PUT THE MOTHER IN SMOTHER
Jordan
The symphony played, and the press took photos as we walked up the red carpet on the front steps of the Met.
I glanced at my mom and her friends, Iona and Lu. My three dates.
Three single socialites in their late fifties. I’d hit something resembling rock bottom.
My brother gave me a smug grin, leaning in as we entered and the music got louder and the lights dimmed. “Iona isn’t so bad in bed. In case you needed a pick-me-up later.”
“Jesus. Is there no limit to your debauchery?” I shuddered at the thought of them together.
“You’re getting a visual, aren’t you? She was on top, and those tatas are real, which I found surprising. She hasn’t got a scrap of fat on her except those bad boys.”
“Dude!”
“Smothered me.” He made a choking gesture.
Cynthia rolled her eyes behind him, making me smile through the horrors of what I was imagining.
“You’re a saint,” I said to Cynthia, before I led the ladies to our table. “This is us.”
“Oh, this is nice.” Mom spun in a circle, giving her impressed stare to the decorations. And I had to hand it to Frederick; the venue was stunning. I wasn’t one to notice decor, but this was impressive.
“I heard the boy’s cancer is gone and he’ll be back in school in September,” Iona commented.
“I heard that too. Some nephew of Frederick’s. All donations are going to the children’s cancer ward,” Mom added.
“That’s nice.” Lu smiled like she didn’t really care.
I turned away from my dates as they chatted on, looking for the one person I needed to see. The one my heart ached over. I could hear her laugh and see her smile even when I didn’t close my eyes. Her blunt remarks and constant sarcasm were also sorely missed.
“Drink?” Stephen came over with a flute of champagne already. “And no, I didn’t get it from Miguel.” He snorted.
“What?” His words hit me in the gut, reminding me of something. I’d heard that name before.
“You haven’t heard? Where have you been, Mars?” He pulled out his phone and headphones and passed them to me. I slipped an earbud in my ear as he did the other. I plugged my other ear so I could hear as he started playing a video. It was of a girl talking to a guy with shaky footage. The scene was creepy as hell, worsening when I realized I recognized the voice of the girl; it was hers. My stomach dropped, and my entire body tightened as I looked at my brother. “Miguel?”
“Amara. The DJ. DJ Spark. He played at that club we went to that night you hooked up with, sorry, didn’t hook up with Lacey.” He laughed, slapping me in the arm.
“And that, ladies and gents, is the video uploaded by the Test Dummy, busting DJ Spark’s disgusting ass as he slipped one of their testers a roofie. We have been told the young woman in question who worked for the Test Dummy made it home safely. She didn’t end up as one of the ten others who have now come forward with allegations about Mr. Amar—”
Stephen cut the reporter off by turning his phone off. “Crazy, eh?”
A thousand alarms rang out in my head, joining dots with lies and coincidences.
“The Test Dummy?” I whispered, linking things in my brain that I couldn’t say aloud.
“Yeah, that’s the fidelity tester. I heard quite a few guys have been caught. Fucking what’s-his-name. Theo. His girl did it—caught his lying ass. He was making out with the chick from the Test Dummy, hand up the shirt and all. There’s a video.”
My entire body went on pins and needles.
This was what she was doing in that dress?
“You okay?”
“Yeah.” I backed up, letting the earbud fall as I scanned the room.
My heart was racing.
My hands balled.
My mouth dried up.
I hurried across the massive room filled with tables and people and laughing and music.
“Martin,” someone shouted, and a guy who looked just like Lacey turned. It wasn’t the kid brother who made me stop, though. It was the brunette next to him. She looked different from the first time I’d seen her, but I’d recognize her anywhere.
She had saved my life, or at least helped me reclaim it from Amy, which felt as significant as having saved my life.
Or so I thought.
She was laughing and leaning on Lacey’s brother. I had shown up at the hospital when he was in surgery and I never went into his room, but there was no mistaking the connection. And he was clearly with the brunette. Which meant she knew Lacey. Lacey knew the girl who tested me for the Test Dummy.
I nearly lost my ability to stand. I leaned on the chair next to me, watching her, processing it all.
I was just a target.
Just a mark.
Just a client.
Lacey was the Test Dummy. The brunette worked for her or with her. Or they were both employees? Or a team effort?
But the real point was that she never liked me.
It was an act that maybe she took too far. Maybe she got carried away. Maybe she didn’t mean to fall for me. Maybe she didn’t fall at all. Maybe it had been just me all along. My heart the only one at risk.
The girl’s smile faded, and her eyes widened when she saw me staring. She shrank, recoiling and trying to back away.
Martin looked lost.
I stepped back, offering a pathetic wave before I inevitably ran into the one family member who was missing from their table. I couldn’t talk to her. Not now.
Hurrying past my mom and her friends and my brother, I turned at the entrance and headed into an icy corridor to hide and think and cope with the agonizing stabbing in my chest.
Of course that was why she didn’t want anyone to know she’d been drugged.
Why she pretended to hook up with me.
Why she pretended to like me.
Why she’d vanished without a trace.
“You idiot,” I whispered to myself and the flowers. That was why she had almost gotten herself raped. She had put herself in danger. For a job.
Ripping my phone from my pocket, I googled the Test Dummy and stared at the sophisticated website that now existed. I searched and clicked until I finally reached the answer I was looking for. La Croix Industries.
That made it all worse somehow.
She was doing this for work.
I was literally a job.
A job I’d hired her to do.
I’d paid her to test me.
Or had Amy hired her first, and that was why she nearly made out with me on the boat? I was so confused about how this all fit together.
“Hey, you okay?” My brother came around the corner with Monty.
“No. How long have you known about the Test Dummy?” I asked Monty, harsher than I should have.
“What?”
“Frederick’s company, the Test Dummy,” I repeated.
“I never heard of it before Miguel got caught. I asked Marcia about it, and she didn’t know anything.”
“She’s lying. Her dad owns the company.”
“You sure?” Monty cocked an eyebrow.
A figure passed by us, but I didn’t care who heard what. “Yeah, I’m positive. Lacey fucking Winters is the Test Dummy. A friend of hers tested me. And Lacey’s the one who got drugged in that video with Miguel.” I pointed at Stephen. “The night I saved her at the club, that you all thought we hooked up, she was drugged. She’s the girl in that video. She tested him. I recognized her voice. And I found her drugged out. I took her to the hotel to take care of her.” I laughed bitterly. “I had Fitz come and save her cause I didn’t want Frederick to be embarrassed.” I covered my eyes for a second. “I can’t believe I helped her and fell for her and have been going out of my fucking mind for weeks because of her, and she’s been blowing me off because I was nothing more than a fucking job!”
“Holy shit!” Stephen shook his head. “She tested you?”
“Well, technically, I had myself tested.” I laughed harder, losing my mind. “I was desperate to give Amy a reason and the ability to break up with me. I had myself tested so I could give her ammo. That way her parents would side with her, and Grandpa would see the video and just think I was out doing what us Somersby guys do. I’d even earn his respect by seeming disrespectful. I failed the test on purpose. Lacey’s friend in there is the one I met. She looks to be dating Lacey’s fucking brother.” I pointed inside, my voice cracking and my hold on sanity slipping. “She hit on me while recording me with some tiny camera I couldn’t see. I played along, and she sent the video to me, thinking I was Amy.”
“That’s insane,” Stephen said, sounding lost.
“You have no idea.” I leaned against the wall, my insides aching and burning.
“And Lacey is the other Test Dummy? Her and her friend—”
“Who I bet works at La Croix as well!” I shouted at Monty.
“So Lacey and her friend are the faces of this operation?” Monty put his hands in his hair. “For Frederick?”
“What?” Marcia came around the corner wearing a small headset and a serious scowl.
“Nothing,” Monty said, sounding angry.
“Did you just say Lacey is the Test Dummy?” She scoffed. “That’s impossible.”
“Yeah. Your dad owns the company, so you can kill the act.” Monty was pissed. “Did you try to test me?” He stepped forward.
“Monty.” She paled, answering without actually saying yes or no, which answered his question completely.
“Oh, come on! You honestly thought I might hit on someone else? You paid someone to test my fidelity, after all this time?” He was furious.
“No, I never got an answer back from the service, so technically, I didn’t.”
“Because it’s Lacey. Of course she wouldn’t think I needed to be tested. Jesus. She at least trusts me.” Monty threw his hands up in the air and stormed off.
Marcia’s eyes met mine. “You’re lying.”
“She’s the girl in the Miguel video. Watch it again, pay attention.” I pushed off the wall and stormed off after Monty. Misery loved company, and I needed some. I was scared to be alone with myself and my dark thoughts.
I followed his footsteps until I reached the top of the stairs and went out onto the roof.
He was standing, his breath heaving. I sat on the rooftop, staring out at the park and not saying anything.
“This is some horseshit. She fucking tested me? Me? I have never given her a reason to doubt me. And Lacey, what a liar. How could she do that to any of us? She was playing her friends. This doesn’t sound right. I can’t believe it’s her.”
“I don’t know.” My heart was broken. Destroyed. Obliterated.
“I’m sorry, man. I know she fucked you over hard. I thought I knew her better than that.”
“I did too,” I lamented. “Apparently we were both wrong.”
The part that killed me the most was that I’d come to see her, feeling sorry for her hardships. I specifically came to beg her to take me back.
Lacey wasn’t the dummy. I was.