Boss Daddy: A Secret Baby Romance by Black, L. (good books for high schoolers .TXT) 📕

was starting to get a little tired of the “Tom is here, that means everyone has to drop everything” routine, but at the same time it wasn’t like I had anything to drop. It was more just jealousy that he had essentially done everything he wanted to do, had a wife and a kid, and was super successful, and I was just a jarhead who worked in the family bar. At least that’s how I let myself see it when I was in the process of beating myself up.

Still, seeing Mom and all my brothers was always a good thing, and Tom couldn’t help that I chose the military when he chose to go be great at whatever it was he did. I was still unsure of all that. Computers and video games were never really my thing, so when he started talking, I tended to tune out. It wasn’t that it wasn’t cool, I just wasn’t into it.

When I got there, I had to find somewhere to park and noted that it was becoming a bigger hassle to do so. As the family grew, so did the size of the cars and the number of them too. Ava and Mason often drove separately since one of them would be at the bar pretty often. This time around Becca and Tyler had also seemingly come separately. Combined with Tom’s minivan that he drove in from his adventures on the coast after he and his wife popped out a kid, and the driveway and street in front of the house were packed.

As I stepped inside, nostalgia hit me in the gut pretty hard. The house always had the same smell to it, a warm, freshly baked food smell. It made my stomach rumble and my heart squeeze at the same time. Instinctively, I looked to the left, where the living room was and where Dad would sit in his easy chair reading a book or watching TV for years and years. That chair was empty now. It looked like it did the last time Dad had sat in it, a book he’d never finished sitting open on the arm. Mom had never had the heart to move it. She only moved the glass of water that he’d mostly finished a few weeks ago. She was a mess all day after cleaning that glass.

It was good to see Mom happy, though. She was bouncing between the kitchen and the dining room, talking in that overly loud way she always did when she got overwhelmed with joy. Seeing all her boys and their partners and kids did that for her. The way her mouth curved up in an ever-rising smile with each son that walked through the door lifted my own heart, and when she saw me and wrapped me in a hug, it was like eating from an endless bowl of love.

“Oh, my boy, how are you today?” she asked while pushing my cheeks together and kissing my head. I had to lean down for her to do it, but I always did.

“I’m fine, Ma,” I said. “How are you?”

“Tired,” she said, “but good tired. I had a girls’ night last night.” She pursed her lips, and her eyebrows rose until the creases of her forehead looked like rivers running across her face. She seemed so pleased.

“Really? How was that?” I asked.

“Don’t get her started,” Mason said from behind me in the dining room.

“No, please, get her started,” Ava said. Mason rolled his eyes and let his head fall back in what I assumed was mock frustration. Mom giggled.

“It got a little wild,” she said, and I noticed most of my brothers laughing. Tom was in the corner of the room, and I gave him a short wave that he returned.

“Tell him where you went, Mom,” Becca asked. Mom turned to her, and her cheeks went red. I knew part of it was her Becca calling her “Mom,” but it was also because of whatever she had been up to. I cocked my head to one side.

“Yeah, Mom, where did you go?”

“The Banana Hammock,” she said, covering her face with her hands.

“The what?” I asked.

“The male strip club up in Portland,” Matt said.

“Oh God,” I replied. “I shouldn’t have asked.”

“See?” Mason said, raising his hands over his head.

“I think it’s great,” Ava said. “You go, Mom.”

“Mom?” I asked, laughing in spite of myself.

“It was all that Carrie’s fault,” she said, at least having the decency to feign embarrassment. “She drove us out there saying we were going somewhere with dancing. She didn’t tell us it would be nearly naked men dancing at us!”

The rest of the room laughed heartily, and I sat down, listening to Mom as she tried to desperately explain how chaste and confused she had been inside the club that she had admittedly spent several hours in and had multiple cocktails at. Considering she had multiple children, I was wary of how confused she actually could have been by it all, but I let her talk because it was hilarious to watch her try to talk her way out of it.

Eventually, she seemed to get to the point where she was too flustered to continue and made her way back into the kitchen. When she came back, she immediately launched into another conversation, signaling that our discussion of her lively night was over. Instead, she eyed both Matt and me with a desperately critical eye.

“So, do either of you have someone coming to join you tonight?” she asked leadingly.

“No, Mom,” Matt said.

“Me either,” I said.

“What about Hannah?” Ava blurted out, and then her eyes went wide, and she turned to look at Mason, who laughed loudly.

“Hey, yeah, what about Hannah?” Matt asked, turning on me.

“Judas,” I said. “You talk about Judas and yet here you are.”

“I prefer Brutus, but hey, whichever backstabber you want to go with,” he said.

“Who is Hannah?” Mom asked.

I shook my head and looked back to Ava.

“Nicely done,” I said quietly.

“Who is Hannah?” Mom repeated.

“She’s