“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.