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I swallow, grabbing my spiked smoothie and taking a sip to reluctantly wash down the meat.
I don’t know what to say. I didn’t expect a real answer.
Clearing my throat subtly, I ask, “Did your dad teach you how to grill?”
He nods. “He doesn’t do it much anymore, but he used to.”
I try to picture Hayden standing in front of a grill, but I can’t. I’ve probably never even met the Hayden Landon remembers.
I know he loves my mom a lot, but maybe you love different people in different ways. He started a family with Sally. They had an entirely different life.
“She used to make this vegetable salad with it. Not this kind of salad,” he says, nodding toward the big bowl of greens. “It was just a big bowl of vegetables tossed with some kind of sauce. I don’t know how she made it. It was something she came up with one day when she needed a side for dinner and felt bored at the idea of steamed veggies, so the recipe died with her, but damn, was it good.”
I crack a smile. “Maybe you could ask your dad.”
He shakes his head, his jaw locking at the mere mention of Hayden. “He wouldn’t know.”
The sound of the sliding door being pulled open startles me, then Hayden comes striding out with my mom right behind him. His intelligent gaze quickly surveys the scene and his brow furrows with slight confusion. Mom is similarly uncertain when she steps around him.
“Hey,” I say casually. “You guys are back early.”
Hayden scowls up at the security camera that usually monitors the pool door, then his gaze drifts to his son. “Yeah. Something seems to have happened to the security camera out here.”
“Huh,” Landon says, taking a bite of steak and looking at his dad over his shoulder as he chews. “Weird.”
Mom’s worried gaze lingers on me. “We wanted to come home just to make sure everything was okay.”
As much as I was happy for them to get a date night, I am relieved they’re home now. I bought time with my needs, but I wasn’t sure how I was going to keep things going once we finished eating.
Now that the calvary is here, though, I see no need to confess there was ever an issue.
“Landon made us a couple of steaks and some salad for dinner. Are you guys hungry? Maybe Hayden could grill up a couple more and you could join us.”
“Antonia made the salad,” Landon grumbles, apparently annoyed at being given credit for something he didn’t do. “It was already prepped and in the fridge.”
“Well, the steak is amazing,” I inform them before slicing off another bite.
“All right,” Hayden says, accepting more readily that everything is okay than Mom. He glances over at her. “You want a steak?”
Mom is a bit slower to accept the reality that Landon is here alone with me and the sky didn’t fall. “I thought you were going to Malek’s tonight,” she says.
“That was the plan. He wasn’t home,” Landon lies.
“Oh,” she murmurs.
“Well, maybe it all worked out for the best,” Hayden says. “I’ll go prep the meat and get it on the grill. Gemma, honey, do you want to throw something together for dessert?”
Mom nods and gives me an uncertain little smile before she follows Hayden into the house.
As soon as the sliding door closes, Landon grabs his plate and his drinks and brings it around to my side.
I look up at him cautiously as he takes the seat next to me.
“Gotta make some room for the parents,” he says.
Forget that Mom could have sat by me as easily as he is now.
My spine stiffens when, as soon as he sits down, he lays his massive palm over my thigh and gives it a squeeze.
