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I felt bad thinking maybe I’d interrupted a nap or something, so I leaned over and picked the pot pie up off the porch and held it out to him. “You liked my chicken pot pie the other night, so I figured I’d bring you one to say thank you.”
He didn’t say anything at all or try to take it from me, so I pushed it into his stomach, urging him to take it. “It’s all done. All you have to do is throw it in the oven at three fifty for maybe forty-five minutes and then you’ll have dinner.”
He didn’t take the pot pie out of my hands. Instead, his tired gaze slid down my body slowly, taking me in, and I was more than thankful I’d worn my best skinny jeans and black tank that day to work. I might have had a little hair on me from the salon, but I looked good.
Still, I felt unwelcome and I knew it was my cue to leave, so I held the casserole dish out even further into him, but I noticed that Weston wasn’t looking at me anymore. Instead, his gaze was pointed to his driveway.
I turned my head that way, too, just in time to see an old Lincoln Town Car pull in.
“Fuck me,” he whispered under his breath as we watched an older gentleman and woman exit the vehicle and start walking our way, all smiles.
Looked like I wasn’t the only unexpected guest today. Great.
“Hey, Scoots,” the woman said, walking up to us, but her sparkling green-brown eyes were on me.
“Scoots?” I whispered, eyeing Weston quickly before giving the couple a big smile.
It was then I saw it. It was in her face. The woman. Weston had her eyes and mouth, and I knew instantly that she was his mother.
My smile fell a bit because holy shit. I was standing on the porch of a man who’d been avoiding me for days with a chicken pot pie, about to meet his mom and dad.
I had the absolute worst fucking luck.
“Well, what do we have here?” the woman asked when she finally stood on the porch next to me, the man behind her looking as uncomfortable as I did.
“I told you we should have called, Bev,” the man said, but she completely ignored him.
I didn’t miss Weston’s eye roll as he made introductions. Clearly, something he hadn’t planned on doing today. And it was all my fault. Me and my nosey pot pie bringing ass. “Mom, Dad, this is Emily. Emily, this is my mom and dad. Beverly and Alan Reeves.”
I cradled the dish in one arm and stuck my hand out with a big ole fake smile. “Hey there,” I said as cheerfully as I could.
But Weston was already on to other things. “What are y’all doing here?” he asked his parents, still leaning in his doorway, inviting not one of us in.
“Well,” Beverly started, muscling past me and practically pushing Weston out of the way so she could get inside his home. “You didn’t come by this morning for breakfast, so I figured me and Daddy would bring you dinner and hang out for a bit.”
Weston was still half in the doorway, but Beverly was all the way in and I noticed that Alan was going in right behind her, a large dish of his own in his hands.
“Come on, Emily,” his mother called back to me. “Quit standing out there on the porch. You’re letting all the cool air out.”
I gave Weston big eyes, but he just shook his head and opened the door wider, ushering me inside with an exaggerated flourish of his hand.
I stepped inside but immediately started rambling all the excuses. “Oh, I’m not staying. I was just dropping off a chicken pot pie as a thank you to Weston for helping me out with my lawn.”
Weston’s mother stopped right where she was in the living room and gave me a long once-over before turning to Weston and saying, “So that’s why you needed to borrow the mower and your daddy’s truck.” Then she walked right off and into the kitchen, Alan on her heels.
He’d borrowed his parents’ mower and truck to mow my yard. And I’d just told them. Yowzers, I was really digging myself into something I couldn’t get out of.
I gave Weston big eyes again because what in the hell were we going to do? This was beyond awkward. You weren’t supposed to meet your friend’s with benefits parents, were you?
It was then I had an epiphany. Me and Weston were really bad at this casual thing.
Weston completely ignored my SOS and went to the kitchen with his mother. I followed behind him on a mission to set this dish down on the counter and run for the hills.
As soon as I set it down, Weston said, “I’ll be back, y’all. I’m going to walk Emily to her truck.”
Thank God the man had my back.
“Nonsense,” Beverly said, digging through cabinets and making more noise than I thought any woman could make in a kitchen. “She made chicken pot pie. It’s dinner time. She’s going to stay and eat with us. I’m just gonna throw it and this pulled pork in the oven and we can eat.”
