Mama’s Boy by Avery Flynn

Chapter Forty-Seven

Fiona

The finished product were the ugliest raviolis Fiona had ever seen in her life, but they tasted divine. Darker red in some spots more than in others, the heart shapes looking raggedy to say the least, and with filling that went in the Goldilocks style—some too little, some too much, and a few just right. Clearly, neither she nor Dixon was about to give up their day jobs for culinary school.

Still, sitting there at his midcentury modern kitchen table—both of them dusted with flour and smelling a little too much like truffle oil, thank you butterfingers—eating the fruit of their labors, she couldn’t stop smiling.

She laid her fork on her plate and settled against the rubberwood back of the chair. “You beat the box.”

“No,” he said, wearing the grin he put on somewhere between rolling out the pasta dough with a wine bottle, since he didn’t have a rolling pin and boiling the ravioli, “we beat the box.”

She lifted her wineglass with a hand that had been partially dyed red because of the beet juice. “To us.”

“I’ll drink to that.” He clinked his glass against hers. “And to the real Fiona, who is amazing.”

They took a drink of the red wine, the kind that she’d bet her next paycheck he hadn’t bought because the label made him laugh in the wine aisle at Target. She knew she should just sit there, her butt encased in the softest gray cushion ever and move the conversation along, but she couldn’t.

“What do you mean about the real me?” she asked, unable to keep the question bottled up, even though New Fiona totally was yelling at her to keep her mouth shut.

Her, fishing for compliments? Okay, sorta. It had been a low point last month when she’d swiped right on his Bramble profile. And now, it felt like things were finally turning out the way Old Fiona had always dreamed.

Sure, they’d both said it wasn’t long term, but she wasn’t making it up in her head that there was potential here. Hope was a stubborn bitch, and she just couldn’t get rid of it. She wasn’t hopeless, she was too hopeful, but maybe this time it wouldn’t blow up in her face. Dixon was not a Chad.

“I have you all figured out, and the real Fiona is pretty amazing, even if sometimes it seems like you don’t believe that,” he said as he refilled her wineglass. “You love dogs.”

They were way past that lie, especially since Alexandra was texting her pictures of Peacock living his very best life at Gable House. “True.”

He set down the wine bottle and reached out to hold her hand, brushing his thumb across her knuckles with this look on his face as if he didn’t understand why he was doing it but he had to. “You are definitely the kind of person who always tips.”

“Guilty.” There was a special spot in hell for those who didn’t.

“You teach third graders,” he went on, reciting each item on the list as if he’d spent a lot of time considering it. “Who obviously think you’re a great teacher.”

“Oh, I want to be for them.” The last thing she’d ever do was to fail her students. She’d picked what is often thought of as the make-or-break year for grade school in terms of liking school or not because she wanted them to be excited about learning. There was just so much potential in them. “They’re such great kids.”

“You take photos for tourists.”

She tried to ignore the zing of awareness that shot through her with every stroke of his thumb. She failed beautifully. “How did you know that?”

“I saw you at the train station.” He pushed back his chair, stood up, and then made his way over to the island. “And you’re a soft touch.”

“What makes you think tha—” The rest of the words died on her lips when he took a small box out from a drawer and laid it on the table before lifting the lid. It was her heart necklace that she’d lost. “Where did you find it?”

“The tent after that first night.” Dixon walked around to her side of the table. Once he was behind her, he draped the necklace around her neck and fastened it. “The clasp was broken. It’s not anymore.”

She pressed her hand to the little gold heart hanging from the gold chain. “You got it fixed?”

Gathering up their dishes and carrying them to the sink, he kept his gaze lowered as if he was embarrassed about what he’d done. “It was no big deal.”

If that was true, she wouldn’t be tearing up right about now. “Thank you.”

All the warm and fuzzy feelings settled in her stomach, turning the world as rosy as the heart-shaped ravioli. This was trouble, she was in so much trouble, but it felt too right, too perfect to ignore. Hadley and Faith had wanted to know what she’d do if Dixon wasn’t just another big-business jerk. What if he was the kind of guy she brought home to her mom on every holiday and most of the weekend family brunches?

What if…

What if…

What if…

The longer she spent with Dixon as they cleaned up the kitchen, working together to clear the table and wash the dishes, the more it became a constant refrain in her heart, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to or could fight it any longer. Maybe in this one instance, Old Fiona had it right and she could trust her instincts.

Dixon came up behind her at the sink, wrapping his arms around her waist and letting his chin rest on her shoulder. “I want to show you something.”

“Another one of my grandma’s foot masks?”

He kissed the sensitive spot where her shoulder and neck joined. “Not even close.”

Guilt about why she’d swiped on his profile, her lies even though he’d seen through them, the fact that all of this had happened because she just wanted to use him to help Nana was like a pound of overcooked pasta in her belly, an uncomfortable feeling refusing to be ignored. When they’d started this, he was just the jerk who kept ditching her. It only seemed to be just deserts to set him up so that he would meet with her nana about her skincare line. Now he’d gone and gotten interested in Nana’s skin care all on his own, but that didn’t change how all of this had started—with a lie and a determination to strong-arm him into meeting with Nana.

Her original plan had this being when she was supposed to make that requirement clear or she wouldn’t go on the last date, and then he wouldn’t be able to win the bet with his cousins. That was the last thing she wanted to do now.

Well, second to last.

The very last was not seeing Dixon Beckett again.