Her mom set the steaming hot casserole dish down on a trivet shaped like a steer and shrugged. “All’s fair in love and Frito pie.”
There were no lies in that argument—at least not when it came to the food. Hadley was sprinkling fresh corn chips on top of the melted cheese when Gabe strode in through the back door.
“You guys coming out with the food or are you going to keep quiet-fighting in here?” he asked from at least two arms’ reaches away. The man was no doubt not taking any chances.
“We’re not fighting,” Stephanie said, rolling her eyes at her husband.
“Yeah,” Hadley agreed. “It’s a discussion.”
“Uh-huh.” Gabe took a few steps closer, taking a deep inhale of the Frito pie. “Well, whatever you want to call it, we’re all starving. Can I at least take out the ants on a log? We need a distraction, because it looks like Derek isn’t going to make it tonight, either.”
Hadley’s heart ached for her sister. Adalyn was not a fan of being the center of attention, to the point that she’d skipped her own high school graduation so she didn’t have to do the whole walk-across-the-stage-in-front-of-everyone thing. That’s part of what made it so strange that she’d decided to put together such an elaborate wedding. It must have been Derek who’d insisted on the full shebang. Who would do that to Adalyn and then not be here to take some of the weight off her?
“What I would say if I could,” her mom said, tone as hard as the frozen prairie in January.
There were few insults from her mom that were stronger than her mom being willing to hold back on saying exactly what was on her mind at any given time. It was one of the few things they had in common. And if she was keeping her mouth shut about Derek, then things were pretty grim.
“How’s Adalyn doing?” Hadley asked Gabe.
He shrugged and let out a sigh that spoke of all the words he was keeping bottled up, too. “She’s holding up, but Aunt Louise is like a coyote with a rabbit when it comes to getting every little detail out of Buttermilk.”
God love Aunt Louise, but she had that whole blunt-Midwestern-bulldozer thing down pat.
Gabe put on the oven mitts, picked up the casserole dish, and started toward the door. “We better get out there.”
By the time Hadley made it outside with the tray of peanut-butter-and-honey-filled celery sticks, everyone was already seated at the picnic tables. And because the fates were against her, every seat was taken except for one—the empty spot right by Will and across from Matt.
She set down the tray on the table and squeezed in next to Will, the brush of her hip against his when she sat down sending a teasing little buzz of attraction across her skin. Her brain was a hard no, but the rest of her? Oh God, the rest of her was softening like butter in July. And for the first time ever, the Frito pie tasted like shredded paper because every sense in her body was tuned in to the man sitting next to her.
And just when she thought it couldn’t get worse, PawPaw stood up and pulled out a pair of handcuffs.
Hadley’s stomach sank, and it took everything she had not to holler out “no.”
“I had brought these for Derek and Adalyn,” PawPaw said.
Maybe her sister had given her fiancé a heads-up. What PawPaw had planned was best avoided at all costs.
“However, after a discussion with Louise,” he went on, “we think we came up with the perfect alternative for the family tradition.”
Unease creeped across her skin, and Hadley’s stomach sank. It took everything she had not to slide under the picnic table and hide.
Her grandpa beamed at her. “Will and Hadley, these are for you.”
Oh God, kill me now.
…
Dinner had just moved into creepy no-one-can-hear-you-scream-out-here territory. Will might have made a break for it, but he was hemmed in on the bench by Weston on one side and Hadley on the other.
“Oh my God,” Hadley grumbled under her breath. “Why is my entire family so embarrassing?”
Will leaned closer to her and lowered his voice. “Embarrassing or homicidal?”
She shot him a side-eye glare, then turned her attention back to her grandpa. “PawPaw, it doesn’t work like that.”
“Like what?” Will asked, wondering which direction he needed to go running to get to the highway and if he could manage a decent pace in these damn cowboy boots.
PawPaw shrugged, his grin amiable. “Sometimes you have to improvise, Trigger. This is the only way to kick off a game-night Ironman.”
“Who made up that rule?” Hadley asked as she looked around at the rest of her family who were eating their Frito pie and—going by their amused expressions and unabashed gawking—obviously enjoying the free floor show.
PawPaw grinned, playing his part like he’d been born for it. “I did.”
Will’s palms were getting sweaty, and even though he knew it probably wasn’t bad in the family-of-serial-killers kind of way, still he had no clue what in the world was going on. “Can someone please explain to me what this is about?”
“It’s the couple’s riddle,” PawPaw said, as if that explained everything. “Now, hold out your arm.”
Everyone except for Hadley had their gaze glued to Will, pinning him to the hardwood bench of the picnic table. Stephanie and Gabe had that adoring look parents in the movies had when their kid went to prom. Adalyn was smiling at them, but her lips were pressed so tight together, they were lined in white. Knox, Weston, Aunt Louise, and the cousins were all staring at him with the glee of someone in one of the popcorn-eating gifs.
“Not sure I want to do that.” Translation, there was no way in hell he was going to do that.
“It’s nothing bad, just…well, my family.” Hadley sighed and held out her arm toward her grandpa. “Go ahead and do it.”
There was no way this was a good idea, but if she was willing to go with it, he wasn’t going to chicken out. Pushing aside his misgivings, Will held out his arm so it was next to Hadley’s. PawPaw didn’t waste any time, snapping the handcuffs closed around their wrists.
“And we have our official couple to solve the riddle. I hope it goes better for you than it did when Hadley and Adalyn had to solve their riddle,” PawPaw said, shaking his head. “It took them three hours.”
Hadley let out a laughing gasp. “We were twelve.”
“It was what was black and white and read all over,” PawPaw said.
“PawPaw,” Adalyn said with a chuckle. “We read news apps, not newspapers, and back then we didn’t even do that.”
“Enough yapping. Give them the riddle,” Aunt Louise said before popping a corn chip in her mouth and crunching it loudly.
PawPaw rolled his eyes at his sister who, by the looks of things, had been telling him exactly what she thought he should be doing with his life for the better part of sixty years; then he turned back to Hadley and Will. “You ready?”
Hadley let out a sigh of resignation. “Yes.”
“I sizzle like bacon and am made with an egg,” PawPaw said. “I have a backbone but not a single good leg. When I peel like an onion, I still manage to remain whole. And even though I can be long like a flagpole, I can fit in a hole. What am I?”
“Diner food,” Will said without even having to consider.
Easy answer. The key with riddles was to never overthink it.
PawPaw made a loud, blaring horn sound. “Wrong.”
“Shhhhhhhhhh!” Hadley nudged him in the ribs with her elbow just hard enough to get her point across. “We only get two more guesses. No more answering without consultation.”
“How was I supposed to know that?” he asked, scooting in closer to her so they were too close for a repeat—the fact that they were now aligned thigh to hip to shoulder was an unavoidable side effect. It wasn’t the reason he’d moved closer. Although, yeah, he’d shot Matt a how-you-like-me-now smirk when he’d done it. He never told anyone that he wasn’t an asshole. “It’s not exactly a common occurrence to handcuff two people together until they can solve a riddle.”
“Exactly,” Hadley said, her voice a little breathier than it had been a minute ago. “Welcome to the family.”
He spent the rest of dinner hyperaware of Hadley. The brush of her shoulder against his. The citrusy scent of her shampoo. And the weight of the metal handcuff against his wrist went from cold and strange to familiar by the time he was eating the chocolate cake. He and Hadley were still finishing up dessert when the rest of the family started clearing the table and going inside to set up for game night.
He lifted his cuffed left hand, picking up her right with it. “So what happens now?”
“We’re stuck together until we solve it or tonight’s game ends, whichever comes first,” she said but didn’t scoot over so there was more space between them, despite the fact that they now had the entire bench to themselves.
He followed his own logical advice not to read too much into that. His dick did not, thickening against his thigh as if he had all the control of a teenager sitting next to the hot chick in biology class.
“And this is totally normal for your family?” he asked, grateful in that moment that his voice didn’t crack like it had when he had been in high school.