Mama’s Boy by Avery Flynn

Chapter Two

Fiona

FionaHartigan was on her fifth espresso, her second box of Kleenex, and the same pair of pajamas for the third day in a row.

The only bright spot to her absolutely-without-a-doubt-awful situation was that the private school where she taught was closed for the weekend. Normally, that would mean she’d spend her Saturday buzzing around her apartment tidying up, finishing off the last of the cookies, and adding an extra splash of Baileys to her coffee until it was time to go home to Waterburg for the weekly Hartigan family brunch. Instead, she was a jittery mess eating uncooked sugar cookie dough and chasing it with a mouthful of whipped cream shot straight from the can while spa music played on repeat, because even Spotify knew she was in a bad, bad place.

That could be why Fiona’s best friend, Hadley Donavan, had taken one look at her, swiped her own spoonful of cookie dough, and then done that thing she always managed to do, which was to just stare at Fiona until she spilled her guts.

“And th-th-that’s why…” Fiona sucked in a shaky breath ten minutes later as she rubbed the backs of her hands across her wet cheeks. “I’m the worst person to have ever personed.”

Hadley rolled her eyes and confiscated Fiona’s tube of cookie dough. “Completely false.”

“He had a girlfriend!” It came out as more of a teary moan than an actual sentence as shame and guilt burned through her. “A serious one! They’re living together!”

“Which you knew nothing about,” Hadley said as she picked the Kleenex up off the coffee table and handed the box to Fiona. “Cheater Chad the Assbag asked you out repeatedly for a month before you even said yes to coffee.”

“I should have figured it out.” Fiona plucked a handful of tissues and then got up and started pacing. She’d been so naive not to realize what was going on. “He always wanted to meet at out-of-the-neighborhood places. We never went to his house.” Oh God, his poor girlfriend. First, to be dating the giant jerk and then to have him go behind her back like this with Fiona, the clueless home-wrecker. Why did Fiona always seem to explain away the bad when the truth was staring her right in the face? “Then there’s the fact that he had me in his phone as ‘Phil’ instead of ‘Fiona.’ He said it was a joke—and it was on me because I am way too gullible.”

“You’re not gullible,” Hadley said but didn’t make eye contact.

Yeah. They both knew that was a lie. Being a sucker for a sad-sack story seemed to be her defining characteristic.

“Do you want to talk about the time I loaned Kadie fifty dollars when everyone warned me not to? Then another twenty and finally a hundred before she ghosted?”

Hadley let out a sympathetic-sounding sigh and handed Fiona back her tube of cookie dough. “That’s because she’s really, really good at selling the story that she’s changed, and you wanted to give her a chance because you believe in people.”

“Well, not anymore.” Fiona bit off a chunk of dough and chewed it as if it were stale biscotti, her anger and regret needing another way besides tears to get out. Toxic fucking optimism, that’s what she had. She hated it. People didn’t take her seriously because she was too sweet, too forgiving, and too easy to take advantage of. “I’m done—so done—with being a sucker for every sob story and fuck boi BS.” She waved the tube of dough in the air for emphasis, jabbing at the empty air as if she were poking holes in everyone who had seen her as an easy mark, while she marched from one side of the tiny living room to the other. “From now on, I’m a new woman. I’m gonna channel my sister Fallon and be a total hard-ass.”

Hadley’s eyes went wide, and her eyebrows shot up high enough that they disappeared under her bangs. “Don’t you think that’s a little extreme? I mean, you are who you are for a reason, and sure, we all have things about us that we’d like to change, but it shouldn’t be to just eliminate the good parts of ourselves because we got hurt.”

“Easy for someone to say when they’re about to marry their true love.”

“Exactly,” Hadley said with a come-on-woman chuckle. “Learn from all my mistakes.”

Nah, Fiona was going to learn from her own—and that meant deleting Bramble from her phone. She was done with being Ms. Nice, men, and getting fucked over. Flying high on sugar and rebelling against the CDC’s warning about eating uncooked cookie dough, Fiona picked up her phone from the coffee table and opened the app. The smiling face of a generically hot dude smiled back at her.

Probably a serial killer.

She swiped up and revealed another guy from her stream.

Definitely the kind of person who steals cookies from Girl Scouts.

Getting into the spirit of the new her before she deleted the app for good, she flicked the screen upward again and nearly dropped her cell. Those eyes. That smug smile. The air of privilege that just wafted off him as if her phone had become a scratch-and-sniff sticker. “Oh. My. God.”

“What?” Hadley asked.

She turned her phone. “Look who it is!”

Hadley leaned in and squinted at the screen. “He’s hot, but I have no idea who he is.”

“That is the devil himself—Dixon Beckett.” She started pacing again, more than a little relieved to have somewhere to direct her fury that wasn’t at herself—bonus points for the fact that her target deserved her ire. “I’ve scheduled three meetings with him to talk about Nana’s skin-care line for seniors, and he’s canceled every single one at the last minute.”

The first time, she’d ended up cooling her heels in the lobby of Beckett Cosmetics for more than an hour while people walked in and out of Dixon’s office before his assistant came out and sent her packing. The second time, she’d gotten soaked in an afternoon downpour in her rush to get to the appointment on time, only to find out that he’d left the country. The third time, she’d watched him have a leisurely lunch in a glass-walled conference room while his assistant lied to her face and told her that Dixon was out of the office on business and his calendar was booked full for at least the next three months.

“That’s the guy Will helped you get in contact with?”

Hadley’s billionaire fiancé had gone to bat for Fiona to get her a meeting with Dixon. “The very same.”

“Do you want me to talk to Will again?” Hadley asked, her tone leaving no question about how hard she’d go to make it happen for Fiona.

Damn. She had the best friends. She gave Hadley a huge hug, squeezing tight. “Thank you, but I have a better idea.”

A brilliant one, really. Revenge and the opportunity to practice being her new cynical, coldhearted, badass self at the same time? It didn’t get better than that.

Hadley took a step back and gave her a worried look. “I’m not so sure I’m gonna like this.”

“Well, I love it.” Fiona swiped right on Dixon Beckett’s had-to-be-Photoshopped-to-take-out-his-demon-horns photo. She scanned his profile, her eyes widening with every word. This guy. THIS. GUY. Of course he’d treat getting a date like he was picking off a takeout menu. “Well, Mr. Dixon Beckett, you’re about to get exactly what you want.”