Nicole arrives home after a long time away due to the COVID-19 pandemic. She emerges from her 4-hour drive looking polished as always – leggings, old sweatshirt, smelling of the fantastic combination of coffee, pickles, and WaWa chocolate milk (you know, all things one could need in life) due to some spills in the car, which are evident all over her shirt.
Nicole is introduced to Steve, who she has recently come to know as “Dad’s 27 year old minion that helps him do stuff,” as he is around every time she calls. She was inclined to like him for so selflessly helping her parents out all the time, but things are off to a rocky start when Ava is scared of Aunt Colie in person but is clearly best pals with this Steve guy.
Aunt Colie spends the rest of the night crawling around on the floor dressed like Olaf, being “Olaf Colie Horsie” at Logan’s command. Whether it was the stains, the pungent smell of pickle juice, or the her Olaf performance that hooked Steve, we’ll never know.
Nicole awakens her first day home to find that her parents no longer have coffee or a coffee machine in the house, without which, she may cease to exist. She calls Rob to ask if he can stop on his way back from Lowes to get coffee. Rob arrives home at 8 AM with whom, you ask? Steve, of course!
For their second meeting, Nicole is again quite put together, with unbrushed hair and pajamas. The coffee of interest is sitting on the kitchen island, with Rob, Nicole, and Steve all standing in the kitchen. Rob abruptly picks up the coffee and shouts “Here Cole, Steve brought you your coffee!” This is immediately the most awkward thing Nicole as ever experienced, which is saying a lot for someone who regularly falls in public places. Nicole says a quick thanks and leaves, snapchatting her friends to say “You would not believe what my dad just did.” Rob denies doing this on purpose, but no one believes him.
Later that evening Ro informs Nicole, to her horror, of this exchange that occurred weeks earlier:
Ro: “So Steve, do you have a girlfriend?”
Steve: “No, *insert some excuse about there being no good available women out there*”
Rob (AKA the man who is practically deaf), from across the bar: “I know a cute doctor who’s available.”
Dani & Ro: “Did you seriously just say that?!”
Kristin, Nicole, and Steve are up late talking and playing Mario World. Kristin and Nicole awaken the next morning to realize they drank a lot of wine the night before, meaning there was a 99.9998% chance they talked Steve’s ears off for hours.
Steve, for the first time ever, doesn’t show up when he said he was going to. It’s furniture moving day, it’s raining, and everyone is wondering what happened to Steve and if he got home OK the night before. No one wants to text him out of fear that they’ll make him feel like he’s expected to come help.
Kristin and Nicole fear that they may have scared him away with their drunken rambling. Rob seems rather disappointed when we tell him that we *may* have scared away his pal (and ruined his master plan).
A follow-up note that will surprise absolutely no one:
Rob realizes *3 days later* that Steve actually had texted him that morning asking what the plan was. Rob didn’t see the text, even while we contemplated where Steve was for a solid 3 days time.
Nicole’s short trip concludes and she is heads back to Virginia. She tells all her friends about the guy that her parents adopted while she was away and about her dad’s very not smooth set-up attempts.
~End Act 1~
Steve is now a permanent fixture in the Griffith/Hoffman household, and Nicole’s visits home always include Steve. Nicole quickly learns that Steve unfairly knows pretty much every detail of her life from spending time with the family.
The night before Kristin’s birthday, Kristin decides to stay up suuuuppppeeerrr late. Kristin finally goes to bed, and since Steve is still there, Nicole informs him that he now has to help turn the house into a mermaid cave. Nicole treks out to Steve’s truck to get the previously stashed decorations, and a few things happen:
1. Nicole breaks her shin on a piece of iron that is sticking out of the ground (yay construction). There is cursing.
2. Nicole discovers the ~dance party~ lights in Steve’s truck.
3. Nicole gets back from fetching the décor, bleeding, but very excited about the dance party lights. Steve informs her that these are not dance party lights but are so that the bright, regular lights don’t hurt your eyes at night. Nicole decides this is a poor use of dance party lights. Decorating ensues.Ro is positive Steve is never going to come back after this experience. There is more than one competition regarding who is better at using tape. There was never an agreed upon winner, but let’s just say that Nicole’s streamers were still stuck to the ceiling in the morning and Steve’s were not.
Barely 2 weeks into dating Steve drives to Virginia to help Nicole move out of her apartment. They jokingly refer to this as the fast-track to finding out if they are compatible for life events. Nicole invites Steve to a party and tells him he must dress like a pirate (at this point having no idea about the man’s pirate obsession)- clearly meant to be.
At this party, Steve witnesses Nicole’s dance/karaoke N’Sync mash up (s/o to co-performer Shelby Warring) and doesn’t run for the hills.
~End Act 2~
A move to Chicago, an ongoing pandemic, house renovations, moving to Florida, oh my! Our favorite activities include eating popcorn & hangin' with our two favorite little people.
Steve proposed while in the Outer Banks with our family and friends! It started with Kat staging an argument, suggesting a walk, and coercing Nicole to get out of her pajamas (not an easy feat), continued with a photographer pretending to be left hanging by her clients and in need of new subjects for her publication (she somehow knew that the best way to get Nicole worked up was to pretend someone had been inconsiderate and blown her off), and ended with a proposal!
Nicole remained oblivious (again, a surprise to no one) and was completely surprised!