Teach You to Love Me (Lindon U #4)

Chapter Three

CHAPTER THREE

Matt

R esting five minutes outside the Lindon town line is the same blue and white farmhouse my parents moved into when they got married thirty years ago. Walking up the paved pathway reminds me of all my favorite things growing up—playing catch with my father, climbing the maple tree in the front yard, and helping my mother garden.

None of the other places I’ve lived compared to the house I’ve always called home. Not even the football house I share with the smelly assholes I play on the field with.

A small smile curls my lips as I open the front door, walking toward the smell of something sweet in the air that I know is coming from the kitchen.

“There he is,” Mom greets, putting the cookie tray down on the counter and peeling the oven mitt off. “Perfect timing. I need a taste tester.”

I chuckle as I round the counter and give her a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “The last thing I need is more sugar,” I tell her, studying the chocolate chip cookies spread out. “Caleb has been baking for Raine at the house and giving us the leftovers. I’ve eaten my weight in brownies and pie.”

Her eyebrows go up skeptically. “They better not be special brownies.”

Groaning, I drop my head back. “That was one time, and Mav didn’t even tell me they had anything in them.” The experience in high school was traumatizing for me. I was paranoid the entire night after eating half a tray of pot brownies without realizing what was in them. “Plus, we get drug tested at random. The last thing I want is to have something in my system and lose my scholarship.”

She pats my arm. “Good. One time was enough. Your father was so mad when he picked you up from that party…”

Not wanting to think about the night I got stoned and begged my dad to drive me to Taco Bell, only to throw up my crunch wrap five minutes later, I change the topic. “Are you doing another bake sale for the church or something?”

The woman with silver speckled into her dark hair turns and puts a few cookies from a different counter onto a paper plate for me. “I told Peggy that I’d help the booster club with their bake sale this year, although I don’t know why. The woman drives me mad. Did I tell you she complained about the petunias I planted at the library last year? It isn’t my fault there was a late frost that killed half of them.”

Before I can reply to her rant, she passes the paper plate to me. “Anyway, I made ones with peanut M they’re practically children to me.”

It’s not the first time I’ve referred to my friends as siblings. That’s how close I am to them. The whole team feels like a family. A dysfunctional one, but still a family.

And family is everything, whether they’re blood or chosen.

Which makes me think about Rachel and how far away she is from hers. I couldn’t imagine losing my mother, and to be away from the rest of my family would probably kill me. It makes me that much more grateful she’s here, willing to be part of the Dragon family when she could choose to be anywhere else.

“I’ll tell them,” I promise her. “Love you.”

I walk out with a new mission that involves a certain brunette I can’t stop thinking about, no matter how hard I try.