Mama’s Boy by Avery Flynn
Chapter Thirty-Six
Dixon
The next morning, Dixon was carrying a box of cinnamon rolls from the Rise and Shine Bakery where he’d gotten Fiona’s sugar cookie macarons and following Fiona up the walk to her parents’ house in Waterbury. The suburb of Harbor City looked like it belonged in a Netflix show about the burbs. There were legit white picket fences, wide sidewalks, and a park right across the street. There was also—going by the sounds of it—pure chaos on the other side of the front door.
Fiona paused, her hand on the doorknob. “Just remember, I warned you.”
In fact, she’d spent the entire trip across the harbor bridge telling him all the things to watch out for—her mom’s egg surprise looked horrible but tasted really good, her dad was likely to glare at him the entire time, and the whole family would turn on him in an instant if he even hinted that he was a Rage fan. Oh, that and the fact that they were nosy and not in the least bit ashamed about it.
Fiona had barely turned the doorknob when it was ripped from her hands and yanked open from the inside. A woman wearing glasses and a T-shirt that said Science Rocks:Ask a Geologist stood on the other side.
“Thank God you’re here,” she said. “Nana made the mimosas, and I have learned things that I will never be able to block from my memory.”
“What?” an older woman’s voice called out from farther inside the house. “It’s a natural reaction. There’s nothing to be ashamed of. Everyone does it.”
The woman looked from Fiona to him and back again, slowly shaking her head the whole time. “Don’t ask. Trust me.”
Fiona shot him a sideways glance and shrugged. “Dixon, meet Felicia, the baby of the family. Felicia, this is Dixon.”
A loud crash followed by a cat’s angry hiss sounded, and Felicia tossed a “nice to meet you” over her shoulder as she hustled out of the foyer and deeper into the house. He and Fiona followed.
Stepping inside was like going from a silent yoga retreat (or at least what he imagined that was like) into an action-packed movie where the sound was on decibel one million and fourteen. Then, add in a cat who looked like he’d lost a back-alley brawl, a toddler with bright-red hair intent on making said cat his best friend, and one of the giants who’d shown up at Gable House trying—and failing—to catch the kid before he caught the cat.
There had to be at least a dozen people in the living room watching the show. They passed through—Fiona getting hugs hello and him getting very unsubtle once-overs—and joined the edge of the crowd by the open archway leading into the kitchen.
This was very much not one of his mom’s cocktail parties where the voices were muted, the alcohol mixed by the catering staff, and none of the attendees were wearing Spider-Man costumes—not even the toddler-size ones. Not that he could remember ever seeing anyone under the age of ten at his parents’ penthouse or the ski chalet.
“Oh, you brought cinnamon rolls?” asked a woman who looked almost exactly like Fiona except for the freckles she had across her cheeks and the purple streaks in her hair. “Now we’re talking.” She smiled up at him as she took the box. “Thanks! I’ll just go get these on a plate.”
“Faith,” Fiona called after her. “Don’t you dare hide them so you can keep them all to yourself.”
If her sister had a response, he didn’t catch it, because that was the moment when the brother giants spotted them. The twins he recognized from the island at Gable House strode over; the redheaded one handed off the toddler to a woman who he recognized as Lucy Kavanagh from the profiles in Harbor City Business Review about her PR company. She took the kid and immediately began covering him with kisses.
Then his view of the rest of the room was blocked by two giant sequoias posing as human beings who stopped dead in front of him and glared.
“Nice to see you again,” Dixon said, meaning it about as much as they obviously figured he did, judging by the way they puffed up their chests in response.
The one with dark hair scoffed. “Nice to see you in clothes this time.”
Fiona took a half step between him and her brothers. “Finn,” she said in a yelling whisper. “Please shut up.”
“Oh, now Fiona’s all Miss Proper,” the redheaded one said.
She looked affronted. “I’ll tell Mom about that New Years—the one after you two graduated from fire academy.”
Both of them seemed to lose a couple of inches as they let out a string of soft curses. For his part, Dixon just stood back and observed. Seeing the interaction was like watching a master at work. Fiona had the entire situation under control and was doing what it took to make sure the outcome was what she wanted. His mom would fall in love with her if they ever met.
“You wouldn’t.”
Her full lips curled into a dare-you grin that was all trouble, and Dixon couldn’t stop the laugh that snuck its way out of him. Really, it was such a thing of beauty. Fiona Hartigan was a fucking shark.
The dark-haired giant glared at Dixon, then turned back to Fiona. “Fine. You win.”
That she did—even though she didn’t even seem to realize it half the time, the woman always seemed to walk away with a W.
An older guy who had to be Fiona’s dad joined the scrum. He held a dark-haired baby in his arms, patting its back and doing that rock-in-place thing that people always did when holding an infant that looked like it was about to pass out.
“You must be Dustin,” he said, his voice as gruff as the trio of younger lookalikes behind him.
“It’s Dixon, Dad.” Fiona rolled her eyes. “And Dixon, this is my dad, Frank, and the sweetest new addition to the family, Charley Blackburn.” She took the baby from her dad and cuddled him close, inhaling near his head full of dark hair. “Hello, baby, how’s it going?”
Charley made a few goo-goo sounds and settled in against Fiona, tucking his head onto her shoulder.
The older man crossed his thick arms over a chest that looked like it could double as a brick wall. Fiona’s brothers—the two giants and one slightly smaller giant in a Waterbury PD T-shirt—formed a line behind the elder Hartigan. All took the same stance and had the same who-the-fuck-are-you expression on their faces.
“Good to meet you, Mr. Hartigan,” Dixon said.
“Oh, call him Frank,” said an older version of Fiona as she walked over, scooping up the toddler who’d broken free from the woman who had to be his mom in a no-look move that was obviously all grandma skill. “The big redhead is Frank Jr., but we all call him Frankie. His darker match is Finn and beside him is Ford. They’re all really excited to meet you. In fact, they’ve been huddled together in the corner all morning, which is why Frank’s mom ended up making the mimosas and now we all know things we shouldn’t.”
A tall woman in her seventies carrying two glasses of orange liquid made her way over from the kitchen doorway. “You can’t marry into this family if you’re that squeamish.”
“Mom,” Frank said with an exasperated sigh. “It’s been almost forty years. It’s a little late for that advice—and I’m lucky Katie didn’t hear it in time.”
The man glanced over at his wife, and his look went from who-the-fuck-are-you to total adoration in less than two beats.
Katie’s cheeks turned pink, the way Fiona’s did. “Awww, Frank.”
“You’re right, Frank,” the older woman said with an apologetic, squished-nose smile at Katie. “Someone made the mimosas too strong.”
“That was you, Nana,” everyone said at once.
She shrugged her narrow shoulders. “So it was.” She handed Fiona and Dixon each a glass. “Bridget Hartigan. Nice to meet you. Have a mimosa. We can’t let Felicia get too much; she’s such a wee thing.”
“I’m average height,” came the response from the woman who had answered the door and wasn’t even close to being able to reach the items on the top shelf of the kitchen cabinets.
He took a sip of the barely-any-orange-juice mimosa while everyone around him—some who looked enough alike they had to be Hartigans while the others had to be plus-ones—talked at once about whether Felicia was really that short or if the rest of the Hartigans were really that tall. All the while the next generation crawled or raced around the living room, much to the dismay of the cat that had taken refuge on top of a bookcase stuffed with mysteries and family photos. That lasted for about five minutes before a loud whistle broke through the din.
“Are we all here now?” a woman standing in the kitchen doorway said. “Can we eat? I’m starving.”
“Fallon,” Katie said, shaking her head. “Would it kill you to simmer down a bit?”
“I have to be at the hospital in an hour,” Fallon said without even a hint of regret. “It’s eat now or starve until after my shift. It’s a full moon tonight; I’ll be lucky to get out of the emergency room anywhere near close to on time.”
Ten minutes later, they were all packed around the table with plates piled high with waffles, corn beef hash, eggs, bacon, sausage, fruit, potatoes, ham steaks, and more. Everyone was talking and eating and giving each other shit. It reminded him of being with his cousins, just quadrupled in terms of people and volume. He’d eaten half the food on his plate, but he was still trying to get everyone straight.
“So you, Faith, and Ford are triplets. Ford is married to Gina, who is on his right.” The trio at the end of the table was deep in conversation about the Ice Knights’ draft prospects for next year.
Fiona nodded.
“Frankie and Finn are twins.” The giants were at the opposite end of the table with Lucy between them laughing their heads off at something Frankie had said. “Frankie is married to Lucy and Tyson is theirs.”
She nodded again and took a bite of her toast slathered with strawberry jam.
“Felicia and Fallon are your younger sisters.” The two sat across from them. “Felicia is married to one of the Carlyle brothers and Fallon—who is Charley’s mom—is married to Zach Blackburn, who isn’t here.”
That earned him a third nod, a win that he celebrated with a drink from his third mimosa.
“And Bridget”—who was walking around the dining room trying to get Charley back to sleep—“is your dad’s mom.”
“You got it,” Fiona said, taking a sip of her second mimosa. “That’s all of us. Except for my dad’s other family.”
He almost choked on his drink. “What?”
“I’m teasing.” She reached out under the table and patted his thigh.
He forgot what they were talking about after that, because she left her hand there halfway between his knee and where he really wanted it to be—just not when they were surrounded by a million and one of her closest relatives, some of whom were still shooting him dirty looks. What in the hell he’d done other than showing up with Fiona was beyond him. That thought turned into another glitch-in-the-matrix moment because Fiona started tracing the line of his inseam with one of her fingers. She didn’t go up any higher, just ran her fingertip along the line as his dick got hopeful.
Chill the fuck out, man. Not the time. Not the place. How much longer until this brunch is over and I can get her back to Harbor City?
After their dinner last night, he had to jerk off twice before he’d been able to fall asleep, and he’d still woken up this morning hard for her. Had she planned to leave him wanting after their date? Was it all strategy or was she having second thoughts about their arrangement? With someone else—someone like Nicole—he’d automatically assume it was strategy, but Fiona wasn’t like that. She was soft and sweet and judging by the hurt-her-and-die looks he was getting from almost every member of her family when she wasn’t looking, the rest of them knew it.
“This is it for the family,” Fiona went on, oblivious to the protective stance of her siblings. “I’m not sure Waterbury could handle any more Hartigans. All of the Madigans—my mom’s family—are enough. There are a zillion of them.”
And considering how many Hartigans there were, he figured she meant a zillion literally.
“So,” Fallon said as she added more crispy bacon to her plate. “How did you two meet?”
“Bramble,” he answered.
The air in the room shifted. Exactly why that was, he had no clue, but Fiona must have felt it, too, because she stiffened next to him and withdrew her hand from his leg. Even from the corner of his eye, he couldn’t miss the way she transformed from the stands-her-ground Fiona to someone who looked like she second-guessed if she was breathing correctly.
Everyone at the table was focused in on her—even the toddler sitting in his highchair. It wasn’t judgment so much as an overprotective sense of caring in the vibe, but Fiona didn’t seem to be taking it that way. She shrank down in her chair with her gaze locked on her plate as she used her fork to shove around the egg surprise.
Yeah. No. Nobody got to make Fiona feel like that—not even her family.
“Our first date was a hockey game,” he said, reaching for the one thing he could think of in that moment that would get all of that overwhelming attention off Fiona. “I came in my Rage gear, she was wearing all Ice Knights, and we still managed to have a great time.”
The cat let out a hiss and sprinted out of the room. It was the only noise in there, and no one’s gaze moved off him, not even for a millisecond.
Fallon pointed her slice of bacon at him. “You’re a Rage fan?”
He nodded and, for good measure, added, “Maroon and gold for life.”
That’s when all hell really broke loose.
