Page 12 of Going All In

“There’s a Jake in your seminar?” Ally asked, snagging a nacho from the tray in Darcy’s lap.

“There could be.”

Ally laughed.

“I wasn’t thinking clearly. I needed her to have something else to focus on, and you’d had the game on that night.”

“As excuses go, that one is lame. If you were just picking random player names, there’s a whole team to choose from.”

“Listen. I can’t explain my brain when it’s under the influence of my mother and her meddling. Not that it matters, because it’s not like they’re ever going to meet. I mean, why would that even happen?”

“How are you going to explain no social media sightings of you and your beloved to her? She’s probably got all her notifications on so she knows the second you post anything.”

“Like she didn’t have that on already,” Darcy said. “If she could rig up a siren or something to go off every time one of us does something, she probably would.”

“Your mom loves her family and wants you to be happy.”

“I know,” Darcy muttered before shoving another chip in her mouth.

“Which is why it’s so cruel for you to make up seeing someone. She’ll be crushed when she finds out you lied.”

“She won’t find out. We’ll date for a while and I’ll tell my mom that he’s super shy and doesn’t want his picture on social media.”

Ally laughed. “No one has ever described Jake as shy.”

“Ugh. It’s not that Jake.”

“But it is.”

“Seriously, eat a chip,” Darcy said, shoving a cheesy covered chip in her friend’s mouth.

“So violent,” Ally muttered after swallowing the bite.

“After a while, I can tell my mom that it didn’t work out. Maybe it was school, and we never saw each other, so we ended it. I’ll be heartbroken, and my mom will want to console me, and that will give me an additional reprieve from her matchmaking. Then I’ll have my master’s and the summer to fend her off before I start working on my doctorate.”

Ally laughed. “Wow. You’ve really thought this through.”

“If you had my mother, you would have multiple contingency plans.” It sounded a little harsh, but her mother would never understand how important it was for Darcy to get her doctorate, to follow the career path that was so important to her. Her mother had dropped her own career to stay home with Darcy and her siblings. She claimed she hadn’t regretted it for a second, but Darcy didn’t understand how that was possible.

Her parents seemed happy with the arrangement, but Darcy didn’t want to be her mother, giving up her career to stay at home.

There was more to life than finding a suitable husband. Not that she didn’t want to find someone one day, but now was not the time. And he should fit with her, not with some idealized version of her that wasn’t sustainable or even made sense.

“She loves you, Darc,” Ally said.

Darcy sighed. “I know. It’s just frustrating that she doesn’t understand that school is the most important thing to me right now.”

“So how are you going to keep this fake dating thing going?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t think any of it through. Maybe I’ll avoid family dinners for a while. We usually only get together once or twice a month, so I can explain it away with work or studying.” But she didn’t want to do that. As crazy as they all were, and as much as her mother drove her insane, she loved her family. And she loved her mom’s cooking.

“She’ll start Googling Jakes in the area and contact them. Imagine those Facebook messages. ‘Um, not to bother you, but are you dating my daughter?’”

Ally laughed and Darcy elbowed her friend.

“Not funny,” she grumbled. “Can we please talk about something else? Or just watch the game?”

“Are you even enjoying or following what is going on?” Ally asked.

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