Couple nights later, the Heartfillia family and Dragneel family were all back from the beach and went through with their original schedule. Layla went back to working in her bakery, the kids went to school, Igneel went to work, and Grandine was back at her housewife duties. And also her match-making duties which were getting even more difficult with the way Natsu and Lucy were. They were always having some kind of argument whenever they were near each other and it was horrible.

It was like having a civil war happen right before their eyes and it was unpleasant. Even though she thought the two were going to be a bit more civil after what happened at the beach but it was still the same.

Natsu just teased her more often.

Letting a loud and heavy sigh fly out of her lips, Grandine put down the glass cup she was wiping dry on the counter top to make Lucy glance her way.

"Is everything okay, Mrs. Dragneel?"

"Yeah, everything is okay." She lied as she went back on wiping her belongings as Lucy and Romeo eyed her weirdly. "Just a bit bored."

Just then Natsu came down the stairs with his hands shoved in his pockets, the look of boredom and tiredness stretched across his face as he offered a sweet smile to Romeo. When his eyes caught Lucy's, it turned into a cocky smirk making her scowl.

"What's going on, housemaid?"

"Natsu!" Grandine scowled making Lucy roll her eyes as she finished wiping a plate dry as the male went over to the fridge to grab the water to walk over to where they were drying cups to grab one. "Apologize right now, mister."

"She's fine with it, mom. It's called teasing." He said as his eyes flickered towards the blonde as she stuck her tongue out at him making him scoff. "What are you? Five years old?"

"Says the five year old." She shot him a dirty look as he snorted while taking a drink. "Is that your best comeback?"

"What do you want me to do? Go all out?"

"Why not? Let's have a war right here, right now. Bring it, baby." He smirked as she rolled her eyes. "What happened to being nice?"

"I'm teasing. That's a nice gesture. It's what friends do."

"We're not friends."

"Did you hear that, mom? I'm trying to be nice and she shot me down so you can't blame me for this one." He snickered as he turned around and walked out of the kitchen as he placed his palm on top of Romeo's head before disappearing.

Meanwhile, Lucy was muttering indecent words under her breath as Grandine eyed the entrance where her son was.

She honestly didn't know what was going on anymore.

Just then, her phone started to ring making her huff and pick it up, placing it against her ear to answer it. "Hello?" She paused to allow the other person to speak and she suddenly got a bright idea, a wide grin spreading across her face as she bit her lip to force it down. "Oh my, really?! Oh my god! I'll be over soon! Yes, yes! Yes! See you soon! Yes, bye-bye!" She quickly hung up as she faked looking worried as she clutched her phone close to her chest. Romeo and Lucy stared at her in confusion as she muttered oh no and what am I going to do? Under her breath.

Quickly running off, she paused right at the bottom of the stairs as Natsu was just half-way up, the male stopping as he watched his mother pace around worried before disappearing into her room.

—X—

Putting on matching heels, Grandine had a face-splitting grin on her face as she ushered Romeo to hurry as Lucy and Natsu stood by the door, watching her.

"I'm sorry this is so sudden, Lucy! This is urgent so take care of yourselves before we come back and eat dinner, okay?!"

"Y—yes ma'am." Lucy said still a bit confused as she watched how Grandine tugged on Romeo. "Hurry!"

"Why isn't Natsu-Nii coming with us?!"

"Because he needs to study!" She shot him a look as she flashed another smile towards Lucy before quickly dragging Romeo towards her car which she practically threw her son inside. "Don't wait up, honey! Behave and good luck!"

"O—okay..." Lucy muttered as she blew a kiss towards the two high schoolers before driving off leaving the two alone.

Lucy and Natsu both awkwardly stood in the driveway as it was now just the two of them alone in the big empty house for who knows long. It was all quiet and still until Natsu sighed and started to walk away making her stop him.

"Where are you going?"

"Going to go out and buy something to eat." He answered as if it was the most obvious thing in the world making her gasp. "I'll cook for you!" She cried out a bit too enthusiastically as he stared down at her. "Because... I'm grateful..."

"You?" He asked as a small scoff came out of his mouth making her frown and playful smack his bicep. "Hey... I'm not the daughter of a great baker and cook for no reason! I'll cook!"

—X—

"What a dick... doubting my cooking skills... I'll show him." Lucy muttered under her breath as she flipped through a cooking book full of recipes to make while she cursed and angrily spoke to herself.

She suddenly stopped when a meal caught her eyes, her hands reaching down to pick the book up and read the title and description.

"Hawaiian Locomoco?" She read out loud as her hazel orbs went from left to right. "Nice and warm rice with chewy beef drenched in gravy sauce... with the yoke from the egg as sauce for the beef, this is really a great and easy family dinner meal..." She stared at the picture for a good second or two before a smile broke out on her lips.

"Alright, Natsu Dragneel, prepare to be blown away."

Sitting at Layla's bakery with fresh bread and pastries everywhere, the family was all seated around a counter as they happily drank tea and smoothies, eating the lovely and delicious creations.

"What... this is the super urgent meeting you had to attend?" Romeo asked as Grandine smirked and took a large sip of her fresh smoothie. "Yes... isn't mommy a great actor? The lady down the street called and she must be so confused from what I said to her!"

"Well you suddenly called me over—I thought something happened!" Igneel said as he was eating as well, dressed in his suit as his blazer hung from the chair as his sleeves were rolled up. Grandine only giggled as she pulled a piece of bread off the pastry.

Suddenly, Igneel pointed at Layla making her lean in and smile. "Lucy is seriously a great gal."

"Yes, Lucy is amazing! She is a great woman with much strength!"

Layla merely giggled and blushed embarrassed as she got all the great praise from her childhood friends. The adults all laughed together and returned to eating once more when Grandine suddenly got a glimpse of a picture hung on the wall right by the register. She recognized Layla and small Lucy with another man standing right next to her, a protective hand clamped on Layla's and Lucy's shoulder.

Layla realized what she was staring at and smiled as she remembered that day. "Oh, that day was when I first inherited this place from my mother. Though, she wasn't there at that moment, Jude and Lucy was there. We took it right in front of this store and I think Lucy was about the age... four?"

"Do you ever think about getting re-married, Lay?" Igneel asked making her blink and look away in uneasiness as she shrugged. She offered a small smile as she looked back at the red-haired male. "If a guy like you comes around, I'm sure I would, Iggy."

"Stop flirting with me, Lay." Igneel teased as the adults all started to laugh once more making Romeo feel a bit uncomfortable.

"But really... what are you going to do when Lucy gets married? You'll be so lonely." Grandine said as Layla perked up. "Married? Well... I don't know about that but... of course... she'll want to be independent and leave me..."

Suddenly Grandine looked like she got a great idea and gasped, looking over at her husband and back at Layla. "Lonely? You can just live with us!"

"H—huh?"

"Hmm? Sounds great, doesn't it?"

"Erm," Igneel sounded a bit uneasy as he exchanged looks with Layla as Grandine giggled. "It'll be fun!"

"I mean... I guess so... but then Lucy would be all alone with Natsu."

Grandine suddenly giggled and covered her palm with her hands, offering a sly smile towards the two others. "Purposely... I left the two alone back at home." She said making Layla and Igneel both tense up at the comment as they exchanged looks once more. "Geez, those two always fighting and arguing... I got so sick of it... I heard... if you just leave a couple alone together for a while... everything get's sorted out with time." She winked making the two awkwardly look away.

Igneel coughed awkwardly and scowled slightly as he reached over and placed his palms on the side of Romeo's head to block out hearing.

Coming down the stairs, Natsu had a scowl on his face as he rounded the corner of where his kitchen and living room connected.

"Hey!" He shouted. "Are you going to feed me or not—?!" He started to say but stopped as the smoke started to suffocate him making him cough and cover his mouth and nose. Lucy suddenly backed away and dropped her spatula as Natsu's scream scared her, her eyes wide as she looked a bit embarrassed.

"Hey," he coughed as he tried waving the smoke away. "what the hell are you doing?"

"Erm... sorry... I kind of uh, burnt the meat just a... tad bit... just a tad." She smiled nervously as Natsu gave her a bewildered look.

Soon, the couple was seated down at the dinner table with a sloppy burnt meat and sticky rice on a plate. It didn't look editable and Lucy awkwardly sat across from Natsu as he stared down at his plate of food. He looked a bit irked and disturbed by the creation on his plate.

"What..." he spoke as he rubbed the temple. "is this horrendous piece of crap called anyways?"

Realizing he was speaking to her, she looked up and bit her lip. "H—Hawaiian Locomoco..."

"Hawaiian what?"

"Loco... moco..."

Offering a glance towards the female, he picked up his fork and stabbed through the burnt meat as he picked it up and showed the blonde how dark it was. "Do you call this slightly burnt?" He asked as Lucy silently stared down her plate, jumping in her spot as he dropped his fork making it clash with the glass plate. "This isn't even rice... it's more like rice cake."

Leaning in to observe his plate, she glanced up at him. "What? You don't like rice cake?"

"Hey!" He stood up, slamming his palms against the table making her reel back and flinch. "Do you expect me to eat this?"

Looking down at her own plate of food, Lucy frowned and felt bad as he sighed and grabbed hers and his plate, dumping the food out in the trashcan before putting the plates back in the sink.

"Wash the plates for me while I cook." He ordered making her look up in surprise as he went to the fridge and grabbed a couple of eggs. Soon, he was beating them with a fork while he started to heat up the pan.

As Lucy re-washed the dishes and dried them, them to the pink-haired jock who surprisingly, knew how to cook.

He poured some beaten eggs into the fry pan as a sizzling sound was heard, soon putting in some sliced up ham in the middle of the egg to fold the flaps and make an omelet. He grabbed the plate he used earlier and placed the omelet into the plate, going on to do the second one.

In matter of minutes, he was done and he placed two plates full of omelet and a side of fresh salad at the table.

Lucy came over with the jar full of water and placed it right between them as she witnessed the perfectly made omelet that was right in front of her. She glanced at the male who sat in front of her as he was already eating, the blonde sitting down to stare in awe.

"Wow... it's actually looks amazing... I didn't know you could cook."

"I can't and I don't."

"But you just did,"

"I can make easy things like these. And I only can make breakfast foods so it doesn't really count," he said as he eyed the blonde in front of him who took her spoon and carefully cut her omelet corner off to put it in her mouth. Her eyes went wide with amazement as the flavors burst in her mouth, her taste buds tingling. "Mmm... this is good! How'd you make this? You made the eggs perfectly and it didn't even take you thirty minutes!"

"It's because I'm talented." He answered as he grabbed his cup of water and took of sip of it. "and smart."

"You're not smart."

"That's why I can cook better than you."

"Who says you need brains to cook?"

"You need to know the correct temperatures and what mixes with what, stupid. That's why you burnt all your food." He scoffed making her scowl at him. "And you say not to doubt you because you're the daughter of a baker and cook."

Ignoring the last comment, she smiled at him. "So, I guess my mom is pretty smart since she's a great cook!" She giggled as she was about to eat more until she realized something. "Wait... does this mean Dan is smart, too?"

At this, Natsu stopped doing whatever he was doing to finally look up at the female in front of him correctly.

"Dan is a very good cook, too!"

He scoffed as he continued to eye her, absentmindedly stabbing his omelet. "Good cook my ass..."

"No, I'm serious!" She frowned at his mean comment as she eyed Natsu seriously. "At one of the school festivals, Dan had a food stand and he sold a lot of rice dumping soup! It was so good."

"Hey," he stopped her making her pause and raise a brow. "how is rice dumpling soup cooking?"

"Making those is much harder! People like those more. His dumplings were on point and his rice cakes were so soft and chewy! His soup just had the correct amount of salt and pepper and gosh, it was one of the greatest rice dumping soups I had—"

Suddenly, Natsu tossed down his spoon on the table making Lucy stop and jump in her seat, her eyes wide as he shot her a glare.

He stood up and grabbed his plate making her quirk a brow. "You're already done? You didn't even eat all of it!" She said as he suddenly reached forward and grabbed her plate, too. "Hey! I'm not finished! I only had one bite!" She cried out as he walked over to the full sink and tossed the plates in the sink as he scowled towards her. "Wash the dishes and scrub the ashes away." He ordered before walking away making her frown and pout as she sucked on her spoon.

"But I really just had one bite..."

—X—

Sitting on her queen-sized pink bed, Lucy let out a sigh as she just got off the phone with her friend making her stretch her limps and let out a moan as her bone cracked.

It was almost eleven and nobody was home, yet. It was still her and Natsu and it was so far, pretty fun. They didn't fight as much as she thought they would since they were either in their rooms or anywhere else but together. Though, it was still pretty weird when he suddenly got pissed off and threw their dinner into the sink when she spoke about Dan's cooking.

Why did he act like that in the first place?

Deciding to brush it off, she decided to get ready for bed and read a bit of her novel that she got from Levy couple days ago. She was in a real interesting part and she was excited to read it some more. But as she went over to her desk to get it, she realized it wasn't there making her body run cold.

"Where did I put that? Oh my god, if somebody sees that book... I'm dead." She muttered as she started to frantically look around, picking up books and papers to see if it was there but it wasn't making her freak out.

"Shit, where is it?!" She cried out as she tried thinking of some place it could be. She only had it upstairs since that's where the adults really don't come and she only read it in her room or the bathroom.

"Bathroom!" She gasped as she opened her door and ran over to the bathroom to see if it was there but she realized that it wasn't making her face pale and her legs tremble. "Please don't tell me he took it." She muttered as she closed her eyes shut and prayed to whoever was up there that it wasn't him.

Tiptoeing towards his closed door, Lucy slowly and quietly opened his door to peek in the room. The nightlight was on and the said male was seated on his couch, his back towards her as he looked down at something that was on his lap.

She once again, prayed it wasn't her book since her book choices weren't really... kid-material.

And as if somebody hated her, Natsu suddenly raised his arms to stretch and Lucy got the glimpse of her book in his hands and she cried out making him turn around and look at the blonde who was gawking at him.

"What the hell?!" She shrieked as she ran inside and tried snatching the book from his hands but he was faster and pulled it away before she grabbed it. Her fingertip brushed against it and it was gone as she face-planted on his sofa, her body bent awkwardly as Natsu stared at her questioningly.

"What are you doing?"

"What am I doing?! What are you doing?! You don't go reading people's books! This is mine!" Lucy shouted as she stood up and tried grabbing the book from him once more but he easily moved his arm away as she moved her body and threw her arms around. "Stop! This is mine!"

"Oh, this porno book, you mean?"

"It's not a porno book!" She cried out as her face exploded in flames making him smirk. "If it's not a porno book, why are you blushing so hard?"

"I—I don't know! It's not a porno book!"

"Yeah?" He asked as he quirked a brow at her blushing figure before he cleared his throat and looked down, reading a sentence. "My core was aching for him as he traced his finger pads against my milky flesh, goose bumps following his trail. I could already feel his hard-on and the fact that we were trusting our tongues against each other didn't make it—"

"STOP!" Lucy screamed as she tried grabbing the book from him once more as he started to laugh and move the book out of her reach.

Soon, she was shoving her breasts into his face making him growl and grab her wrist, yanking her towards the other side of the couch as she yelped in surprise. She looked up at the male above her as her eyes were wide as dinner plates, her body growing numb as she felt how close this jock was to her and what kind of position they were in.

"Hey Heartfillia... what kind of books do you own?"

"W—w—why does it concern you?"

"Do you buy these kinds of books for some sort of pleasure? Do you imagine somebody is doing these kinds of things to you while reading?" He asked in a low husky voice as he leaned down closer making her cheeks flare up and her head turn sideways. "You're a dirty girl, aren't you?"

"W—why are you doing this?"

"Why? Thought you wanted this, Luce." He smirked as he noticed how uncomfortable she looked. "That's why you're here. And that's why you have this book with my name on the back."

"W—what?!" She cried out as she whipped her head to look at him as he snickered and flipped to the last page to show it really did say his name with a bunch of hearts around it. It wasn't even her handwriting and she knew Levy put her up to this.

She took a mental note to go kill her, later.

"T—that wasn't me! I—it was—!"

"Stop lying," he cut her off as he leaned in even closer. "you know it was you."

"I—it's not like that, really!"

"Really? C'mon... it's just the two of us in this house... we can make a lot of noise if you want." He smirked making her stiffen up. One hand was placed on his shoulder as another clutched the front of her shirt, watching how he got even closer and closer towards her face making her eyes flicker down at her lips before his eyes. Her heart pounded loudly in her chest and she swore she saw faint.

"N—Natsu... wait! I think—I think we should, uh, I think we should accurately date first before we, uh, y'know..."

"Accurately?" He repeated as he started to grin, amused. "What kind of person accurately dates? Who says that?"

Natsu pulled away from said girl and stood up, chuckling as he went over towards the single chair in the corner and sat down. He soon burst into laughter as Lucy sat up and blushed in embarrassment, biting down on her lip as she realized this was just a set up.

"Accurately... who the hell dates accurately?" He asked himself as he started to laugh even more making Lucy quickly stand up and bolt out of there.

She quickly shut his door and pressed her back against it as her face was still flaming hot, her heart racing as she wondered if that actually happened. Her eyes flickered towards the staircase when she realized somebody was standing there and she quickly ran to her room as Romeo stared at her in wonder.

He then went to his shared room and opened the door to see his older brother reading some kind of book in the corner of the room.

"Hey, what's wrong with Lucy-Nee? Her face was red as a tomato!"

"Was she really?" He asked, pretending he didn't even know about it. "I wonder what happened." He smirked to himself before he went back to reading the lovely interesting book.

notes: I'm still really mad about how I can't upload any new stories and I'm thinking about moving accounts... what do you guys think? :I
anyways, I really hope you guys loved this chapter because I did. :) sorry for the long wait, I hope you're doing great!

Leave a lovely review. ;* x