Dwight Evans- Brad Pitt
Mary Evans- Elizabeth Berkley
Stacy Evans- Dove Cameron
Stevie Evans- Jace Norman
Mercedes smacked Sam's hand. "Will you stop that?" She had been making desserts all morning. Currently, she was topping some pumpkin pie bars with coconut whipped cream and Sam was throwing most of them back as soon as she put them down.
"You can't act like these don't all look and taste amazing!" He swiped another as she put it down.
She swatted at him. "There won't be anymore for tonight if you eat them all. And these aren't even for you." Her dad's diet was limited because of the surgery and treatment, so she wanted to make enough things for him to eat so that he wouldn't feel left out.
"Marvin is not going to be eating all of these, if he even eats them at all. If there's any day to splurge and go against doctor's orders, it's Thanksgiving."
"I don't care. Keep your hands off the bars until it's time for dessert."
"Fine. I'm just going to get another one of the maple cupcakes from the fridge." He stuck his tongue out at her and raced over to the refrigerator before she could stop him.
She shook her head, laughing at him. "You do know that if you're eating all this you're not going to be hungry again by the time dinner starts, right?"
"That's what you think," he said as he bit into a cupcake, smiling at the taste. "Thanksgiving is an event that I train for. In the weeks leading up to it, I eat more and more little by little each day. I eat more protein, fruits and vegetables, salty snacks, you know, foods that increase your appetite. Then, I switch from running every morning to every morning and evening so that I need more energy. All of this so that by the time Thanksgiving gets here, I'm able to completely devour just about anything without feeling too full." He smiled with pride.
She couldn't control the laugh that came out.
"What?" He grinned.
She went over to him and held his hand. "I love you."
"I love you, too."
"You're so creative and innovative." She sounded sincere ahead of her crack on him. "I mean, I don't know a single soul who literally preps their appetite for Thanksgiving weeks in advance."
"We both know I'm not the creative and innovative one in this relationship, though. I don't have any Grammys."
She huffed, "Sucks then that I can't create or innovate a way to keep the shit from hitting the fan in a few hours."
Sam put his hands up. "I'm going to be honest and say I actually don't think it's going to be that bad."
She tilted her head back and raised her bows at him. "Well then, good luck with that. You're going to need all that you can get."
"Nope." He wrapped his arms around her waist, pulling her to him. "I've got all the luck I need right here."
She brought him down for a kiss. As she placed her forehead against his, there was a knock at the door. She frowned. "I thought you said your family wasn't going to be here for another couple of hours?"
"They're not." He left her to open the door and gave a shocked smile when he saw who was on the other side. "Mr. And Mrs. Jones!"
"What?!" Mercedes came into the living room.
"Happy Thanksgiving!" Marvin smiled.
Sam let them in and, hearing another car door shut, looked outside. "And the other Mr. and Mrs. Jones. Morning."
"Morning, Sam." Devon smiled, saying what her husband wouldn't.
"Aunt Cede!" Aubrey, Mason and Devon's daughter, ran straight from the car into the house, ignoring her parents' pleas to be careful.
"Hi, princess!" Mercedes bent down so her niece could run into her arms. "How are you?"
"I'm good. Happy Thanksgiving!" The three-year old smiled wide.
"Thank you so much. Happy Thanksgiving to you. You look so pretty!"
"Do you like my hair? My mommy did it. It makes noise, look." She shook her head, allowing the beads on her twists to clack together.
"I do, it's so beautiful."
Sam watched on, finding himself smiling as they interacted. He'd never tell anyone, but anytime he saw them interacting, he'd always imagine that that's what Mercedes would be like with their daughter. Before he knew it, Aubrey was making her way over to him.
"Uncle Sam!"
He swooped her up and planted a bunch of playful kisses on her face. Laughing as she squealed. When they were finished, she held onto him and he held her on his hip.
Mercedes closed the door as everyone came in. "Mom, Dad, what are you guys doing here so early?"
"We thought we would come and help you out, in case you needed anything done for later," Marvin said.
"We? Or you?" Mercedes looked at her mom suspiciously.
Michelle put her hand on her chest and gasped. "All five of us showed up, no? Why just me?"
"Because, Mom, you have a tendency to think that I can't put things together by myself. More specifically, without help from you. I can't help but think that may be the reason why you brought our entire family here hours early." Mercedes was slightly annoyed, but she tried to keep her tone playful.
"And what is all this talk about early? Are we not welcome in Sam's home?"
"Of course you are, Michelle," Sam said as he moved over to his girlfriend's side.
Mercedes crossed her arms, her annoyance starting to seep through. "Yeah, you're welcome, but it's 11 o'clock. We were expecting you a little closer to 3. You know, when dinner was supposed to start."
"But please, make yourself at home." Sam smiled, not thinking he'd have to avert a crisis this early.
Mercedes, Sam, Michelle, and Marvin all stood staring at one another, each of them unsure of who else sensed the awkward tension.
Sam looked at her and said lowly, "Babe, do you wanna get the gifts?"
"What?"
"The gifts."
"Oh, yes!" She clasped her hands and smiled. "The gifts. I'll be right back." She paced off to go retrieve the gifts. She had to remind herself that she had a mission today. She was supposed to be trying to get Sam and her mom closer, but she wouldn't be able to do that if she allowed her mom to get to her. She went back out to them. "Okay. Sam, why don't you give my mom her gift first."
Sam put the toddler down and took the box from Mercedes, handing it to Michelle. As she opened it, he explained what it was, "Black Label, your favorite. With a stiletto decanter. Because, you know, you love stilettos."
"Thank you both. This is much appreciated." Michelle smiled, but Mercedes couldn't tell if it was genuine or not.
"Yeah, it was actually Sam's idea," Mercedes said. "He wanted to get you guys something and he asked me what I thought you might like. You know, since he doesn't know you as well he knows Dad. But hey, maybe today can be the day where you two start to get to know each other, right? Thanksgiving is for family. You two are family of mine, right?"
Sam nodded. "Definitely."
Michelle gave a curt smile.
"Anyways, I told him about your favorite liquor and he pretty much ran with it."
Her mother nodded.
Expecting a little more than a nod, Mercedes reiterated her earlier statement. "So pretty much all of that was Sam. He did it."
Another nod from Michelle. "I heard you. I said I appreciated it."
After another awkward beat of silence, Mercedes moved on. Attempt #1 was obviously a bust. "Okay, Dad. Here's yours." She handed him the bag. "Obviously, alcohol isn't really an option for you at the moment, but we still wanted to get you something to help you celebrate your accomplishments."
"A cancer survivor's coupon book?" Marvin read the front of the booklet.
"We know it's a bit premature," said Sam, "but we wanted to make sure that you knew that we recognized how hard the past few months have been for you."
Mercedes nodded. "Yes. And in honor of you kicking cancer's a-"
Sam cleared his throat before directing his eyes to their niece sitting on the floor.
"Butt." She corrected herself. "We wanted to give you this. Some of them are already filled out and some are fill-in-the-blank. You just fill it out, sign it, and then you can ask any of your family members to do it for you. And we can't say no."
Mason frowned. "I didn't agree to that."
"I didn't ask," she said without looking at him. "Anyways, welcome to both of you and Happy Thanksgiving."
"Thank you, Babygirl." Her dad laughed as he hugged her.
After getting the family settled in and watching Mercedes narrowly avoid her mom's attempt to help her in the kitchen, Sam asked Mason to come to the backyard for a minute.
"What's up?" Mason asked once they were outside.
"Look, Mason, I just wanted to apologize to you again for what I did. I know we haven't talked much, but I really do want you to know that I didn't mean to hurt Mercedes or you."
"Why are you telling me this? You've apologized already."
"Like Mercedes said, Thanksgiving is all about family. And even before Mercedes and I got back together, you were my family, man. We both know that. And I don't want things to be awkward between us over dinner because I didn't reach out to you again."
"You don't want things to be awkward?" Mason closed the space between them. "That's gotta be a joke, Sam. You lied to my sister for two whole months. You and Mercedes may be fine now, but that doesn't mean anything to me and I'm not going to act like things between us are all hunky dory for the sake of Thanksgiving."
"I'm not asking for that. I just want you to know—"
"That you're sorry. Yeah, you've said that. Multiple times."
Just as he finished his sentence, Mercedes appeared on the back porch. "Everything okay back here?"
"Just fine." Mason looked at Sam before walking back into the house.
She went over to Sam and rubbed his shoulder. "Why do I feel like that's not the truth?"
"It's okay. He still needs his time and I shouldn't have tried to push him."
"Are you sure you don't want me to talk to him? You know how he gets. Maybe he just needs someone to set him straight."
"No, it's okay. He'll come around, I hope. Let's go back inside."
After a while of laying around the house, Sam let Mercedes know that his family was about 15 minutes out. She immediately went into a panic.
"I'm starting to realize that having my family here when yours gets here may not be such a good idea," she said.
He chuckled. "Why not?"
"Have you told your mom about my mom?"
"Not much outside of the fact that we have had some issues."
"And you really want her to meet my mom without fair warning first?"
"No, I mean it should be fine." He shrugged. "It should be fine," he repeated, more for himself than her. Then at once, Sam shared her panicked look. "Actually I think you might be right."
"Okay, I've got this. Don't worry." She patted his knee before jumping up and calling for her brother to come with her into the kitchen. "I need you to take our parents and get out."
He gave a shocked chuckle. "Excuse me?"
"Sam's family is going to be here in about 10 minutes and I need for my mom to be gone when his gets here."
"Why?"
She pursed her lips. "Do you really need to ask that?"
He smiled. "Ok, I got you. But what's my reward?"
"Your reward? What are you, one of Pavlov's dogs? Take our parents, take your beautiful pregnant wife, take your too-cute-for-words daughter, and go."
"Hold on. I'm doing you a favor, I'm going to need one in return. What do I get for doing this?"
She put her hands on her hips. "Mason, you get to eat today. That's what you get."
"Hmm. In that case, I can't wait for the family affair to start in 10." He went to leave but Mercedes grabbed him.
"Okay, wait. What do you want?"
He gave her an evil smile. "You know what I want."
She thought for a moment then shook her head. "Absolutely not, no."
"No?"
"Mason, that favor is completely disproportionate to this one. Do you have any idea how many calls I'll have to make?"
He shrugged. "I can only think of one, but it's cool." He whipped around and started to dance out of the kitchen, singing, "we are family—"
"Oh, my god, okay. Stop. Just stop. I'll do it."
He turned back around once again with his smile still on his face. "I need you to say it."
"Mason."
"Time's a tickin'. I'm going to pull out my phone and record you. I need you to promise and say it out loud so that it's binding." Once he took out his phone and started recording, he motioned for her to begin.
She huffed. "I promise that—"
"A little closer." He beckoned her with his fingers, clearly enjoying this.
Mercedes almost said forget it, but she was out of time and she needed this. She got closer and bent down slightly to speak into the phone, "I promise to get you front row Kendrick Lamar tickets the next time he's at the Staples Center."
"And a meet and greet?"
She rolled her eyes. "And a meet and greet."
"And backstage passes."
She looked up at him. "Mason."
"Do you want our parents gone or not?"
"And backstage passes," she mumbled, annoyed.
"Great. Nice doing business with you, Sis." He patted her on the shoulder and exited the kitchen.
A few moments later, Sam came into the kitchen. "That was quick. Everyone's cleared out." His phone buzzed. "And just in time. We've got 5 minutes."
"Okay. Really quick, before they get here, I want to show you something. Don't move." Mercedes ran to their bedroom and back, holding something behind her back.
"What's going on?" He asked with a suspicious smile.
"You weren't the only one who thought it'd be a good idea to give their family a gift on Thanksgiving." She held a gift bag out in front of her proudly.
Sam took the bag. "What is this?"
"What do you mean 'what is this?' boy? Open it."
He took a deep breath as he removed the tissue to reveal a book. "The Coach's Handbook?"
"I gave Beiste a call and told him about your impending position and he recommended that I give this to you. So technically, it's from both of us to you as a congratulations."
"Mercedes, we talked about this. Why would you tell Beiste about the position when you know I can't take it?"
"Look in the bag again. There's something else."
Sam dug to the bottom of the bag again to find an envelope with a ribbon wrapped around it. He opened it and frowned. "A check?" Then, his eyes widened as he read the amount. "For $15,000? To Sam Evans for OSU's coaching certificate." He looked up at her.
"Obviously, it's a gesture, but it's not an empty one." She wanted to make sure he knew that. "I want to pay for you to go back to school."
He instantly protested. "No. You can't do that."
"I can and I am. Babe, you really want this and you really deserve it."
"But I can't afford it."
"But I can." She nodded assuringly. "$15,000 is exactly going to be putting a dent in my wallet. If I'm being honest, it's barely even a scratch. You shouldn't have to turn down an opportunity like this because of money."
His speech quickened. "Maybe you've forgotten, but I'm kind of used to not being able to do things because of money. I just can't do the program, it's fine. I can't take your charity money. And if your mom ever found out about this—"
"Sam, slow down." She grabbed his hands. "First of all, it is absolutely none of my mom's business what I do with my money. And if she gets her panties in a twist because she somehow found out that I paid for it, I would shut her down with a quickness. You know that. And second of all, it's not charity money. We may not be engaged anymore, but we're much more than just boyfriend and girlfriend, babe, we're a team. And what kind of teammate would I be if I let you say no to something this huge when I can help?"
Sam still wasn't convinced. "Mercedes, I can't just let you give me money. And before you get started, it's not about me being the breadwinner. Think of even more than your mom. What would other people think?"
She tilted her head. "Since when do you care so much about what other people think? I thought that was my job." She could see that his thoughts were starting to consume him. "Look, if you're that worried about this being charity money, think of it as an investment in us. In you." She squeezed his hands. "And you can consider it returned when you enroll in this program, let me take over the glee clubs in your absence, and become the best coach McKinley has ever seen."
"What you're saying sounds really nice, but—"
"Sam," Mercedes tried to fight the groan she wanted to let out. She was tired of his resistance. "I've told you before how much of my life wouldn't have been possible without you. You were the first person to believe in me, even before I believed in myself. And I've always believed in you too, but I've done less showing and more telling. It's time that I do more showing and put my money where my mouth is."
Sam took a deep breath. "That's a lot of money."
She gave him a look. "I have a lot of mouth." She smiled when he did. "Okay, this is the last thing I'm going to say to try and convince you and then, I'm sending that damn check to OSU myself."
He laughed at her.
"This money is nothing. Baby, with the life we're going to have together, you're going to end up paying me back twentyfold. We have the rest of our lives to—"
He shushed her when he placed his hands on her face and kissed her forcefully, yet tenderly. The kisses came one after the other after the other.
Mercedes tried not to smile into them. These were the type of kisses that still sent butterflies swarming in her belly, even after all these years. They were her favorite. "So, I guess that's a yes," She whispered with a smile.
"Thank you," Sam said, blinking back tears. He couldn't believe that she was completely willing to do this for him, even after he said no. He often wondered what it was about him that always drew her back to him. Now, he thought he was beginning to understand. It was the feeling of someone fighting for you and your happiness that was irresistible.
Seeing him close to tears made her emotional, too. She ran her hand along the side of his face lovingly. "Of course." She reached up to hug him. "I love you so much."
He squeezed her waist and nestled into her neck. "I love you, too."
As they separated, the doorbell rang. She kissed him on the cheek one last time. "I want us to tell everyone at dinner, if that's okay. My family still doesn't know I'm staying."
He nodded. "Let's go welcome mine in, shall we?"
"We shall."
As soon as they opened the door, there wasn't a single person without a smile on their face, especially Dwight. He was almost so excited that he didn't wait to give a hug to his son before Mercedes, but Mary beat him to it.
"Mercedes!" Mary hugged her tightly and took a step back while still holding onto her. "Oh, my goodness, you look so beautiful and grown up!"
Mercedes smiled. "Thank you, Mary. You look lovely, as always."
"I can't believe it's been almost a decade since I last saw you! You're going to have to tell me everything you've been up to, and I mean everything. Stuff I can't find in the magazines and news outlets."
She laughed. "We'll have plenty of time this weekend for me to catch you up to speed."
"There's the superstar." Dwight wrapped Mercedes up in a bear hug.
Adjusting to his tight grip, Mercedes finally spoke, "Hi, Dwight. It's so nice to see you again."
Sam rushed up to them and pulled his dad back some. "Dad, you're just hugging her, not suffocating her."
"She's a multi-award winning artist. How would you hug someone who's sang with Stevie Wonder on three separate occasions?"
"I see Sam wasn't kidding about this whole superfan thing, huh?" She asked as she straightened out her clothes.
Stacy came up and hugged her as well. "Yeah, he's kind of obsessed with you. It would be a lot weirder if we didn't know you already."
"She's homegrown, of course I'm obsessed."
Lastly, Stevie ran up to Mercedes and embraced her. "Hi, Mercedes."
Mercedes smiled into the hug. She'd always had a soft spot for Stevie. "Stevie. It's so nice to finally see you again. Okay, let me look at both of you." She centered herself in front of the younger siblings. "Okay, first of all," she looked at Stacy first. "You are so gorgeous." Then at Stevie. "And you are so tall!"
"He's definitely taller than Sam was at that age," Dwight said.
Mary agreed. "If he gets any taller, we're going to have to start having his jeans tailor made. Sam, would you help your dad and your brother bring in our things? I'm going to need some time with Mercedes without the three of you breathing down our necks."
"Yes, ma'am." Sam did as told.
Mary sat Mercedes down on the couch. "So, tell me everything. How's life?"
"Life is great."
"Okay. How's work?"
Mercedes bit her lip. She didn't want to tell her about anything without Sam there, so she just went with a standard answer. "Work is also great."
"Wonderful. And," she looked through the window outside to ensure the guys were still unloading, "how's my son?"
An uncontrollable smile and heated cheeks took hold of the singer. "He's the best part of all of it."
Mary smiled at seeing how much she loved her son. "That is amazing. He told me about what happened between him and that cheerleading coach." She rolled her eyes. "I swear, if I were here, I would've whooped him myself."
"Thank you, but it's actually okay. We've mostly worked through that now, so things are worlds better between us."
"That's good to hear. I'm so glad you two found your way back to each other, Mercedes. I mean this in the nicest way possible, but that boy was lost without you."
The corners of her mouth turned up. "If I'm being honest, so was I without him. Being with him, it's like," she thought for a second, "You know when you're sleeping and for whatever reason, it's really cold in your room? Then, you get up because you have to use the bathroom, get a drink of water, or whatever and when you come back to bed and you slide back under the covers, it's still just as warm as when you left? And you go from being freezing outside of the covers to completely warm under them? Then, you're back to sleep in seconds like nothing happened? Sam is like that. Being with him feels like coming back to that warmth after being out in the cold. All the time." She had been saying most of that to herself, really taking a moment to reflect on her feelings for Sam.
Mary took her hand and squeezed it without a word.
"Ma, you know Mercedes and I are the ones hosting this thing, right? You didn't have to cook an entire Thanksgiving dinner," Sam said as he, Dwight, and Stevie were lugging in a mix of casserole dishes and suitcases."
"Nonsense." Mary waved him off from her seat beside Mercedes. "This is my first time meeting the Jones family, they are going to get a proper Evans family Thanksgiving. We're going to show them how we do things in the South." She patted Mercedes on the knee as she got up. "Come on in the kitchen and I'll show you what I made." In the kitchen, Mary went down the line of the dishes as they were brought in. "So, we've got some peach cobbler, skillet cornbread, biscuits that I made fresh this morning, smothered boneless pork chops, sweet potato casserole, banana pudding, homemade cranberry sauce," she leaned into Mercedes, "much better than that canned stuff. I hope Sam didn't let you buy any of that. Now, I didn't make this right here," she pointed to one of the containers, "but this is some of the best bbq in all of Tennessee. We always get some anytime we go down there. Just can't get enough of it. Then, I've got some buttermilk pie, fried corn, and I know your dad's still in recovery and he's watching his diet, so I made some extra veggies, green beans, spinach, a little bit of squash, things like that. Then, we've got…"
As Mary continued listing the things she'd prepared. Sam winced and mouthed an extremely embarrassed 'I'm sorry' to his girlfriend with bright red cheeks.
Mercedes smiled wide and mouthed back, 'It's okay.' Turning her attention back to the spread Mary had brought, Mercedes touched a few of the pans. "And it's all still warm," she said, surprised.
"She was up cooking all night." Stevie explained.
"And all morning." Stacy added.
"And my pecan pie. Dwight, did you bring in the pecan pie? It'll knock your socks right off." She leaned over to whisper to Mercedes again, "The secret is half light corn syrup and half molasses with just a splash of honey, gets it done every time. It'll make you want to slap your mama."
"Well, I'm not sure I'll need a pie for that," Mercedes said to herself.
Sam nudged her and gave her a look that told her to be careful.
She put her hands up briefly in defense. "Mary, this is nothing short of amazing. And here I was thinking some turkey, dressing, mac and cheese, and a few veggies were doing it big for Thanksgiving."
"Oh, no way. If I didn't know you any better, Mercedes, I'd think you were pulling my leg! Today is a special day; we're taking two families and joining them to become one. We can't do that over a few measly side dishes, come on now."
"Speaking of merging our two families." Mercedes looked at Sam, who looked right back at her. "As I'm sure you know, Sam and my mom have a rather complicated history."
Mary and Dwight both nodded and Mary spoke for them both, "He hasn't told us everything out of respect for you, but he has said that there have been some miscommunications."
"To say the least," Mercedes sighed.
Dwight stepped forward, "But I just want to let you know, Mercedes, that this entire family has arrived in Ohio today with open minds and open hearts."
"That's great and I appreciate it, but Michelle Jones isn't exactly someone with whom 'open minds and open hearts' gets the job done. The holidays tend to be a pretty weird time in my family, mostly because of tension between my mom and I. The tension is at a minimum at the moment so hopefully, there won't be a ton of drama, but even if nothing happens between us, my mom can be a little bit of a-"
"I think what Mercedes means to say is," Sam put his waist on the small of her back to quiet and calm her, "that we can all put our best foot forward, but that still may not lead to the desired outcome with Michelle. She may say things that upset you,"
"And you can react how you want," Mercedes said.
"But we just wanted to let you know."
"Well, you know what?" Mary put on a peaceful smile. "I have faith that today is going to be a great day, Michelle drama or not."
"I guess now I see where Sam gets his hopeless optimism from." Mercedes joked. "But thank you for that, Mary. All of you. Now, if I could have some help unpacking all of this undoubtedly delicious food you've prepared, that would be much appreciated. My family will be back soon and we'll get started around 3."
Just as the Evanses put their things away and everyone finished preparing the dishes, the Jones family had arrived back at Sam's house.
Mercedes took a deep breath as she and Sam stood at the door waiting for them. "Moment of truth."
"Hey. I don't want you to be stressing out all day today, okay? Just try to take it easy. And if your mom starts getting to you or things get to be too much," He took one of her hands in his, "just gimme a squeeze."
She started squeezing his hand rapidly, prompting a laugh from both of them. "Let's do this."
Hope you all enjoyed! I'm not sure if you've caught on yet, but this Thanksgiving dinner is definitely going to go awry. So look forward to that, I guess? Let's all say a prayer and hope that neither Sam or Mercedes regret hosting. Till next time!
