Chapter Text
Draven’s POV
“Now this is going to be THE bachelorette party!” Q says as we enter the party bus. Once inside we see the drinks, the drugs and the woman. Just kidding, no women. But we do have the rest.
I left Q to be in charge of our bachelorette party because honestly out of all of my sisters friends they are truly the most fun plus they offered. Ayla and Layla offered as well but Q managed to convince them that he could do it. We took his word for it.
My sister's friends have taken a liking to us so now they’re our friends as well which is great because we’re like one big friend group.
We all sat down “first drink!” Q announced serving us all a drink “TO OLIVER AND DRAVEN!” He shouts and everyone raises their glass. Me and Oliver look at each other with smiles knowing this will be the best day of our lives.
Everyone shouted "TO OLIVER AND DRAVEN," then we all took our first shot of our drinks. Surprisingly, it went down easily, which gave me a false sense of confidence because, to be honest, I'm not good with alcohol. Today however we will ignore that and we will get absolutely fucking plastered.
“This is going to be amazing” Jay says from next to me. I nod “best day ever”
I couldn’t have been more right. That day was AMAZING, not the best day ever but still pretty close!
The best day ever was actually the day me and Oliver got married. We decided we just wanted to do a small wedding, nothing major to save money. My father offered to pay along with my sister but Oliver refused both. It’s not like we wanted a big wedding, I agreed with Oliver. Something small worked perfectly for us.
It was just a small list of people, our family and friends, no one else. We liked it that way, things were a lot easier to plan according to my sister who decided to plan the wedding alongside Oliver. Ollie appreciated the help, he was stressed enough with work and he didn’t need the added stress of wedding planning.
My sister Raven and Ollie worked together to put on the most beautiful wedding imaginable. Aaven would’ve helped but she was actually planning her own wedding and she didn’t want anyone’s help so our sister helped me because I clearly needed it. All pictures were taken by Oliver or our guests who all had camaras to take home after the wedding.
Me and Oliver both wore matching suits. We didn’t really have a theme for the wedding, we just liked COLORS everywhere. Everything was bright and pretty, you can thank Oliver for that.
Our cake was a basic vanilla flavor but we loved it. We loved everything about our small wedding. We honestly were just happy to be married, we didn't care about anything else. There was just one person we wish was still here with us to celebrate this day.
“When I was younger I was sure I wouldn’t make it past high school. I was so sure before then something would happen to us. Or maybe I’d do something to make sure I didn’t make it further. I thought about it a lot. It kept me up at night, the thought. It was over consuming and I had almost given in many times. But my sisters, my family kept me here. They were the reason I fought and I made it out. I lived and here I am getting married to the most amazing, kindest man to exist. The one person to give me a second chance, a chance I didn’t even deserve but somehow, someway I had caught the eye of Oliver. It was hard and difficult and we had many challenges but me and Oliver love each other more than anything. Oliver immediately captured my eye and my heart. He was so radiant. Like the sun. Shining and beautiful and I knew…” My speech was long and maybe a little tiring but I knew everyone there was listening intently to what I was saying. They heard every word, they took in every word and they cried alongside me.
Oliver’s speech was just as good as mine, maybe not the tearjerker that mine was but after mine I think Oliver’s was perfect. It lifted the mood of the wedding and we ended it with a toast to a very important person to us.
“To Ash!” We toasted taking sips of our drink before pouring out the rest for our friend up in the sky. She didn’t make it unfortunately but we will always have a memory of hers with us.
Our daughter was obviously the ring bearer. She was absolutely ecstatic to be part of the wedding and we were happy to include her.
Our dogs were also in our wedding, we couldn’t do the wedding without them, we love our dogs. They were the flower…dogs.
The wedding went smoothly surprisingly. Me and Oliver were both so nervous and we both cried when we saw each other.
If we’re being honest we were crying all day. It was such an amazing day for us. There was a point where I genuinely thought me and Oliver were over. I was scared, sad and distraught at the thought of not having Oliver in my future forever.
Seeing Oliver standing in front of me in the most beautiful suit I have ever seen was like a dream come true. It was real, Oliver loved me for real. This was real.
Me and Oliver decided to get a house as soon as we finished college. A small apartment wasn’t enough for our growing family. We had our baby girl, 2 dogs and 3 cats.
The 3 cats were all cats we rescued. One we found in the dumpster, one was in a parking lot and one we picked out. The dogs were actually left on our doorstep, it was insane that out of all the apartments they picked us. We had been thinking about getting puppies and then baam there they were.
It was a nice humble home which was enough for the both of us. We had enough space to comfortably live and if we ever wanted to…expand our family we could. I highly doubt we would, after all we have our little girl by chance. Ollie and I never talked about it but I just assumed we were going to stop after one kid. Which I was okay with, she was already such a handful. If we were to have a second baby I think we would seriously go insane.
Now after years of living together and getting accustomed to our new everyday lives we could say we were truly contempt and happy. It’s not like everyday wasn’t a challenge, it sure was but we made it work. Oliver worked far more than I did and I was okay with that. I spent most of my days taking care of our family. Sometimes I’d hang out with my own family while Ollie took care of the kids. Everyday was a different exciting day. It was honestly too perfect and I found myself questioning if I deserved such a life sometimes.
Ollie made sure to shut those feelings down quickly and effectively. He made sure I didn’t stick to the past. He moved on, Josh and Jack moved on, everyone moved on so why was I punishing myself further when everyone is already over it? Only Oliver could help me see that and I was thankful.
I honestly have no idea what would’ve happened if me and Oliver never got together. Life would definitely be different but who cares about any of that. Oliver was here by my side forever and that was enough for me.
We were currently getting ready to head over to my sisters. We lived relatively close so we weren’t exactly in a rush. I don’t know if it’s our codependency of each other but we Novak siblings didn’t stray too far from each other. We all remained close enough to see each other often. I was thankful for that. I needed my sisters in my life more than I’d like to admit.
“I can’t find the stupid shoe!” Oliver shouted in frustration. He sighed as he ran his hands over his face taking off his glasses “I looked everywhere and I can’t fucking find them!”
“Okay okay Ollie I’ll look don’t worry” I squeezed my husbands shoulders giving him a quick kiss on the head before going to our daughters room and looking for her second shoe.
After a bit of time I did manage to find the shoe, that however set us back by a lot and we were currently running a little late.
“I’m sorry for getting frustrated” Oliver spoke as we drove to my sister's house. After we had found the shoe we quickly put it on our daughter and ran towards our car getting everything inside. We said goodbye to our animals and we were on the road.
That’s when Oliver finally spoke “I shouldn’t have gotten frustrated”
I shook my head “it’s okay Ollie it happens. I know that it bothers you when we’re late to events”
Oliver sighed “yeah but I shouldn’t behave like that…I have to set an example for her…” Oliver looked towards the back of our car where our daughter was sleeping soundly. She loved car rides.
“Ollie you're still human you get frustrated it’s okay” Oliver smiled and nodded. The car got silent besides the music coming from the radio. We surprisingly made it in time with some time to spare as well.
“See Ollie, we made it with time to spare!” I said stepping out of the car. Ollie let out a chuckle “yeah you were right”
We grabbed our things as well knocking on the door of my sister's house.
"I'll get it" I heard my sister say just moments before opening the door. When she opened the door I could see the smile growing on her face as she saw who was at the door.
“DRAVEN!” She shouted, hugging me tightly. I let out a laugh hugging my sister back just as tight. Even though we saw each other often, everytime we saw each other we made sure to hug as tightly as humanly possible. Old habits die hard I guess.
I’m sure everyone heard my sisters loud yelling because soon enough everyone was by the door greeting us. We walked inside with all of our things setting them down before going over to everyone and saying hi.
As I was in the process of saying hi to everyone I felt someone small hug me from behind. Surely enough it was my nephew, his sister not far behind him. They both hugged me tightly “hi uncle!” They said.
Uncle…god who knew I would be an uncle one day.
I smiled and hugged them back “you guys been good?” I asked. They both look at each other with mischievous smiles before turning to me and nodding. I knew they were lying. I heard enough from my sister but they don’t need to know that.
“That’s good! Let’s not cause any trouble to your mom” Oliver joined in. Soon enough we had said our greetings to everyone.
Our daughter decided to go play with Daniel and Kaden in the other room. Her and Daniel got along so well it was honestly such a huge relief for me and my sister.
“Aaven texted me she’s running late, that’s the life of having 3 kids” Raven told me. I let out a chuckle and nodded “I know that’s right”
“How is your daughter? You guys know if you need ANY help at all me and Ailey are willing to drop anything for you both” Raven said with all seriousness but I couldn’t help but chuckle “sis we’re fine. We found a way to make it work. I know that I’m going to start working more soon but we’re already in the process of finding a babysitter for her-
Ailey stopped me “babysitter? We exist, you know!”
I shook my head “I don’t want to always rely on you guys. I understand that your busy too and that’s okay”
“If that’s what you think is best I believe you” Raven smiled. It’s rare to see one of those…or well it used to be. I still treasure it everytime I see it now.
“What about her mom?” Jordan asked “I mean do you guys raise her as your own or do you tell her about her mom?”
I stood there for a second before speaking “we tell her. It’s not easy for either of us to talk about her and we honestly may not do it as often as we should but she knows her moms up there with mine so she knows she’s safe”
“I can’t even imagine…” Jordan whispers, shaking his head. When they all learned about Ash they mourned with us despite never even meeting Ash.
“Our sister better hurry up, I'm starving!” I said. The food was looking too tempting and if my sister didn’t hurry I’d probably just start eating without her.
As if on cue we heard a knock at the door before it opened. I smiled.
This life was probably the last one I would have expected for any of us. But me more than anything. I was sure I would be a screwup with no future but I was wrong. I did have a future and it’s perfect.