“I don’t really care if we have it here or if we go out somewhere,” she told him, obviously exasperated. She looked at her mom. “Although I’m a little worried about clean up and imposing on you and dad if we did it here.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that.” Mom waved her hands, as if she were shooing Lexie’s concerns away. “We’ll get it catered and they’ll do all the work.”

Lexie and Jake exchanged a glance. Their mom might say that, but they knew she’d be right in the thick of things. On the other hand, that would be true regardless. She loved events, and the fact that this one was for her daughter’s upcoming wedding...

The nice thing about Lexie getting married before him was that, hopefully, his mom would have most of this out of her system by the time Jake was ready to settle down. He wasn’t ready to settle down yet.

Sharon’s face flitted through his mind, and he dropped his head down to focus on his food so that no one could see his smile. They weren’t seeing each other again tonight, but he’d texted her earlier to say that he’d enjoyed last night... And she’d texted back saying that he better have, because it was going to take a few days before her love tunnel was open for business again. Since she hadn’t been there to hear him, he’d laughed his ass off.

He was pretty sure she’d been trying to annoy him with the unsexy euphemism, but he’d just found it very entertaining, and very Sharon.

“What about you, Jake?” His mom asked, dragging his attention back to the conversation. “Will you be bringing a date?”

“Ah, no,” he said, immediately pushing aside any thoughts of Sharon.

For one, she would be at the party anyway, as one of Lexie’s friends - hell, possibly as a bridesmaid for all he knew – second of all, he was not going to be introducing her to his parents as a date. Just trying to imagine her being her usual blunt, occasionally foul-mouthed self in front of his mom made him feel twitchy. It was going to be a big party though, so hopefully his parents wouldn’t spend much time with her, although if she were there as his date his mom would have laser-like focus on her.

Big nope there.

Plus, it seemed like bad form to introduce his fuck buddy to his parents as a date. This was also why having a fuck buddy within his circle of friends wasn’t the best idea, although he still didn’t regret it.