Better Sorry than Safe

23.

"Sem Bolton, you're in big trouble!" 

Sem got greeted by his mom's angry red face as he walked into the living room, neatly in time for dinner at five minutes before six. 

Abruptly coming to a halt, Sem blinked in confusion. Damn, he hadn't seen the raging, throbbing vein on her forehead this large since he'd nearly sent Daniel crashing down the stairs in one of their huge fights. 

It was obvious she was mad. It was not obvious why. 

"Uh," Sem stepped further into the room, without getting too close to his mom, "Remind me why I'm in trouble?" 

His mom narrowed her eyes. "Don't 'why' me," she snapped, "You know why." 

Nothing recent came to mind. What had he done again? Usually Sem knew exactly what pissed his mom off. Hell, often enough he pissed her off on purpose, but not this time. He'd been somewhat decent at home, or trying to be at least. He hadn't even spoken to Daniel after his brother found out about Connor, let alone fought him. That was normally his mom's berserk button.  

Sem raised his shoulders at his mom. "No, I really don't. Why?" 

"Your dad," she pointed at his dad, who visibly shrunk in his seat on the couch at being mentioned, "and I saw the pictures." 

"Pictures?" 

Sem glanced at his much calmer dad for some help on this, but he just sat there quietly, not interfering and not even making eye contact. 

"A nightclub?" 

What?  Sem's eyes snapped back to his mom just in time to see her wrinkle her nose, as if a club was the most nasty place in existence. Steam was almost literally coming out of her ears. "You were at a nightclub drinking? I'm going to sue them for serving alcohol to minors. How long has this been going on?" 

"How did you-" Sem asked, perplexed,  "Who sent you pictures? What pictures?" 

His mom wasn't on any social media, and if she was, Sem would never befriend her. He didn't allow automatic tags, he closed off his accounts for his brother, who'd love to rat him out. He didn't get caught. 

His mom curled up her lip in disgust. "I had to get it from an unknown number of all things. Someone who's very worried about you, and you going to such sleazy places and binge drinking. This is what I got." 

She held up her screen and there he was again, this time on his mom's screen, with his arm around a girl and beer in his hand. 

Oh, those pictures. Yeah, those existed. The girls had kindly reminded him of that today. Nobody he went to that club with was worried in the slightest about him, though. Nobody he knew there was. Why would any of his friends want to--- what if it wasn't out of worry?  Sophie? She didn't like him very much right now. Or what if it wasn't even a friend?

Shannon. 

Of course it had to be that bitch Shannon. She was mad at him. She'd definitely do this. That's what that creepy smile was about. Where did she even get his mom's number? This was a low blow, even for her. 

"God, mom." Sem threw his hands in the air, and let them drop again. "Nobody's worried. This is an ex-girlfriend trying to screw me over because of some year old vendetta. I don't binge drink all the time. Where am I supposed to get money for that?" 

Granted, Nick's parents were hardly ever home, didn't seem to care if they went to clubs, and they stole beer from their fridge all the time. Sometimes Sem claimed they were watching series at Nick's while they were drinking and going to the clubs after, but often enough they were actually watching series.