where Karly learned to drop those world shattering kisses on me... I thought.

I looked over at Karly to gauge her reaction and saw a look of naked pride on her face. She was proud of the relationship her parents had, and seemed terribly glad of their happiness. She caught me looking and took my hand, giving it a reassuring squeeze. I was enormously glad to have her support.

I felt extremely awkward for having been there and without her hand in mine I probably would have chickened out and run for the door.

Joshua came up for air and looked at me. He seemed to be genuinely glad to see me. "Shawn! I'm glad you decided to join us!" he nearly shouted.

I realized then why Karly compared me to him so often. He had the same tendency to get overly loud when he got excited, like I did.

I looked at the floor shyly, "Thank you for having me, Mr. Kay." I added, "Not to minimalize, but it's not like I had much choice with these two dragging me bodily out the door."

He laughed, and gave a dismissive wave, "Yeah, the two of them are pretty brutal when they team up..." He met my eyes, "And call me Joshua. There's no need for any Mr. Kay's here..."

I smiled at him, "That's going to be extremely hard for me sir... I was raised that you called an adult with an honorific... going to be a hard habit to break."

He raised his eyebrows at me, "Well, you're an adult now too." He turned his head slightly and raised his eyebrows, "Nobody will give you anything in this world son, if you treat everybody as if they're better than you, many will take advantage of that, and treat you like they're better than you."