Mama’s Boy by Avery Flynn

Chapter Forty-Two

Fiona

The next day, Fiona was at the coffee shop below her apartment with Hadley and Faith. They’d gotten a coveted corner booth and were each two sips deep into their coffees. Yeah, that’s how long it had taken Fiona to spill everything about yesterday’s lunch.

“So he just showed up at the school?” Hadley asked, her sweet just-a-quick-follow-up-question tone about as believable as the designer purses being sold down the corner for a song being the real deal.

Faith didn’t bother to attempt to hide how hard her bullshit meter was going off when she followed up with, “And he brought lunch, which he ate with you in the school cafeteria?”

Fiona nodded and took another sip of her piping-hot caramel cappuccino with extra foam so she wouldn’t have to actually say the words out loud and share even more—like how he remembered all the kids’ names and how he waved goodbye to all of them and how after she’d walked him out through the office, Ms. Steele had given her a high five.

Hadley and Faith looked at each other, and some sort of nonverbal-communication thing happened in half a heartbeat. Usually it was Fiona and her fellow triplet who did that. Not this time. Instead, her best friend and closest sister were giving each other looks that basically translated to, Are you gonna tell her? and Fuck no.

The waitress came by and delivered their pastries—hello, buttery flakey heaven—stalling the interrogation for the amount of time it took for each of them to grab a still-warm croissant and take a bite.

Always the focused one, Faith circled the conversation back to Dixon. “And you’re only dating him so he’ll finally take an appointment to meet with Nana professionally, which he has no clue about?”

Fiona nodded, pushing back the guilt over that last part. “Exactly.”

When she’d made her plan, Dixon had just been the rich asshole who’d been ditching her appointments. Now? It was all starting to feel very different.

“Also,” Hadley said as she brushed a few crumbs from the corner of her mouth, “the sex was good.”

“Phenomenal.” The confirmation of the sex she had never mentioned had flown out of her mouth before she could stop it.

Shit.She winced.

Hadley, smug smirk in place, went on. “But this is only happening for another few dates.”

“Right.” Three dates to be specific, which she was already trying to figure out how to delay to extend the whole six-dates-only thing.

“But,” Faith said, already finished with her croissant and eyeballing Fiona’s, “he’s not as horrible as you’d thought; he’s actually kind of nice, which is exactly why you can’t date him for real.”

“You got it. He seems nice to me, the kind of guy you’d take home to your parents.”

“Which you already did,” Faith said as she swiped the single remaining bite of Fiona’s croissant in a quick move she’d been using since they were babies.

“True,” Fiona said, snagging the pastry back out of her sister’s grasp. “However, I cannot be trusted.”

Hadley grabbed what was left of the croissant and popped it into her mouth, thus ended the sibling thievery before saying, “Well, I know just who you should trust. My friend Fiona is amazing.” She locked her gaze on Fiona and made it impossible for her to look away. “She’s smart and sweet and even though it’s not easy in this city, she’s all heart.”

Faith nodded. “It’s true.”

Fiona squashed her lips together and blinked about a million times in the next three seconds. Damn it, she was not going to get all teary at The Whole Bean just because she had the best friend and sister in the world.

“You’re biased,” she said with a sniffle.

“No, I’m right and you know it,” Hadley said. “Anyway, be nice to my friend. She’s pretty fucking amazing.”

And there it went—a trio of tears slid down her cheeks and she had to do the whole bite-the-inside-of-your-cheek thing to make it stop before she made a complete fool of herself in her favorite Breakwater neighborhood coffee shop. It took her a second, but she managed to pull herself together—but it was too late. The rush of emotion had made the real scary thing, the thought she’d spent the last few weeks shoving down, float to the surface.

“But what if I misjudged—again—and it turns out Dixon is awful?” she asked.

Neither Faith nor Hadley had anything to say to that. How could they? There was a reason why her friends and family watched out for her like they did, because she made the wrong decisions to trust the wrong people. Repeatedly. The smart thing was for her to stick to her original plan: dating for Nana. The rest of it was just temptation to make bad life choices. Even if Dixon turned out to be the exception, it would only be the one that proved the rule. Fiona Hartigan was a gullible sucker who couldn’t trust her own instincts when it came to people.

Too bad all she wanted to do was to forget that fact.