4
Thanksgiving Day came and because Colby's kitchen wasn't suitable for turkey roasting, Dottie and Fergal were shuttled off to Mrs. Franklin's house. It was Colby's stepdad that welcomed them into the house.
"Cait," the man said. "Good to see you again."
"Hey, Mark. Mark, this is my sister Dottie and her boyfriend Fergal Devitt." Cait said.
The man had grey hair, and Dottie smiled at him as she held Kevin in one arm after shaking his hand in greeting. "Hello, Mr. Franklin."
"I've heard quite a bit about you from your sister." He said.
The front room looked old fashion, not like Colby's house that was more masculine. This house looked like a family home. It appeared to have been lived in for a long time.
Dottie glanced at Fergal as Mr. Franklin took their jackets. That was because Brandon Lopez had come out of the kitchen. He was dressed similarly to Colby, another thing to take note of.
"Hey," he said with a wave a hand. "Colby, come on, help me with the mashed potatoes."
"He caught his kitchen on fire, why would you allow him in the kitchen here?" Cait asked.
"I'm not that bad. At least not when I'm dead tired." Colby said, stuck his tongue out and headed into the kitchen. "Besides, you're peeling potatoes, Cait."
Dottie didn't know what to do, she kept looking around as she stood to the side in the front room. Brandon, when she looked at him, walked up.
"Hey, Dottie, I wanted to apologize about my behavior yesterday."
She didn't know what to say. Fergal touched her arm and he smiled. When Fergal nodded she did as well.
"Okay," Dottie looked at Brandon. "I forgive you. I know it's not easy to deal with my quirks."
"Well, getting a tongue lashing from my younger brother really sort of woke me up. You mean a lot to him. And now I get to be a first time uncle."
"I'm making clothes for my baby nephew or niece. Only when I have time, I'm usually mending things with the company. Drew McIntyre rips his performance coat a lot."
Brandon rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, I promised my mom that I would help in the kitchen."
He excused himself and left. Kevin licked Dottie's hand and she put him down.
"What do we do?" Dottie asked.
"What do you mean, Lovely?"
She motioned around them. "Everyone is doing something, we're not doing anything. I want to help."
"Mrs. Franklin said we didn't have to."
Dottie huffed and looked around. There was a large oval table with chairs around it. There was no coverings or anything like that. There was no table cloth, or silverware, dinnerware or anything of that nature.
Cait was in the kitchen peeling potatoes while Mrs. Franklin was prepping the turkey. Colby was the one that was standing taller than all the rest of them but he was glaring at the stove top like it was an opponent.
"Did you need something, Dottie?" Cait asked.
"I want to do something." Dottie said. "Like help or something."
"You're our guest, Dottie. You don't have to do anything." Colby's mother said.
"My Mom said I couldn't do anything."
Everyone stopped working and looked at her. Fergal walked up to her side and put his arm around her hips. She did it again, she brought up something sad or bad or whatever.
"One time, I tried to help with dinner but she smacked me when I spilled food on the counter. She said I was too stupid to be in a kitchen." Dottie rubbed her arm. "I know I'm not, I know I can do something. So, could I make the table look pretty? With a tablecloth and put out the silverware and...just do something." Her wrist twisted at her side. "I just want to feel like I'm helping."
"Okay," Mrs. Franklin said. "Okay. You can set up the dining room table. That would mean one less thing for me to do. The China hutch has everything in it right there." She pointed to a large glass case thing that stood on the other side of the dining room.
"Thank you, Mrs. Franklin." Dottie smiled at her and turned to go do her newly assigned job.
"Can I help, Dottie?" Fergal asked.
"Of course."
Dottie needed to get everything right. She needed to get a nice tablecloth that would go with the theme of the holiday. There was a light brown, almost a golden brown tablecloth in the bottom drawer of the china hutch. Not trusting to put candles out, Dottie did put out white dishes. There wasn't any silverware in the china hutch so she went back to ask for some.
It was simple. There were, as Dottie counted them, Colby, his mom, stepfather, brother, Cait, Fergal and herself, so that was seven people. Eight if she counted the baby growing in her sister's stomach.
When it was all said and done, there was nothing else that needed to be done.
"May I go outside, Mrs. Franklin?" Dottie asked.
"Of course, you don't have to ask to do that." The older woman said as she was putting the turkey in the oven.
Fergal and her went out onto the back deck. They were bundled up in their jackets and Kevin ran around.
"So," Fergal grabbed her leg and draped it over his lap. "Do you like Thanksgiving so far?" He asked.
"So far, it's okay. It's a little unnerving that Brandon said the things he said yesterday but I now know he just doesn't understand me."
They sat for awhile, just holding each other. Fergal's beard had started to grow out again and it tickled the side of Dottie's face as she laid her head on his shoulder. The way his hand rubbed her thigh was light.
"You scared me with your joke yesterday." Dottie said.
"I know." Fergal mumbled. "But I made up for it last night. And we didn't even wake your sister."
"Fergal," she whined as his hand went a little further up her thigh, hinting at the activities he'd done.
He had called it heavy petting, but he left her panting.
Pushing Fergal's hand back down to her knee she leaned back and looked at him. "What do you want to do when we go back on the road?" She asked.
"Whatever you want to do."
"No, no. I read a book on dating girls with autism and we tend to be selfish, in a self preservation sort of way. I have to understand that you have a life and that you have to do something that doesn't revolve around me." She found the string to his hoodie rather appealing to play with.
"What I want to do is to be with you. But if you want to do something with me, I did agree to go out to a pub with a group of the guys, some of the women are going to come with us. So if you want to go, you are invited."
"I won't have to drink alcohol will I?"
"No. No, of course not. I wouldn't force you to do that, Lovely."
"Then I would like to go."
Dottie laid her head against his shoulder again and watched the skies getting darker and then felt the air get colder.
By the time dinner was ready to eat, there had been a few snowflakes coming down. Inside where it was nice and warm, Dottie sat between Cait and Fergal, with Colby on the right side of Cait.
"Why is your phone going off, Colby?" Cait asked.
"Sorry, I posted something." He clicked his phone to silent. "Do you post a lot of your pictures on Instagram, Ferg?"
"Not as much, not since the whole fiasco with the girls' biological mother." The crazy woman that tried to kill Fergal, twice. "People were being rude about Dottie so I started to slow down on posting anything about us."
"Shit," Colby said.
"Not at the table, it draws flies." Mrs. Franklin said. "Why, what's wrong?"
Cait had taken her phone out and did something on it. "Oh you big piece of shit." She glared at him. "Why did you post that?"
"Because it's sickening cute. I think Drew is keeping it Kayfabe, too."
"What? Let me see, Cait." Dottie tried to get to the phone. "Please, Cait. I want to know."
Besides the special language that was Twitter, like the symbol and then that weird Hashtag # thing, there was a picture of her and Fergal cuddled up together on the back deck.
" FinnBalorForEveryone, you don't deserve her. DMcIntyreWWE." Dottie read out. "That is your Twitter handle name, Fergal. And that is Drew's handle name" She showed him the device. "What does that mean?"
"He's directing his comment towards me."
"But he doesn't really mean that, does he? It's that Kayfabe thing, I don't want him to actually be mad with you."
Fergal nudged her shoulder with his. "He's not. But he has to seem like the bad guy that he is in the show while out of it."
"#Thankful for Love." Cait had read the caption under the image after she took the phone back from Dottie. "Coming from you, Big Guy, you do turn into a sap once in a while."
"Hey, I'm being serious. For once." Colby swirled his mashed potatoes around. "I should have just uploaded that to my personal Instagram. Sorry, Dottie, Ferg."
Dottie shook her head. "I am thankful for love, too. I love you like a brother. I, of course, love my little sister. I love that Fergal is with me so I don't have to feel alone. I love that I have a friend like Drew to be there for me when no one isn't around. I love that I now have an unofficial sister named Renee, and her asshole husband."
Mr. Franklin coughed on some of his food when she said that. Mrs. Franklin handed him a napkin to cough into.
"So, yes. I am thankful for the love that I have in my life."
Fergal smiled at her when she looked at him. There was still some food stuck in his beard so she took his napkin and got it for him.
"Messy," she mumbled as she got the food out of his beard.
"Love ya, Dottie." He said after he finished his bite of food.
It was a good Thanksgiving. It was a shame that Colby, Fergal and herself had to go back on the road afterwards.
The meal was good. They talked about things, mostly about Colby's wrestling school that was going on in nearby Moline, Iowa. After the meal, and some pumpkin pie with a large dose of whipped cream for Dottie, they said their farewells to Colby's family and left to go back to Colby's home.
In the room they were staying in, Dottie laid with her head on Fergal's stomach. His hand was rubbing hers while she counted his abs and danced her fingers across his pectoral muscles. They weren't alone, Kevin was laying in front of Dottie.
"I got you something, Lovely." When Fergal said that she lifted her head to meet his gaze. "I was a little worried to give it to you during supper."
He reached under his pillow and pulled something out. Dottie sat up to get a better look only to realize that it was a small black velvet box. Fergal sat up as well.
"I wanted to do something different with you, but something special just the same." Fergal opened the box and looked in. "Dottie, we haven't been together long, but it has been long enough for me to know that I really care about you, to the point that it hurts when you're not around."
"Okay."
He sighed. "One of these days, I want us to be together for a long time. But this, this is my promise." He turned the box around and showed her.
It was a metal band, silver in color with a pair of hands holding a heart with a crown. There were intertwining swirling knots on the band of the ring and the crown had a red stone in it.
"This is a claddagh ring. This is a popular ring from Ireland. I asked me dad to have this made for you. The hands represent friendship, the heart is love and the crown means loyalty. That is a ruby, bright right, like your heart, your hair and your favorite color is read."
Dottie had the words in her head but the process of getting them out through her mouth had been a problem.
"The Claddagh is often seen as an engagement right, even a wedding band. But I want this to be a promise. Dorothy O'Connor, I promise to love you and let you grow. I promise to be the man you need. I promise that one day I will take you back to Ireland to see your land of birth."
She looked into his eyes.
"I promise to love you while we are still together. I promise that one day, when you are ready, I will ask you to be my wife. Do you accept this ring and those promises?"
"Yes."
He took her hand and slid the ring onto her right hand, not her left. "The point of the heart that points towards your wrist means that you are in a relationship." He explained quietly.
The ring felt right on her hand. When Fergal pulled his hands back Dottie launched herself at him, wrapping her arms around his neck and pressing her body into his as she kissed him.
That was just one more thing to be thankful for when it came to Fergal. He always kept his promises.
Well, I hope you guys enjoyed this story. I particularly enjoyed the end with the promise ring.