"I am happy to know that I will finally be able to meet your mother, Jake, you talk about her so much that I was really curious to meet her."

"She is also curious to meet you, after all, I also talk a lot about you to my mother, you can expect to eat there at my house the best food you have ever eaten in Miami."

"I know, you told me that your mom has a restaurant that is very popular here in Miami, I wanted to go to her restaurant sometime."

"My mom really has a restaurant and she cooks very well, but I will also help to prepare this dinner and you will know about my culinary skills."

"I didn't know you knew how to cook, of course, it must have been your mother who taught you how to cook."

Kate was very excited knowing that she was going to dinner at Jake's house and could meet his mother, she didn't even realize that once again Jake deviated from the subject of her wanting to go to his mother's restaurant, Jake didn't want to talk about Lola to Kate because she could be jealous of her.

So Sunday arrived and Kate took a taxi to Jake's house this time, he wanted to pick Kate up at the hotel, but since dinner was at his house Kate didn't accept Jake to do that, Kate put on a nice dress, but no very festive because she had to look good because it was the first time that she would meet Jake's mother.

It was Jake who opened the door for Kate and he was also wearing a dress shirt that was Jake's normal style and he had met Kate so many times, Kate entered Jake's house surprised by the beauty of Jake's mansion.

Not even she who was successful with her music had a house like this, of course, she had the money to buy a house like this, but Kate didn't know where she wanted to live and so she only saved money for when she decided, and she had the house that was of her parents in Miami to stay if she wanted to.

Jake and Eva had already prepared dinner and changed clothes before the time they had scheduled with Kate, now they just needed to wait for some dishes to come out of the oven and dinner was ready.

Jake took Kate to the living room where his mother was, so for the first time Eva and Kate met in person, Eva already knew Kate through pictures in magazines and on television, yet she was surprised by Kate's beauty.

And Kate was even more surprised by the beauty of Eva, after all, it was the first time that she saw Jake's mother and she did not know that Eva had a Latin beauty, especially because she knew that Eva was 37 years old and yet she looked very young.

"Good evening, Mrs. Smith, it is a great pleasure to meet you, Jake always speaks very highly of you, but he never said how beautiful you are."

"It is a pleasure to meet you too Kate, you can call me Eva if you want, after all with you dating Jake you are family."

"I had seen pictures of you and also commercials you did on television, but personally you are as beautiful as Jake had said."

The two praised each other and showed that they wanted to become friends since they met, it was how Jake hoped it would happen after all his mother and Kate were very kind and wanted to be friends so that Jake would be happy and for the relationship between Jake and Kate worked.

Jake left the room to get an orange juice that he had prepared for the three of them to drink and left Eva and Kate talking, the two had a good first impression of each other and so they started asking questions to get to know each other better.

Jake knew this was an important moment so he decided to leave the two of them talking for a longer time and went to prepare cubes of cheese to put on sticks after the two met a little they started talking about the only common subject that the two had to it was Jake.

Because of Jake's personality, the two had only good things to talk about him and Eva was the one who had the most stories to tell about him, so when Jake came back with the appetizers and the orange juice the two were already laughing and had become friends.

When Jake realized this he was relieved and so the evening continued pleasant and fortunately, Kate did not speak about Eva's restaurant because she had realized that Jake did not like to talk about it and so everyone was very well.

For dinner Jake had prepared a lamb shank, Ratatouille, and a risotto for the main course, while Eva prepared the desserts and side dishes, it was a lot of food for just the three of them and so Jake had more difficulty having to make the portions of the food so that it wouldn't be leftover after dinner.

Jake did this because he realized in the various restaurants that he and Kate went that she liked lamb and Ratatouille, Eva prepared a Petit gateau, and Cheesecake for dessert and various side dishes like salads.

Kate was really surprised by the quality and quantity of different dishes that she had for this dinner, she knew that Jake was going to prepare dinner, but she thought he would make only one dish because of that, then Kate was even more surprised when she saw how everything the dinner menu was delicious.

Jake had been smart and done different things than his mother and so Kate didn't have to say who cooked better, but she was surprised when she learned that Jake had done the main dishes for dinner.

At that dinner, Jake didn't speak to Kate often and left only for his mom and Kate to talk and get to know each other better and maybe later they could be friends, after dinner Jake took Kate to her hotel and asked her what she thought about dinner.

"I loved everything, I really liked your mom and I think she liked me too, I honestly didn't expect her to be as cool as you said she was, but she is even better than you said."

"And the dinner was really delicious, I don't have the confidence to cook for you one day because I don't know how to make that many dishes."

"Hahaha, I'm glad you liked it, I'm sure my mom loved you too, so we can make dinner like that again soon."

"I would love to, thanks for that great dinner, Jake, good night."

"It was a pleasure to make this dinner, good night."

They said goodbye with a kiss and so Jake came home happy, coming home he asked his mother what she thought of Jake and just as he expected she said that she liked Kate very much and approved of this relationship between the two.

After that Jake can sleep well knowing that everything was going well, after that dinner Jake and Kate became even closer and the relationship between them improved a lot, the days passed and soon the month of December arrived.

The NBA lockout continued and the NBA had announced that the Christmas game would be canceled and David Falk announced the game between players that would be to benefit players and charity as well and that game would be as an NBA all-star.

The media began to speculate that David had this idea because of the game that Jake was going to play, others said that David had also organized Jake's game as a test to have the game among All-stars.

But Jake and the other rookie players didn't care about that because they realized their game was different because Jake did it from the start thinking about helping charity and played this game near his house which showed that he hadn't planned much before.

Jake would not give any more interviews to any channels until the NBA games returned, just as he had not given any interviews since he did the marathon, the players were free to speak, but Jake didn't care much about that lockout because he always knew it would happen, after all, he knew about the future so it was something natural for him.

Jake could understand why the owners were doing this lockout and he also understood that many players were suffering because they did not have salaries and wanted to play, but it was something that would not last long and several players would receive more than 200 thousand dollars a month and would forget about it. time without money.

Jake knew that many players received millions and also spent millions of dollars every year, these players Jake felt no pity, after all, he had more than 1 billion assets in his account because he knew how to save and invest in the last few years.

It was only now that Jake had a great source of annual income that he decided to start spending the money he earned, yet he still had his investments for a possible emergency.

So several weeks passed quickly and the day of the game that Jake organized was close, in that time Jake trained every day with trainer Davis and it was much easier for him to do the training, even though Jake knew that his resistance had not increased.

Coach Davis said that Jake had gotten used to running at this new pace and his body was naturally stronger than that of other athletes so he didn't feel tired or sore in the muscles even with such intense training.

Jake was also training more often on the basketball court that was at his house, in the last few months Jake had only trained on his three-point shots and his imagination training, even though Jake could improve his skills and increase his experience playing against skilled players, it was not real training.

So even though Jake was alone, he had to do some training so that his body would not be uncomfortable on the day of the game, Jake thought about calling his friends from high school to play, but Jake remembered that everyone was at the university and so he continued training alone.