Samuel was about to ask his mother what was wrong, but almost as quickly as the shocked look on her face was there, it was gone. She ended whatever call or message she was listening to and set her phone back down on the counter. Turning around she saw that he was there and she smiled at him.
"Sam, is everything okay?" She asked as she went back over to the stove to finish putting breakfast together. She was making hash browns, eggs, and toast with a fresh strawberry jam for breakfast.
"That's what I was just about to ask you." He replied back. She shook her head at him as she flipped the eggs in the skillet.
"Everything is fine. I got a voicemail from a number I didn't recognize and with family coming as well as your father being out, I was worried something might've happened but it turned out to just be one of those warranty scam calls." She replied brushing it with a light laugh. Even though she was acting normal now, Samuel wasn't so quick to believe that was all it had been.
"Okay.. Do you need help with brining anything out?" He asked seeing that she had almost finished cooking everything.
"If you want to start setting the table, your father will probably be back soon." She replied as the toaster went off signaling that the last four pieces of toast were done.
"No problem, I'll just go get Lena real quick." Samuel replied as he stepped out of the kitchen.
Lena was stilling sitting in the same spot that he had left her in except now she was looking at a small box that had been wrapped in silver wrapping paper with a golden bow on it.
"Breakfast is ready if you want to come into the kitchen while I'm setting the table." He told her causing her to take her attention off of the box and look up at him.
"Where do you want me to put this, or rather, is there a special place that everyone else will be putting their gifts?" She asked.
"You can give it to my mom if you want, she set everything up so I'm sure she knows where the best place to keep it is for now until everyone else arrives with their gifts and such." Samuel replied. He was curious as to what kind of gift that she had gotten him or rather was required to bring, but the size of the box told him nothing beyond what the size of the item was.
"Alright." She replied as she stood up, brushing her hair out of her face to keep it from annoying her as she followed Samuel into the kitchen. The princess was mindful to not say anything that might come across as rude since everything that he and his family did at their house was completely different from what she grew up being used to.
"Hello dear, you can sit right there if you want. Sam usually sits in the chair next to that one so you can guys can sit together while we eat breakfast." his mother told her as she pointed to a spot at the table where an extra charge had been pulled up."
"Thank you, Mrs. Foster." Lena replied as she took the seat the table. She felt out of place with Samuel and his mother both taking care of the table while she sat there and did nothing.
"You know Lena dear, you don't have to address me like that if you don't want to. You're going to be my daughter-in-law soon so you can address me as mother if you prefer." Something flashed in Lena's eyes when she said this, but neither of them noticed because they weren't paying attention to her face.
"Thank you, I will keep that in mind." She replied.
"Do I need to wake up my younger siblings?" Samuel had hardly asked the question before thumping could be heard on the stairs and two kids came running down and into the kitchen. They stopped though when they realized that there was someone they didn't know sitting at the table.
"Stranger danger." The little girl whispered as she she inched her way over to the safety of her mother. Lena raised her eyebrow at this, not certain where the idea of this 'stranger danger' the little girl said came from me. The boy who appeared to be the slightly older of the two was a bit more bold.
"Who are you?" He asked as he stared at Lena intently. She remembered that Samuel had told her he had siblings, but she didn't realize that they were so much younger than him.
"Carl, Jessie, this is Lena, she's my girlfriend." Samuel introduced. He decided to go with girlfriend because he doubted that they would really understand what 'fiancé' meant. Jessie, the little girl still stood, hiding slightly behind her mother while looking at her older brother.
"You never said anything about having a girlfriend." she told him, though it came out more as 'gillfliend.' as she was currently missing one of her front teeth.
"That's because we only just recently started going out." Lena replied as she looked between the two children.
"I'm sorry, this is a little bit different for them, they're not so used to being around strangers, you'll have to excuse their lack of manners." Sam's mother apologized, offering a smile as she tried to encourage her daughter to greet the younger woman.
"Carl, why don't you greet her first so your sister can see that there's nothing to worry about?" Sam suggested, knowing that his little sister wasn't going to be so easy to win over. Carl still looked at the princess suspiciously and she stared back at him with a similarly leveled looked. She wasn't used to being around kids. Even though her cousins were younger than her, it was still only by three years, not almost ten.
"I'm Carl, you better be nice to my older brother and family." He said, approaching her stiffly before sticking his much smaller hand out for her to shake. She replied by offering him an amused smirk as she shook his hand more gently than she usually did others.
"And I'm Lena. I'm not sure what ideas you have, but being your brother's girlfriend, I have no reason to not be nice to you your family." Jessie still didn't seem all that convinced even after her brother had greeted him and took his seat at the table across from her. She wanted to stay close to her mother until she had more time to determine if the stranger poised any threat or not.
Lena didn't mind this. She would prefer kids who kept their space around her rather having to worry about them being all over her with her not knowing how to handle them. Eventually she was going to have kids, but she would have time before then to understand how to deal with children, plus she would be raising them herself which created a totally different dynamic than this.
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