Keeping Her (The Lexington Series Book 2)

by Belle Winters

  We went inside and entered the foyer with shiny hardwood floors. I trailed off to the right first and walked into a spacious living room area. I turned and went to my left and found the dining room area. There was a chandelier hanging in the room and I smiled. It reminded me of Dean’s home. I continued walking down a hall and passed a half bathroom, I’m assuming for guests. I kept down the short hall into the next room and passed a pantry going to the kitchen. I ran my hands over the electrical oven and took in the perfect black marble of the countertops. I walked away from there and to the center of the room to the serving bar. The countertop was the same black marble. I was happy with the amount of cabinet space in here that I had to work with. I walked further and there was an open section for another seating area but it seemed more casual. There were French doors there that opened up to the backyard. I decided to explore that later. I walked into another open space that appeared to be a family room. The living room and dining room that I first saw in the front appeared to be for nice things and show for when you have company over. Back here it’s like where you can just be normal. There were floor to ceiling windows with shutters so that you can block the view from the outside. This room was bigger than the living room and I could only imagine what they’re going to put in here. I kept walking and there were 2 steps leading to a door. I opened it and it was a large bedroom with an ensuite bathroom. I realized that I basically rounded the entire first floor since on the other side of this room had to be the front living room. After thorough review I spun on my heels and hightailed it back to the foyer. The stairs were a dark brown wood unlike the rest of the flooring but it blended well. They were short steps that went up in a curve. They were encased by glass walling as it disappeared from view. I followed the steps up to the top level. Straight ahead of me was a laundry room and I sighed. That was fucking convenient. Right next to it on my left was a bedroom with a bathroom. I walked out and followed the path. It was open on both sides with the same glass encasing. I could see right down into the family room and even the foyer from here. It wasn’t narrow but it wasn’t large either. Anyone down there looking up would see me now. There were two bedrooms on this side with high ceilings and a shared bathroom. The larger room had window seats, but it was barely larger. So far the three bedrooms I saw were all freaking large. I went back out and towards the last door on the top floor. It had to be the master bedroom. It was large with floor to ceiling windows with the shutters. There were French doors that led to a balcony overlooking the backyard. There was an arched opening that led to a pretty big sitting room. There was a large walk in closet that could fit 10x’s the stuff I owned. Probably more if I’m being honest. I walked back into the main bedroom and into the closed door that was another bathroom. There was a claw foot bath, shower, His and her sinks, and a linen closet. I examined the tub more closely and saw that it had jets like a Jacuzzi.

  I turned to Nick and Landon, “My room!” I squealed and they laughed.

  Landon shook his head. “No babe, our room. We’re sharing.”

  Nick sighed, “I’m taking the one downstairs it’s big and well on the opposite side of the house on another floor. I don’t want to hear the two of you.” He told us and we all laughed.

  I looked at Landon. “We could put Max in the room right on the outside of ours or we can put him across the floor?” I asked him.

  He thought about it for a minute. “I think we should put him next to us. We’ll use the rooms across as guest rooms for Mel and Erica or whatever.” He said.

  Nick cleared his throat. “You mean Erica right?” he asked.

  I laughed and Landon sighed, “You know what I meant. And that room on the side is bigger, so depending we could always move him into a larger room… but it truly isn’t that much bigger.” He told me and I nodded in agreement.

  Landon grabbed my hand. “We’ve seen the place now we all need to go to our rooms and pack our shit. We need to get up early. It appears we have a lot of shopping to do.” We agreed and all headed out and went to campus. When I broke the news to Naiyla, I just said my dad got me a place off campus. She was sad but she’ll have the place to herself. It didn’t take me long to pack especially since she helped. I crashed shortly after that it’s been a long damn day.

  I woke up the next day excited. I called Landon and turns out I woke him up. He laughed at my enthusiasm and said he was getting ready and would be here in an hour with Nick. I jumped up and made me something to eat then hopped in the shower. I was just throwing on my shirt when there was a knock on the door. I skipped to the door and threw it open. Nick was standing against the wall across from the door while Landon was leaning on his arm against the door jam. It felt like I was looking at the cover of a GQ magazine with these two. Three girls walked down the hall and I saw they couldn’t get enough of the sight they made. Nick with his messy brown hair and chocolate eyes, his dimples were deep and were hiding perfectly straight white teeth. He was tall over 6 feet and he had some amazing abs and a great ass if I do say so myself. Landon’s arms had gotten more muscular over the last few months. He definitely has a man’s body, all tall and lean. Just looking at him in his shirt you could tell that whatever it was covering was impressive, and boy was the six pack he had impressive. His blond hair and intense green eyes and those dimples made up his strong angular face.

  I heard a throat clear and my eyes snapped up. They were just trailing to his crotch to check out that package. Nick was watching with an amused look, “well would you two mind waiting until later to eye fuck each other? We do have things to do.” He commented.

  I smiled sheepishly. “Let me grab my jacket.” I said and went to my room to get it. When I came back to the door Landon and Nick were talking and the three girls were still in the hallway standing in front of one of the rooms a few doors down… staring. Well hell I can’t blame them. I stepped out the room and closed and locked it behind me. When I was done Landon leaned down and kissed my temple before grabbing my hand.

  We hit a few furniture stores first where we got beds and dressers, couches, tables, and well everything. Afterwards they dragged me to best buy so they could get all their guy things. Humongous TV’s, video games, DVD players, and who knows what else. It was my turn and I dragged them to target. We were basically starting from scratch.

  “Lucy, seriously? How many damn towels do we need?” Nick complained.

  I scowled, “You want to be able to wipe your ass when you get out the shower?” I asked him.

  He rolled his eyes, “fine.” He went down the aisle and came back 5 minutes later with like 40 different towel and washrag sets and tossed it in the cart. I rolled my eyes. I pushed the cart into the bathroom aisle and contemplated which sets to get to decorate the bathrooms. There were four and half of them.

  This time it was Landon, “Lucy does it really matter? Can we just get one set of each color and call it day?” he asked.

  I frowned and put my hands on my hips. “No we cannot. Yes I am the only girl living there but there is damn well going to be some pretty in this place. Now stop complaining and let me think.” I fussed. He sighed and walked down the aisle looking at stuff.

  By this point the cart was full and we needed another one. Nick took the full cart while Landon got a new one. We entered the kitchen stuff next and Landon grinned. “I like this aisle. This is for all the cooking stuff.” He said and I snorted.

  I proceeded to pick out a bunch of pots and pans. I made sure to get a deep fryer, crock pot, blender, toaster, and vegetable chopper for when I was in a rush, electric can opener, and a ton of other things the second cart was super full from that aisle alone so I went to get a third. I encouraged them to get toilet paper, paper towels, and cleaning supplies from here. Of course I had to make sure that we had all the equipment we needed to clean the different surfaces in the place. We checked out after that and loaded the stuff in the car. We needed to drop it off to make space in the car. Landon the big baby that he is wanted to go somewhere else f
or sheets and things for the bedroom so we went to his place next.

  “Lucy, I would love to see you wrapped up in these.” Landon told me with an eyebrow waggle. He was holding up some expensive but extremely comfortable looking red sheets. I shook my head and sighed.

  “If that’s what you want Landon.” I told him. I picked out some neutral stuff for the extra rooms and some different character stuff for Max’s room. After we got a few extra sets of bedding and curtains and stuff we headed out. We planned on moving in over the weekend since we were able to convince the other stores to have everything delivered to us over the weekend.

  Next was grocery shopping and Nick was practically bouncing on his toes. We had nothing, so again it took a couple of carts. We had to buy seasonings and food and well… everything. By the time we were done I was completely exhausted. We dropped that stuff off and put the food away then went back to campus. Landon dropped me off first and I packed up my last few things. We were going to move our stuff there early in the morning… well at least I knew I needed to be there since they were coming to install the cable and internet sometime between 9 and 11. When I was done I went to lie down and fell asleep immediately.

  My alarm went off and I rolled over with a groan. I looked at the time and saw that it was 7:30. Goddammit. I got up and showered then threw on a sweat suit with sneakers. I moved my boxes out from my room into the living room and sighed. I forgot about having to get all this shit to my car. I looked at the time and saw it was 8:15 I needed to start moving. I opened the door and pulled one of my boxes to prop it open. I went back in and decided I should start with the heavy first. I picked up the heaviest box and turned around to head out and almost died. I screamed and dropped the box because there was someone just standing in the doorway. I heard chuckling and growled.

  “You nearly killed me you dufus.” I told Landon.

  He laughed harder. “You thought we were going to make you carry this shit down four flights of stairs by yourself?” he asked.

  I sighed. “Good you’re forgiven.” I said and pecked him on the lips. I slapped his ass as he walked past me and told him, “now get your ass to work.” He chuckled again.

  I took the lightest box down and Landon took the rest. He refused to let me help any further. He already had his stuff packed in to his car and once we were done loading me up we drove over. I asked him about Nick and he laughed and I already knew the answer. His ass was still asleep.

  We got to the house and Landon unloaded our stuff into the house. I cooked us some breakfast and the cable people came by the time I was done. They setup cable in all of the bedrooms and the family room along with the internet. We waited until they left to eat. We had bought inflatable beds just in case our beds weren’t delivered until Sunday. They said with the amount of furniture we ordered it would be two separate deliveries. Landon blew one up and took out his laptop and we watched Netflix, thank you Wi-Fi. Nick arrived around 11 and with him there they took all the boxes upstairs to our rooms. The first delivery was from Best Buy and they had all of the boy’s toys. They were like two big ass kids as they walked the people from room to room for setting up the TV’s and such. When they started that, I decided to work on some other stuff. I went into the kitchen first and loaded up the dishwasher and let it run. I’m grateful it’s large because there is a ton of damn things that we bought. They’ll all need to be cleaned before being put away. While that was running I started in on the bathrooms and getting things setup in there. I put down the floor mats and put away some towels and cleaning equipment. By the time I was done, the boys were still setting up stuff, they had gotten surround sound and things so I figured it’ll be a while. I unloaded the dishwasher and put in a new batch of dishes. I put up curtains in the rooms so that everyone outside can’t see us inside, that thought was kind of fucking creepy and was bugging me. While the guys from best buy were there the people with the furniture came so I helped show them where to put everything. They had all the couches as well as a bunch of the smaller pieces like dressers, tables, night stands, lamps, etc.. When we picked out items, we did it by bedroom so I knew what room each item was for. They also had me and Landon’s bed and one for one of the guest bedrooms.

  Everyone cleared out at the same time and I was exhausted, but I decided makeup the two beds that did come. When I was finished I went down into the family room to find Landon and Nick on the couches flipping through the TV. The space was large that we still had a ton of open space even with a decent size sectional with two recliners, a love seat, a chaise lounge, and a sofa with rocking chair that I just had to have. It was a nice comfy one that I called the queen’s throne. I collapsed next to Landon and fell into his arms. They turned to Lip Sync Battle reruns and I just relaxed.

  We ordered pizza since it’s been a long day. When we decided to retire to bed, Nick looked from me to Landon then back again. “Well kids, it’s been fun but I’m going to blow up my bed and crash.” He said stretching and pointing to his room.

  I frowned. “You do realize that one of the beds for the guest bedroom is here and I made it up right?”

  He gave me a disgusted look. “So that I can overhear you two christen that room and the bed. Nope, no thank you. My room is just fine, and I can turn on the TV and tune you bastards out. Now go hump like the rabbits you are and I’ll see you in the morning.” He gave me an accusing look, “and don’t think I didn’t notice that you just cooked for you and him this morning I saw the evidence. That shit won’t fly another day just so you know that.”

  I held my hands up in surrender. “I will not neglect you again dear.” I told him sweetly. He seemed to think it over, and then nodded. He followed that up with a salute and went to his room.

  Landon wrapped his arms around me and pulled me to him. He placed a soft kiss to my lips. “Ready for bed?” he asked and I nodded. He took my hand and led me upstairs to our room. That was still a novelty to me. When we got there I looked around the room at our boxes and sighed. Tomorrow was going to be another long day because I’ll be unpacking our stuff. There was no other choice, our books and clothes and everything we need were in them. Landon came up behind me and placed a kiss behind my ear. “What’s wrong baby?” he whispered.

  I turned to look up at him. “Moving is exhausting.” I confessed with a pout.

  He chuckled and then grinded against me. “Lucy…” he trailed off.

  I smiled. “Landon?”

  He leaned down until his lips were touching my ear. “Baby, I want you.” He said and my entire body tingled.

  Through the lust coursing through my body I giggled. “What’s so funny?” he asked.

  I turned around to face him and wrapped my arms around his neck. “I just remembered that night. The night I had finally remembered what happened with Dan and everything, and you told me any house that I live in would be ours… well, it’s kind of happening. At home it’s still like we’re under our parents you know? Here even with Nick we’re all starting a beginning in a new home, an additional chapter. It’s a good feeling.” I admitted.

  He smiled. “I think Nick mentioned something about a christening to new homes?” he stated as a question and raised his brow. I smiled and put my hand on the back of his head bringing his mouth to mine. Nick was right we absolutely did not go right to bed.

  I cooked breakfast the next morning then headed out to pick up some items that we missed. When I got back Landon and Nick helped me unload all the bags and we set about unpacking our things. We were halfway through when the rest of the furniture was delivered. After we got through getting the rest of the furniture setup we finished unpacking. I walked through the house when everything was done and breathed out a sigh of relief. We still needed a few things but we had more than enough to be comfortable. The only thing missing really is that it that it lacked us. The walls were empty and there was nothing that resembled us. That night I went on my computer and went through my pictures. I had tons. I sent in an order to Walgreens to have the
m printed and ordered frames from amazon. I planned to hang up pictures of our lives throughout the house. There were some from our trips and parties and just random shots. I went to bed that night happy. When I woke up I went to the bathroom to relieve myself and when I came back out I noticed a change. Landon had hung up some of the paintings I made in our room. The one I painted of him from the art show was in front of the bed next to the TV and I smiled. Throughout the day I found a few more hanging up in the house but I would need to get proper frames for them. The thought made me melt a bit.

  Monday I went to my two classes that day and went back home. Both Nick and Landon had practice so they wouldn’t be home until later. I set about making dinner then got out my books to work on school work. When Nick then Landon got home they joined me in the family room. We stopped for dinner and then finished up our work before watching a little TV. When it got late we retired to bed. We fell into that routine simple enough, it was just like before. James came out on Wednesday while we were all out of class and took us to the school that Max would be attending so that we can see the school, meet the teacher, etc. James deposited Max to us on Saturday and we got him settled. It didn’t take him but a few hours to get comfortable. Of course he was crazy about the games and stuff they had bought so he played with that for a while. I went out to the supermarket and got lunch meats and things to pack him lunches for school.

  Neither Landon nor I had class Monday before 9am. Max needed to be to school by 8 so we went together to drop him off. We would both be there at 3pm to pick him up. We shouldn’t have any issues with his schedule because even with football practices I didn’t have to be on campus at either time. As the days progressed we became more and more comfortable in this new life. After the first few nights, Max was able to sleep in his room. He got over his initial anxiety of us leaving him or not being there. One evening Landon came home while I was cooking dinner and helping Max with his homework. I heard him greet Max and came up behind placing a soft kiss to my shoulder.