Mama’s Boy by Avery Flynn

Chapter Forty-Three

Dixon

Dixon, Nash, and Griff had the back table at Willard’s Thursday night, and Griff was just finishing up the mammoth-size steak that might still be mooing.

Nash glanced up from his phone and shook his head. “Your arteries are going to be so fucked up from that.”

“Just tell me you’ve got a will made up,” Dixon added. “And you’re leaving everything to me and not this chucklehead.”

“Fuck you both.” Griff pointed his fork in their direction. “This is part of my regimen, and neither of you assholes is stealing even a second of my enjoyment. I might just order another.”

“Regimen” was the right word—or a person could go with way too stubborn to do something that wasn’t part of a practically Spartan commitment to doing things the hard way every single time. Griff had always been like that. A lifetime of showing bullies he was the hardest kid in the room even though he was half their size and several years younger.

“A toast,” Nash said, holding up his glass of whiskey. “To the first man down.”

Both of his obnoxious cousins looked at him with identical shit-eating grins that seemed to run in the Beckett family.

Dixon didn’t lift his glass. “You wish.”

“Really?” Nash smirked and sipped his whiskey. “I heard you made her cookies.”

Fuck. He never should have called his mom that day. “When did you talk to my mom?”

Nash shrugged and popped one of the few potato wedges left on his plate into his mouth. “She called me, said you were being weirdly close-mouthed about the whole thing.”

“I don’t tell my mom everything.” How many times did he have to say that? Probably only once if he actually meant it, but he never did.

“It’s because he likes her—for real, not that bullshit love-at-first-sight shit he was slinging at first,” Griff said, polishing off the last of his steak and sitting back with a satisfied sigh against the leather club chair. “You should have seen them at the marina.”

“Shut up, Griff,” Dixon grumbled.

Ignoring him, his cousin went on. “Be sure to tell your girlfriend that I appreciate all the feedback about the sauce.”

He wasn’t surprised. She’d taken copious tasting notes during dinner while the best he could do was not lose his sense of self-control at her sounds of pleasure as she ate.

He laid his knife and fork down across the few remains of his New York strip steak. “You were right the first time—she’s not my girlfriend,” he said, giving up any pretense that he could convince them otherwise.

Was that reality setting in on their lack of gullibility or the fact that there was nothing more he wanted Fiona to be at that moment?

The waiter stopped by their table and collected their plates, took their dessert orders, and refreshed everyone’s drinks. Dixon had every reason to expect a change in the topic of conversation after that. He was not so lucky.

“Then what is she?” Nash asked, going right to the heart of it.

“A friend.” The word felt weird coming out of his mouth when it came to Fiona. She wasn’t a friend. She wasn’t a girlfriend. She was…Fiona.

Nash lifted a brow. “One you sleep with?”

“It’s been known to happen,” he shot back.

“When?” Griff snorted in disbelief. “Your dick hasn’t seen anyone but your right hand since Nicole died.”

“Really smooth, asshole.” Nash turned to Dixon. “Ignore him. We know this has probably been rough, but you are not doing a disservice to her memory by moving on. She would have wanted you to. There’s no way a woman who loved you like she did would have wanted you to be alone.”

Dixon tossed back the rest of his scotch. It burned all the way down, but it wasn’t enough to dull the pain that came rushing to the surface. Not when he could still see that cop’s face. Not when he still had her last text on his phone. Not when he could read the police report stating that she’d left her lover’s house ten minutes before, saying she had to get home quick or Dixon would realize the truth.

Speed plus rain plus the distraction of cheating on your husband of less than six months while texting a lover were what had equaled a car accident that night—something his cousins still didn’t know about and as far as he was concerned never would. It was in the past. Talking about it wouldn’t change anything. He was still the loser who couldn’t keep his wife.

He slammed his glass back down on the table. “I will be the last man standing.”

Nash and Griff exchanged a look.

“But do you want to be?” Nash asked.

It would be easier to answer if Nash really was the slightly self-absorbed know-it-all only focused on the next sale, the next woman, the next decadent experience that the world saw when they looked at him. In truth, Nash never missed anything, and he was always watching out for everyone, always focused outward. There was nothing that wasn’t exactly the truth that his cousin would believe.

Dixon lied anyway. “Without a doubt.”

It was close to the truth. At least it was if he blocked out all the little uncertainties that seemed to be lying in wait whenever he thought about Fiona—the ones that started with “maybe” or “this time could be different” or “what if.” Those were the questions he couldn’t—wouldn’t—answer.

He could make it for three more dates.

He would make it for three more dates.

“Okay, then,” Nash said. “Let me tell you the plan for your date tomorrow night.”