My Fake(ish) Valentine (Houston Pumas #5)

Chapter 1

CALEB

Mom

Are you bringing a date to Carlie’s wedding?

Caleb.

Caleb.

I need to know. We’re turning in the final food order.

Son. Please respond.

I huff out a breath and close my eyes. My mom’s messages are popping up on my computer screen, distracting me—and making me regret my choice to set up a messaging system on my computer that links to my phone.

It’s convenient when I’m working. Not so much when I’m in the middle of a game and my mom is texting.

“Give me just a second,” I say into my headset.

“Urgent message I have to take care of.” My team on Shadow Heroes won’t question that, and I don’t have to mention that the so-called urgent message is about my sister’s wedding, and it’s from my mom.

I’d ignore it, but she’ll call. And when I don’t answer that, she’ll send my sister, Carlie, over to bug me.

Carlie is spending quality quiet time with her fiancé right now. I don’t want to mess that up.

I tap into my messages app on another screen to respond, crossing my fingers that my quick response will placate her.

Caleb

Of course.

I can’t answer any differently. If I say no, my mom will bring a date for me. It’s no big deal. I’ll figure something out.

Mom

You can’t just bring a woman you met this morning at the coffee shop to your sister’s wedding.

Of course that’s what she would assume. I haven’t dated a lot the past couple years, so apparently Mom doubts my ability to have an actual relationship.

I can hear the sigh in her voice. And maybe I was considering this very thing—well, it was actually a juice place where I picked up an order for Carlie to help her out, and the woman behind me thought it was pretty awesome I cared about my health and wasn’t too “macho” (her words) to get an organic juice, and I didn’t look like the “gym bros” (also her words) she usually saw in there.

She gave me her number.

And I maybe did a quick, no-biggie social media dive to check her out and, yes, make sure there were no red flags.

Mom would probably approve of this woman.

She runs a yoga gym in the neighborhood.

Mom, who believes I can’t possibly be making a living wage working at my computer all the time, is big into finding me a wife who is the CEO of something.

Or is a partner at a law firm. Or a doctor.

So she can support this cute IT habit I have.

“Cal?” a female voice says in my ear. “We’re ready to pick up the drop. We need cover. You back?”

My team has been working to get this intelligence in the game for three weeks. It’s a big deal. We can’t mess this up, or it will put our whole mission in jeopardy.

I won’t bother explaining this to Mom. She won’t understand that anything in a video game could be important.

I don’t fault her. Mom has never played Shadow Heroes or anything like it.

She doesn’t get that this is more than an online Monopoly game, and that my team has spent weeks strategizing on this mission.

“Give me five more minutes,” I tell Malia.

She’s my favorite teammate. Super smart and a game developer.

We’ve commiserated offline plenty of times about our families’ expectations for us and their misunderstandings of what we do.

Malia works her dream job for a gaming company, but her family thinks she plays video games all day.

Caleb

Not a girl from the coffee shop.

I’ve known her for a while.

At this point, I’ll tell any lie to get Mom to stop texting me about this.

Mom

Are you dating someone?

Just like I could hear the sigh before, it’s easy to hear the jubilance now.

Mom

Did you meet her at a coffee shop?

That was short-lived jubilance. I tell my mom one time that I had a date with a woman I met while I was working at the coffee shop for a change of scenery …

Caleb

I know her from work.

I mean, I do a lot of things for work. This could probably be true.

Mom

Does she live in her parents’ basement?

I blow out a breath of defeat. I don’t even live in my parents’ basement anymore.

I moved to Houston to get away from these types of comments—despite the fact that I own my parents’ house and the basement is a nice apartment that I spent a lot of cash upgrading.

She doesn’t call it the basement when she tells her friends about the space she lists on the GetAwayHome vacation rental site.

I massage my temples and try to have patience. Ever since I almost eloped, she’s gotten a lot more intense about making sure I have the “right” kind of wife—i.e., someone who earns a good living. She’s convinced that because I’m self-employed, I’m barely scraping by.

Caleb

I’m working right now. I’ll talk to you about this later.

Mom

Take five minutes away from your computer. I need details about her food choices. Does she have any allergies or sensitivities?

Well. I don’t know this fake date—that I haven’t found yet—well enough to say.

Caleb

I’ll message her and get back to you when she lets me know. I really have to get back to working. Talk to you later. Love you.

She can’t argue with me deferring to my date, and thankfully, my notifications go quiet. I close down the app just in case.

“Okay, sorry, guys,” I report into my headset. “Ready to go.”

“Let’s go get the file,” Malia says. Something about her voice settles the irritation the conversation with my mom gave me.

Malia’s voice is always calm but assured.

I’ve told her before that I think she should try being a 911 dispatcher if she ever wants to change careers.

She has the kind of voice you trust in a tense situation.

And maybe stopping a pretend war by gathering intel on an assassination that was staged by a big tech company isn’t real danger, but I’m certain the way she always sounds like she has things together probably translates into real life.

Malia and Tyree pick up the drop without a problem, and we make our way back to the little cottage on the outskirts of game Copenhagen. Once we have the files safely tucked away there and have secured the perimeter of the cottage, we sign off for the night.

And I turn my attention to the problem of my date to Carlie’s wedding.

The most pressing issue is that Mom will be texting me again in the morning to find out if I know my date’s food preferences.

That’s really reason enough to get this figured out.

If I convince a friend to come to my sister’s wedding with me, I’d like to have the decency to feed her a meal she wants to eat, for both the rehearsal dinner and the wedding itself.

Because to keep Mom from trying to matchmake me with any of the super-successful women that will likely be attending Carlie’s wedding (and can apparently support me in the manner of living I’m used to), I will need a date that looks like a serious enough relationship to keep Mom at bay.

And there will be some very successful women there, thanks to the fact that Carlie’s fiancé, Law Card, is a famous pro-football player and the son of a United States senator.

Lots of high-powered lawyers on the guest list. I’d bet big money on that.

I run down the list of women I know through work, since that would be the easiest thing to do after already starting the lie with that.

I own my own company, but it’s a solo gig.

I contract out for anything that needs done that I don’t do myself.

I have a lawyer on retainer, but she’s married with three teenage boys, so that’s not an option.

The person who does my taxes and payroll is a guy.

There is my virtual assistant, but that’s off the table.

Dating an assistant is highly inappropriate.

Okay, so I’m going to have to get creative about what I define as someone I work with. My brainstorming is interrupted by another text. (A ding on my phone this time—did I seriously not silence it?) I groan.

Mom

Let me know if you need any cash for your date! You know your dad and I are happy to help out for a special occasion.

Caleb

Why would I need money for a date when both of the dinners are free…

Mom

I don’t know. Maybe gas money?

I drag a hand down my face.

Caleb

I’m good, Mom.

I toss my phone onto my couch and groan out loud. When it dings again, I nearly throw it across the room, but when I pick it up, I see it’s from Malia, not my mom.

Malia

Gonna confess that your urgent message was actually from your LetsEat driver bringing your dinner?

I let out a laugh.

Caleb

I wish. From my mom. *Actual* urgent questions about my date’s food preferences for my sister’s wedding …

Malia

Urgent indeed.

Did you consider going solo?

Caleb

Not an option. My mother will introduce me, and hand out my number, to every woman there with a healthy 401k.

And there will be plenty of those. I need to take a date to save myself.

Malia

You never know. One of those girl-power CEOs could be your MFEO.

Caleb

Uhh…

Malia

Someday Caleb, we need to rectify your sad lack of knowledge of ’90s and 2000s era classic romcoms.

Caleb

Why?

Malia

I’m positive it will help in the date department.

MFEO. Made for each other.

And that’s when it hits me. Malia would be the perfect date.

She lives in Houston; that’s actually how we ended up playing Shadow Heroes together on the same team.

She posted in a forum we’re both in asking about housing in Houston since she was relocating for her job.

We ended up in a conversation that included finding out we were both Shadow Heroes fans.

Besides, I know we get along. We’ve had tons of gaming missions and texts to show that. And I’m 98% sure she’s not a guy catfishing me. She’s got a top-notch voice modulator if she’s a guy.

I type out the text before I chicken out.

Caleb

What if you were my date?

It takes long enough for Malia to answer that I consider unsending the message and pretending like it never happened.

Malia

When’s the wedding again?

My shoulders fall in relief. I’m going to tell myself that she took so long because she got another message that took priority. Or a call. Maybe her parents letting her know that a steady, reliable teaching job just opened up back in Idaho, where she’s from, and she should take it.

Caleb

Valentine’s Day. Carlie thinks it’s romantic.

It would be the night before too. Rehearsal dinner.

Then it takes another few minutes before Malia responds again. I can’t help it. I have to offer her the out.

Caleb

There’s no pressure. We can pretend like I never asked. I know we’ve never met in person, but you seemed like a good option since we get along well and I know you can handle the pressure of my mom questioning your intentions with me. But if you’re uncomfortable, say no more.

Malia

I’ll go.