The Game

Chapter Twenty-Four

A/N: Sorry it's been awhile.. I actually forgot about the vote limit I put up last time, I've just been really busy. Anyway, y'all are going to hate me for this, but.... here's the next chapter. You'll see why you hate me at the end.

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Chapter Twenty-Four

I dropped Vanessa off at her house and then went straight home. Mom was flipping through a magazine at the bar when I walked in. “Hey, honey,” she said, her eyes never leaving the page she was on.

“Hey mom.” I went straight into the kitchen and started rummaging through the refrigerator. 

“How can you be hungry already?”

“I’m a growing boy, ma.”

“Ma?”

I grinned at her. She liked it when Liam and I called her Ma. She said that when I was little, I used to call her Ma and dad Pa. I guess it made her feel like we were still all together; all living.

“I like Vanessa,” she said, turning a page.

“Me too.”

“She seems sweet… although there’s just something about her I can’t figure out. She dresses more, oh how should I put this, revealing than I like.” She stared me down. “Jason, that isn’t the reason you’re seeing her, is it?”

“Nope. I actually like her mom.”

“And it’s not to make Jenna jealous?”

Dang my mom was good. “Of course not.”

“Jason Anderson you better not be lying to me, boy. I will whip you so bad you won’t be able to sit for a week.”

My mother, God bless her Irish roots, was a short red head. If Liam, Jim or I was ever in trouble, she’d stand up on a chair and hit us with a pot. There’s a dent from my head in one of the pots…

“I might be trying to make her a little jealous.”

“Mmhmm. Well it worked.”

“I know.”

She sighed. “Honey, Vanessa’s a really nice girl, but I think that maybe she hasn’t found her prince charming, but maybe you’ve already found your princess.”

I stopped what I was doing and turned around slowly. “What?” I asked, after repeating her words three times in my head.

“I mean, that Vanessa is a sweet girl, but there’s someone else out there for her. You, however, have Jenna, even if there are some complications with that right now.”

I looked at her flatly. “Mom, Jenna’s a liar.”

“What did she lie to you about? She tried to give you another reason for the breakup instead of her parents’ making her?”

I nodded. I was pouring myself a glass of milk when I realized that I never told my mom that. “Wait, how’d you know that was one of the things she lied about?”

Mom’s mouth deepened into a frown. “Because her parents really did make her breakup with you. We discussed it the day that she played hooky and her parents felt that you guys were in an unhealthy relationship. They were worried that everything was going too fast and thought it better for you two to spend some time apart and if the feelings are still there when you graduate come May, then you two are free to get back together. Does that clear anything up?”