Kash smirked. “Hey, I’ll take a blind date. Last one she set me up on was with Charity Smith.”

He and I shared a knowing look. The only thing Charity was charitable with was in her pants.

“See?” Mom said, digging into her mound of casserole like it wasn’t outrageous in portion. “I’m being helpful. Thank you, Kassius. At least one of you is trying.”

“How many of us did you set up?” I asked, forearms on the table and brows together.

She shrugged, her face too benign. “Oh, I don’t know. All of you?”

The table erupted in noise, and Mom took a prim bite like she couldn’t hear us.

“Honestly, Mom,” Laney huffed, “it’s not like we can’t get our own dates.”

“I know you can,” she insisted, dabbing her lips with a napkin. “You have your apps and your matchmaking websites nowadays, but there’s something to be said for a good, old-fashioned setup, isn’t there? For instance, at garden club yesterday, Vera Archer said her daughter just moved back from San Francisco and needs some friends. Of course, I offered for Jett. Plus—”—she leaned in, smiling wickedly—“she’s filthy rich.”

Jett groaned.

Laney rolled her eyes. “Mother.”

“What?” she blustered. “I only want my children to be happy and healthy and find love. And if the person they fall in love with is rich, that couldn’t possibly hurt, could it?”

“Of course it couldn’t hurt,” Dad said, “beyond the bite of the hayfork you use to shovel them off to the marriage market.”

Mom swatted his arm. “Oh, I’m not shoveling … just giving them a little nudge. Isn’t that our job? Encourage them to fly out of the nest?”

“Fly or swan dive?” Marcus asked.

“Fly,” she insisted. “Your date is next Tuesday, by the way. With that sweet little Jenny Arnold. Do you remember her?”

Marcus’s face flattened. “I think she gave me a religious tract outside the bathroom in high school.”

Kash laughed. “She still does that. I saw her in Blanche’s Donuts last week, just hanging around outside the restroom door waiting to proselytize to poor, unsuspecting donut enthusiasts.”

“I’m not going,” Marcus stated in a tone that brooked no argument.

One Mom was deaf to. “Oh, you’ll go. Otherwise, you’ll have to tell her yourself, to her face.”

And just like that, she had him, check and mate. No way could he bear the look on poor Jenny Arnold’s face when he told her he’d rather eat a dirty boot than take her to dinner. Instead, he’d sit through an entire dinner, listening to her talk about her favorite Psalms while he thought of all the ways he could off himself with things within his reach.

I laughed at the thought, but the sound died in my throat.

She’d said she’d set all of us up.

“Mom,” I warned, “who’d you pair me with?”

She smiled, lips together to guard her secret. “I’m still firming yours up.”

I frowned, aversion sliding over me like a slug. There was only one girl I wanted to ask out, and her name rhymed with yes.