All or nothing (Love in chaos #1) - Missy Johnson Page 0,14

little more honest with the minor details, then I would have picked up on something being off,” I snap defensively. I glare at Mom again. “I mean, in what universe are you young, flirty, and carefree?”

“I never said any of that. And you want to talk about honesty?” Mom hoots, glowering at me. “I have two words for you, Benjamin. Nine inches. You forget I’ve seen everything.”

Billy and Ebony double over with laughter, but I’m too confused to react.

We never discussed the length of—well, anything.

“Look, I’m sorry if you felt like you’d walked into some kind of weird cat trap.” Mom’s gaze softens as she gives each of us a hard stare. “And yes, maybe I embellished some of the smaller details, but who doesn’t?” She sits down. “It’s just hard for me sometimes, doing all of this alone. I just wanted to feel wanted, I guess. And then when Jake offered to help—”

“Yeah, how exactly does Jake fit into all of this?” I interrupt.

Mom shrugs innocently. “He was just being nice. He overheard me talking with Pam a few weeks back, offered to help us load our profile pictures. I didn’t see the harm in trying something different.” I stare at her. “Well, obviously I see the harm now,” she hastily adds. “Anyway, I can assure you, there will be no more of the Tinder for this MILF—”

“Please never ever refer to yourself like that again,” Billy blurts out, taking the words from my mouth.

“Wait, did you say a few weeks back?” I repeat, her words just hitting me. She nods. “And when did you and I first start chatting?” I ask.

“About ten days ago. You’re acting very odd, Benjamin,” Mom comments.

I let out a growl and stalk into the living room as everything fits into place. Jake’s been planning this for weeks. It wasn’t even Mom I’d been chatting to yesterday, and she sure as hell hadn’t been talking to me for ten days.

This whole thing was a setup.

He got me drunk, then baited me into betting the one thing I have that he doesn’t. I take a deep breath and walk back into the kitchen, trying to control my anger, because I’m so fucking pissed right now. Mom sighs, misreading my anger as being directed at her.

“I obviously can’t win here. You kids always gang up on me.”

“How about we just forget this happened? Okay?” I say, wrapping my arm around her. I kiss her on the head. “For what it’s worth, I have no issues with you dating. I want you to be happy. We all do.”

She smiles at me. “Thanks, honey. That means a lot.”

The rest of dinner goes smoothly, but I’m finding it hard to concentrate on anything other than the fact that my life might be imploding. I push away my half-finished plate and then get to my feet, making an excuse about needing to get back to work.

“Don’t work too hard,” Mom says as I kiss her on the forehead. “I worry about you.”

“I won’t,” I assure her. In a few days, there might not be any work to do. I glance at my brother. “Want me to take you to your game on Sunday?”

His face lights up, which lifts my spirits a little. I know having me go to his football games means a lot to the kid. Football became a big part of his life growing up, and I know with our dad not being around made it hard for him. Seeing all his friend’s fathers take the time to come to their games really sucked for the kid. So, I stepped up. I went to cheer him on as often as I could, but over the last few weeks something always seemed to come up last minute.

“That would be great,” he grins.

I nod. “You should stay over one day next weekend too. We can have a guys’ night.”

Billy nods enthusiastically. “That sounds awesome.”

“Hey, that’s so sexist,” Ebony grumbles. “What about me?”

“Relax. I’ll treat you to a spa treatment and shopping,” Mom assures her.

“Night guys,” I say, waving at them as I walk out.

Halfway home, I change my mind and head to Kings, a popular after-work hangout that’s full of overworked, rich, young corporates like myself, which also means it attracts a lot of my kind of women. What I need is to figure a way out of this mess, and going home right now isn’t going to achieve that. At Kings, all I had to do was roll up