Defy Fate (Fated Duet 1)

His gruff laugh cut us off. “You might wanna get that.”

I groaned and reached over for my bag, seeing my mom’s name on the screen of my cell. “Crap.” I climbed off his lap and swung open the door, realizing where we were. “It’s my mom.”

Cade raised a brow at me, and slowly maneuvered himself out of his car, exuding a calm I could only dream of feeling. How the hell did he do that? “Come on,” Cade said with a grin on his face. “I’ll walk you inside.”

He held his hand out to me, but I didn’t take it. This wasn’t the time or place, and when I shook my head at it, he looked down and frowned. “I keep forgetting.” He blew out a breath, and we both started to walk across the lot. “I hate that I can’t do the things with you that I really want to do.”

I stared up at him. “And what would that be?”

He blinked down at me. “Dates…Movies, dinner, long walks on the beach.”

“We don’t live by a beach.” I pursed my lips to hold in my laugh.

“You know what I mean.” Cade pulled open the door to the diner. “All that romantic shit.”

“Ahhh.” I placed my hand on my chest. “Be still my beating heart.”

Cade laughed, and I smiled wide at him. Only he could pull that smile out of me.

“Finally!” Mom shouted, and both of us whipped our heads around to face her as she practically ran across the diner to us. “We’ve been waiting forever. What took so long?”

I swallowed and opened my mouth, preparing to lie to her for the thousandth time, but Cade beat me to it. “My fault. I had some paperwork to finish off.”

“Oh.” Mom waved her hand in the air. “Never mind, you’re here now.” She twirled around and headed toward the right side of the diner where the booths were. “You joining us today, Cade?”

“Erm…I actually need to—”

“Good. Come sit.”

I snickered at the way Mom cut him off. “You won’t win with her. You should already know that.”

Cade raised a brow and dipped down to whisper, “Why does this feel like I’m meeting your parents for the first time?” I rolled my eyes but couldn’t hold in my snort. “Should I have brought flowers?”

“Shut up.” I walked ahead of him and slid into the booth, but I wasn’t expecting Cade to sit next to me.

“I’ll go get you kids some drinks,” Mom said, and spun back toward the main counter.

“Kids,” Cade mumbled. “I haven’t been a kid for nearly a decade.”

I raised a brow and turned to face him. “You’ll always be a kid to her.”

“Yeah.” His lips slowly spread into a smile. “I spent so much time here growing up.” He glanced around the diner and then stopped on my face. “Lola tutored me here when I was failing my classes. We’d always have a shake and fries after.”

“Lola tutored you?” I asked, surprised by this tidbit of information.

Cade laughed and swiped his hand through his hair, making it stick up. “Yeah. I was failing English and math, and Lola was already working here and looking to tutor, so my mom hired her.” He shook his head. “I never thought she’d end up with my dad.”

“That’s not how they met, though, is it?”

“Nah.” Cade looked away from me as Mom walked across the diner. “They met when he was undercover.”

I’d heard the stories of how they met, and couldn’t help but wonder how Cade felt about it all. He was only a teenager at the time when his whole life was turned upside down.

“So…” Mom trailed off as she placed our drinks in front of us and slid in the booth opposite us. “How was your day?”

“Fine,” I told her, the same thing I always said. There was never much to tell her about my day, mainly because I didn’t want her to know. If I gave her a rundown of every little thing that happened at school, she’d never stop asking.

Mom nodded like she’d expected me to say that. “Cade?”