Chapter Thirty Two
[A/N: let's just pretend Drista's real name is Drista, because it feels wrong "assigning" her a name]
While I was in staring mode, I noticed the curtain move slightly from the front window of his parents house. I fidgeted with my hands a bit when I noticed them moving again, as if there were a gentle breeze against the fabric. I think it was just his sister though because I saw a wisp of dark blonde hair shine through the glass.
"The curtains moved," I whispered to Clay as he attempted to turn the car off. I reached over and did it for him as I didn't particularly enjoy seeing him struggle at the moment.
"It's probably Drista looking out the window. She's really excited to meet you."
"Yeah, we talk all the time—"
"What? How do you talk?"
"She took your phone while you were in the bathroom one time when you were visiting and found my number. I'll say, it was odd, but she's actually pretty funny. She added me on Snapchat too."
"Oh I'm gonna kill her."
I rolled my eyes, "Sure you are, big man."
"I—What?" He rested his head against the steering wheel, "I feel like Tommy's rubbing off on you too much. Stop watching him."
"I will never."
"It's for your own good Caelum."
I shook my head, "Nice try, Big D."
"CAELUM!"
I just started giggling and getting out of the car. Then, he began chasing me around it as if we weren't in his parents driveway. His entire family was probably staring at this scene occurring. They're going to think I'm so weird.
"He's a bad influence on you!" He shouted over the roof of the car as I was on the other side.
"He's sixteen!"
"My point exactly! A child!"
Clay faked me out by running in the opposite direction, then coming straight for me. He grabbed me around the waist and flung me around in a circle. Soon enough, we were just messing around, fake fighting in the driveway when Drista came outside and stared at us from the porch. I was about to sock Clay in the jaw when I noticed her from my peripherals. Clay and I stopped in our tracks and slowly turned to her as if we were in a sitcom film.
"You guys are idiots!" She laughed.
"Hey!" Clay shouted, "You are too!"
I turned back towards Clay and starting pushing him toward the porch. I couldn't just walk into the house like I do with Nick or him since his parents have never met me. Clay finally got bored of me barely moving him, so he grabbed my hand and tugged me toward Drista. When we stood on the porch, I noticed Drista was a few inches taller than me. She's like seven years younger than me and has like three inches on me. That's embarrassing.
Drista started laughing at me, "Hi!"
Her laugh was contagious, so I started giggling as well, "Hello big man."
Since we both watch Tommy, sometimes we'll FaceTime each other when he livestreams and just watch him together. We've picked up lingo from him, and I've also progressively picked up habits from him due to streaming with him or just chatting in a vc. Tommy is a funny guy, but if I ever openly admitted to actually enjoying his content, I think he'd make fun of me for the rest of my life. I'd never live it down.
"Hello Big C," she said in the same tone as Tommy when he said the line "hello Alyssa".
"I'm so done with both of you already," Clay said and began stepping inside, "I feel left out. Like, damn, Drista why don't you introduce her to our parents."
Drista and I broke down in a laughing fit, "He's so overdramatic," I stuttered out through my laugh. Clay ended up stomping off inside and ditching me on the porch with his sister. I can already tell that Drista and I are going to get on his nerves and I was excited for it. Though, I'm sure I wouldn't hear the end of it tonight when we get home.
"C'mon C, I'll introduce you to the parents."
I followed Drista into the house and shut the door carefully behind me. I slid my shoes off and placed them beside another pair of vans on a mat. Drista lead me into the kitchen where Clay was grabbing a drink from the fridge. He didn't even glance at me once when I entered the kitchen with his sister.
"Mom, this is Clay's girlfriend, Caelum!" Drista exclaimed, grinning at me warmly to ease my nerves a bit. Their father looked up from a sudoko puzzle he was doing and immediately gave me a comforting smile. Their mother, then, placed her phone down on the table, locked it, and looked at me as well. While I'm sure they were trying to ease my anxiety as much as possible and come across as nice, I was still very intimidated.
"Oh! I've heard so much about you, dear!" Their mom said excitedly.
"Please come sit!" Their father motioned to the seat across from them.
Drista and I both took the seats across from them as we giggled a tiny bit. In my peripherals, I could see Clay sipping on a drink and pouting like a child in the corner of the kitchen. Their father folded his puzzle book closed in order to give me his undivided attention. I could feel my heart pounding in my chest as I felt like this was a crucial point right now. It was make or break for Clay and I's relationship. At least that's how I felt. It didn't help that Clay was acting like a child just because his sister and I get along.
"Clay, honey, why is your sister the one introducing your girlfriend to us?" His mother turned to Clay and gave him an intimidating look; one I'd be terrified of if it was directed at me.
"Mom, they're making TommyInnit references to mock me!" He complained, pointing between Drista and I.
"And how old are you?"
"Twenty one," he mumbled angrily.
"And how old is your sister?"
"Fourteen."
"Come sit down with the family."
He dragged his feet as he dawdled to the only leftover seat which happened to be next to me. Within a couple minutes of him and I exchanging looks and smiling at each other, his mood lifted a bit as he forgot all about the grudge he was supposed to be holding about his sister and I being "TommyInnit fans". I wouldn't call myself a fan of Tommy. I just find that strange as I am his friend. Plus, his ego would inflate too high if I ever admitted to Tommy's face that I actually watched his content during my leisure time.
"Do you have a name you'd rather go by?" Their mom asked.
I shrugged, "Uh, no. You can call me uh whatever. Anything's fine really. I typically don't have many people calling me Caelum. They usually call me some variation of it like Cae, or Caeli, Salem. I mean, Clay and Nick and George call me like Cereal Box or Cables, or just any word that starts with C. I would honestly answer to anything."
"You call her cereal box?" His father questioned, furrowing his eyebrows and glancing over at his son. Clay's face was bright red and I could see how flustered he was getting.
"I—Just like—yeah."
We talked for another hour about my career and the struggles I face with being a faceless content creator as well as their son. They were asking me questions about my face reveal and things they were confused about with our job. It was nice having them get to know me and asking me questions as opposed to them giving me the option of just telling them about myself. It was interesting hearing what they wanted to know from me. They also asked me about my family. I told them that my mother was struggling with an autoimmune disease called Lupus, so she wasn't able to do much. They immediately tried to apologize for asking, but I told them that it wasn't a big deal. She was diagnosed about ten years back, so it wasn't as big of a deal anymore. We've all learned how to help her with it. Then, I told them about my younger sister who's about Drista's age. I didn't go into much more depth about my family though. My dad's never been around; it's always just been my mother, sister, and I.
[Lupus it's an autoimmune disease where the immune system attacks its own tissues, there's no cure for the disease and most people live regular lives with the disease, however it can weaken the immune system and could be fatal]
Clay ended up excusing us from the table when he told them he wanted to show his childhood room to me. We walked up the stairs and entered a door that had his name painted on it in green. Inside, there was a couple of Minecraft posters hung on the wall. On one of his bedside tables, there was a redstone themed lamp. Other than those, it was a pretty basic teenage boy's room. He, oddly enough, had a Texan flag hanging above his bed.
"Nick sent that to me when we were younger. I sent him the Florida flag. I didn't even know our state had one until that day."
We ended up hanging out in his room for only five minutes before Drista had barged in.
"Oops sorry, probably should've knocked. Could've walked in on you guys like making out or something. That would've been traumatizing—"
"Drista," Clay laughed, interrupting her rant.
"Anyways, I have come to steal your girlfriend from you."
"What? You can't just—"
"Sorry Clay, I've been stolen from you," I interrupted, getting up from the bed and beginning to walk off with his sister.
He groaned, "Did you really just steal my girlfriend?" He shouted as we grew more distance between us.
"Go hang out with mom or something!" Drista yelled at him before bringing me into her room and closing the door, "Tommy's live!"
"What is up chat?" I heard Tommy's loud voice boom from her laptop speakers. As he was explaining what was going to occur in today's stream, I examined her room. My eyes moved back and forth from her laptop to her forty inch television on her dresser when an idea popped into my head.
"Do you know how to connect your laptop to your TV?" I asked.
She shook her head, "I didn't know you could do that."
I nodded my head, "Yeah. We could watch Tommy on your TV if you want?"
When she seemed excited about the idea, I went out looking for Clay to see if he knew where an HDMI cord was. He was spending time in the kitchen with his parents when I accidentally interrupted their conversation. He took a few minutes break from them in order to find me a spare cord. Then, I went back up to Drista's room. It didn't take long to connect the laptop to the television. Within a minute, Tommy's stream was on the forty inch. Drista got so excited about it.
"Clay having a girlfriend is awesome!"
I laughed, "You act like he's never had one before."
She shrugged, "I didn't like his ex. She had an attitude and near the end of their relationship, she would like make fun of me and call it weird for being a fan of Clay's friends."
"It's not like you could help who he's friends with and who's content you enjoyed. Plus, I don't see anything wrong with it. I'm friends with Tommy personally and I still find myself enjoying his content."
"Yeah, she was a bitch."
"Drista!" I exclaimed while laughing, "You can't say that!"
"She was though," she mumbled under her breath. I pretended not to hear her as we continued watching Tommy's stream.
Every now and then, we'd commentate, discuss what was happening, or make jokes about what Tommy just said. Tubbo joined the vc and stream about twenty minutes later. Then, Tommy ended up killing Tubbo around forty-eight minutes in because he was angry that he had fallen into one of his traps that he had set around the SMP. Wilbur joined the vc seconds later and didn't say anything. He just menacingly sat in the call sighing in disappointment. It didn't take Tommy long to apologize after that.
Tommy was getting ready to end the stream when their mom shouted up the stairs, "Girls! Lunch is ready!"
We left the stream running as we raced down the stairs, seeing who could get to the kitchen first. I won if you were wondering. It felt nice being around a family setting again. I haven't seen my mother or sister in so long because I didn't want to somehow give her Covid even though I didn't have it. That's why it's nice that Karl lives right by me. It's not as lonely as it used to be. I do miss my mum and sister though.
Being around Clay's family though just felt natural. Since Drista and I had things in common and already knew each other well due to texting all the time, getting along with her wasn't an issue at all. I didn't have to meet his younger brother today because he was at a friends' house. His parents were really nice as well. They were very welcoming and didn't show any signs of being annoyed or hating me.
Overall, the day so far has been pleasant. Though, I haven't spent much time with Clay. I've either been hanging out with his sister or talking with his parents in the living room or dining room. Clay was hanging out with them almost the entire time we've been here.
It's only about midday and I assume we were staying until night time. I wanted to suggest making muffins or cookies or something later, but we'd have to go to the store for that. I don't think it'd take much convincing to get Clay to agree. We'll see.