Falling for Hadie (23 page)

“What was that, dear?” A woman, who looked a lot like Hadie, walked down the hallway towards where we were all squeezed in together by the front door. “What did you say about my lasagna?”

“I was just telling Lincoln what a fine cook you are.” Mr. Swinton met my eye and gave me a wink.

Finding the courage to finally speak, I stepped forward and held out my hand. “It’s very nice to meet you, Mrs. Swinton. Thank you for inviting me to dinner.”

Mrs. Swinton took my hand and shook it gently. “It’s nice to meet you, too. There’s no need to be so formal, though. Call me Susanne.”

“But you have to call me Mr. Swinton,” Mr. Swinton said with a warning in his eyes. “Now, why don’t we all move to the kitchen so we can ambush, I mean, talk more with Lincoln there.”

Mrs. Swinton shot her husband a look of disbelief, but herded us all into the kitchen where something smelled amazing. My mouth immediately started watering. I hadn’t had much of an appetite lately, but whatever Mrs. Swinton was cooking was making my stomach grumble.

Hadie and I sat down at the kitchen table while Mr. and Mrs. Swinton leaned against the kitchen counter watching us. I tried not to let their piercing looks unnerve me, but I actually had sweaty palms from all the anxiety that was building up inside of me.

“Well, my daughter definitely has great taste in boys,” Mrs. Swinton said. “She obviously gets it from me.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. It sounded like a compliment, so I gave her an awkward smile.

“Mom, stop hitting on my boyfriend,” Hadie said with a roll of her eyes. “He’s way too young for you.”

Mr. Swinton pulled out some plates from a cupboard and glanced over at me. “Watch out, Lincoln. My wife’s a cougar out on the prowl.”

Whoa, what the hell? Were they being serious?

I looked over at Hadie who burst out laughing at the expression on my face. “I think we’re weirding Lincoln out, guys. Maybe we should give the humor a rest.”

I didn’t want to come across as being rude, so I shook my head. “No, it’s fine, really. I’m just not used to the way you guys make fun of each other. It’s nice though. I mean, to see the way you joke around.”

“Don’t your parents make fun of each other?” Hadie asked. Her question was completely innocent, but it still hit a soft spot. My family was nothing like her family.

My chest tightened as I stared down at the floor. “Um, no, not really. We mainly keep to ourselves.”

Mr. Swinton walked over with the plates and started setting the table. “That’s…unfortunate.”

He had his back to me as he raised his head to look at Hadie. Something passed between them in that look that I couldn’t make out since I couldn’t see his face. Hadie’s expression became melancholy and her eyes were sympathetic when they met mine.

Unsettled by the concern in her gaze, I looked over at Mrs. Swinton who was looking at me quite seriously. Damn. Not her too. Obviously the Swintons thought I was a complete charity case.

“Do you know that there are two buttons missing on your shirt?” Mrs. Swinton asked.

Oh, crap.

I felt my face heat up as I looked anywhere but at Hadie’s parents. So much for making a great impression, they already thought something was wrong with me the way I talked about my family; now Mrs. Swinton probably thought I couldn’t afford clothes.

“Mom, you are such a perve!” Hadie cried, covering her forehead with a hand.

“There’s no harm in looking at Lincoln’s well-muscled chest,” Mrs. Swinton said, giving Hadie a wink.

Hadie pretended to gag at that, and I was surprised to find myself laughing. Mr. and Mrs. Swinton definitely had an odd sense of humor, but there was no malice behind anything they said.

“You’re not the only one who thinks Lincoln has a well-muscled chest,” Mr. Swinton said, walking over to his wife and wrapping an arm around her waist. “Our darling daughter was the one who broke the buttons off.”

Mrs. Swinton’s brows shot up. “You don’t say! Why on earth would Hadie break his…?” Realization dawned on her face as her eyes darted between Hadie and me. “
Oh
. I get it now. They were getting freaky with it in the car before you went to get them.”

Embarrassment rolled over me in waves. Great. Now Mrs. Swinton knew all about Hadie and my make-out session. This night wasn’t exactly going to plan. How was I ever going to live this “missing buttons” thing down?

Hadie groaned and buried her head in her hands. “Mom, can you never say “getting freaky with it” ever again? Normal parents don’t say things like that.”

“Normal is boring.” Mrs. Swinton gave Hadie a teasing smile before turning around and bending down to open the oven.

The most amazing smell filled the air; a mixture of meat, tomato, and spices. My mouth watered and my stomach rumbled in response to the smell of the lasagna. I had never wanted to eat something so much in my entire life.

After donning a pair of oven mitts, Mrs. Swinton took out the baking dish and carried it over to the table. She waited for her husband to put a wire rack on the center of the table before she placed the dish down onto it.

I greedily took in the sight of the lasagna. All I could see was layers of pasta sheets and lots of melted cheese. My stomach grumbled again and Mrs. Swinton laughed a warm laugh. The kind of laugh that was deep, rich and genuine.

“I hope you’re hungry,” she said with a knowing smile.

After she’d served us all generous helpings of the lasagna, I glanced around the table at the Swinton family, an easy smile on my face.

I had never felt more at home.

Hadie

Lincoln was getting along really well with my parents.

Too well, in fact. So well, that I couldn’t get him away from them. After the second game of Poker, I managed to finally tear him away from my parents with the promise that we wouldn’t be “making babies”.

When we entered my room and I shut my bedroom door, Lincoln turned to me with a wry smile, his blue eyes so bright they looked like they were glowing. Actually, his entire face had a glow about it. Tonight, he was radiating unmistakable joy.

“Your parents don’t hold back, do they?”

With a grin, I took his hand and led him to my bed. “Just be grateful my dad didn’t really go out and buy a shotgun so he could play the role of the deranged, overprotective father.”

“I think he could play that role really well.” Lincoln laughed as he lay back on my bed, pulling me down beside him. “Your parents are pretty amazing.”

Accustomed to praise for my parents, I simply nodded. “I’m really lucky. I know that.” I tilted my head upwards until I could see Lincoln’s chin and lips. “You’re pretty amazing, too.”

I inhaled his fresh scent and internally swooned when he wrapped a muscular arm around me. I nuzzled into his side and, for once, just let things be. No regrets. No freaking out. No over-thinking. No reservations. No cracking lame jokes.

We were just ourselves. We were everything we needed each other to be.

Lying there undisturbed for several minutes, I finally decided that I wanted to ask Lincoln something that had been bugging me since yesterday. “Bennett told me that you warned him to stay away from me.”

Lincoln pushed away from me and sat up, propping himself against my bed frame. There was a mixture of anger and disbelief etched on his face. “What amazes me is that he talked to you even
after
I warned him to stay away from you.”

Joining him, I raised a brow. “So, you’re not denying it?”

Lincoln shook his head. “I’m not going to lie; I did tell him to stay away from you. I don’t like the way he looks at you, as though you belong to him. And when I asked him about your locker being vandalized, he claimed he had no part in it. I don’t buy that he knows nothing about who was doing it. I know I shouldn’t have warned him off, but he just bugs me.”

“I know I shouldn’t have punched him in the face, but he kinda bugs me too.”

Lincoln stared me like he couldn’t believe what I’d just said. “You…
punched
him? What happened?”

“He kissed me.”

Lincoln’s eyes narrowed and the azure in, them that I normally found so calming, turned a dangerous dark blue. “I hate to sound like a jealous, possessive, overprotective boyfriend, but I want to kick his ass. However, considering you have violent tendencies, I guess I won’t have to anymore.”

“Hey! I do
not
have violent tendencies! It was a natural reaction.”

There was a lilt to Lincoln’s voice as he spoke. “Exactly. It’s natural for you to react violently.”

“You’re so annoying!” I exclaimed, shoving him.

Lincoln raised his hands in surrender. “Please don’t hurt me. I promise I won’t call you violent anymore. Just don’t hurt me, please.”

Grabbing the pillow beside me with both hands, I whacked Lincoln across the chest with as much, or as little, strength as I had. He blinked back at me because, well, obviously a feathery pillow had no effect on him. He wrestled the pillow out of my hands with little effort and held it over me as though it were a sword dangling over my head.

“You’re asking for it, Hairdresser,” he warned, his eyes twinkling.

“Ooh, I’m so scared,” I taunted, bracing myself for my inevitable fate.

Lincoln’s expression fell and his face turned serious. Without warning, he let the pillow drop before his fingers found their way to my ribs and starting tickling me with earnest.

I’m ashamed to admit it, but I started kicking back at him like a two-year-old throwing a tantrum and laughing like a psycho every chance I got. My laughs weren’t pretty either. I snorted. A lot. Like a pig in heat.

My ribs finally got some relief when Lincoln paused to stare at me in amusement. He probably thought that no human could make a sound like that. I used the momentary respite to kick at him. He lost his balance, grabbed for me, and ended up pulling me down with him. We landed on the floor with a single, loud thud, his body breaking my fall.

“Ow, my back,” he winced. “Why is it that you’re always trying to take advantage of me, Hades?”

Before I could respond, my bedroom door flew open with a bang. I rolled off Lincoln to find my dad standing in the doorway holding a baseball bat over his shoulder like he was about to club someone with it.

“Dad, what the heck are you doing with that?” I asked, quickly scooting into a sitting position. Beside me, Lincoln was doing the same thing. We hadn’t been doing anything inappropriate, but I kinda hoped we looked like the picture of innocence anyway.

Dad looked between the both of us. “I heard unearthly sounds coming from your room and since I don’t own a shotgun, I grabbed the next best thing.”

“We were just messing around,” I said with a roll of my eyes.

Dad raised a brow. “Messing around? Is that code for…?”

“Da-aaad!” Mortified, I quickly stood up. “Can we
please
get some privacy?”

With a sigh, Dad lowered the baseball bat. “Fine, but no funny business from you, Lincoln.”

“Yes, Sir,” Lincoln said, standing up beside me.

Looking satisfied, Dad shut the door behind him, leaving Lincoln and me in an awkward silence. Finally, Lincoln wrapped an arm around my waist and pulled me close, his breath tickling my ear. “Now, where were we?”

***

I didn’t need to look in a mirror to know that I had a goofy smile on my face. You know, the kind of smile you got from recalling a particularly funny memory? In this case, I was thinking about the time Lincoln and I had spent together last night, lying on my bed and just talking about everything and anything.

He’d told me about the time he and his sister were eight and had tried to determine whether twins really were telepathic by using the science of M&M’s, super glue, and a skateboard to test out the theory. I had never laughed so hard at the conclusion, when Lincoln had ended up with the seat of his pants super glued to the skateboard, and a bag of M&M’s dangling above his head out of reach.

In turn, I’d told him about the time Mariah, Lana, Estella, and I had been seven and pretended that Mariah was our life-size Barbie doll. We’d dressed her up in a fairy princess dress and then when we’d tried to brush her hair, the comb had gotten caught in her thick curls. That day hadn’t ended well. Estella, Lana and me had ended up in time out, and Mariah had ended up with a lot less curls.

It had felt so natural to tell Lincoln about all my silly, childhood memories and then to have him tell me his own. I loved that even though we’d lain on my bed the entire time, Lincoln and I hadn’t done anything more than kiss. He hadn’t even hinted at wanting to do anything more than kiss. Most guys weren’t like that. Get them on a bed and they only wanted one thing. Lincoln wasn’t like that and I was lucky to have him in my life.

“What’s with the cheesy, soap opera smile?”

Mariah’s voice startled me, and I turned my head to find her eyeing me incredulously.

Shutting my locker, I clutched my History books to my chest and shrugged. “I like Wednesdays. They make me smile.”