Mama’s Boy by Avery Flynn
Chapter Fifty-Five
Fiona
A cold drizzle had just started when Fiona spotted Dixon in front of the old movie theater in her neighborhood.
They’d been supposed to meet at her apartment and walk the four blocks together through the fall festival activities in Coll Park—turned out they both loved a pop-up ice skating rink—but her parent-teacher conference schedule had other ideas. She’d had three last-minute appointment requests for kids whose parents hadn’t shown much of an interest before. There was no way she could justify saying no to those just so she could meet Dixon at her house. So she’d gotten Faith to drop off a dress at her school (bonus points for having a triplet who was the same size) and changed in the teachers’ bathroom. Glamorous it was not, but it had gotten her here by date time as opposed to a half hour late. She didn’t want to lose even five minutes when it came to the time she had to be with Dixon.
He stood in front of the closed ticket booth in the cream sweater he’d worn that first night and a pair of jeans.
“Where’s your coat?” she asked, rushing up to him and holding her umbrella above him. “Aren’t you freezing?”
“Murphy’s here,” he said, jerking his chin toward the town car parked by the curb. “I was waiting in the car until you turned the corner.”
She tilted her face up expectedly, waiting for him to meet her halfway in a kiss that would be perfectly respectable in public but wouldn’t feel like it. Instead of doing that, though, he pivoted away from her, walked to the theater door, and held it open for her.
Dread crawled its way up her spine, making her steps jerky as she walked through the doorway into the restored Gilded Age glory of the Shupe Theater. A crystal chandelier lit by the soft-glowing Edison lightbulbs hung from the lobby ceiling, bathing the gilt wallpaper and the parquet wood floors in a romantic glow. An usher in a winter-white tuxedo stood next to a blue velvet rope, but otherwise they were the only people in the place as far as she could see.
“Wow,” she said, doing a full slow spin to take it all in—including the fresco showcasing actors from classic movies painted into classical scenes. “This is gorgeous. Thank you.”
“Nothing to thank me for,” Dixon said, putting his palm on the small of her back and leading her toward the rope. “This is all Nash.”
The tingling awareness that always happened around Dixon went into overdrive when he touched her, easing some of the oh-shit feeling that had the little hairs on the back of her neck standing at attention.
Everyone has off days, Fiona. It’s not always like it was in the beginning. It’s normal. Remember: your instincts are wonky personified. Just dial in your inner Fallon. Don’t be Old Fiona.
Pasting on a smile that was pretty much the definition of fake it till you make it, she walked with him into the renovated theater. In place of the usual stadium seating, there were linen-covered bistro tables set up next to a pair of luxury loungers. Moviegoers would have dinner and then go sit in the chaises. Before the movie started, the floor below the tables would open up, and the entire table would be lowered via hydraulics into the space below, where the staff would clear and reset them while couples met and fell in love or car chases ended with the bad guy going down in the end on the big screen on the floor above.
The concept had taken Harbor City by storm, and it was easier to get the silver-and-purple-wrapped drinking chocolate than to get a reservation at the Shupe Theater—and yet they had the entire place to themselves.
“You rented out the whole thing?” She pressed her hand to her chest when they stopped at a table in the center of the room. Knowing he could afford it didn’t make the imagined price tag any less mind-blowing.
“Again,” he said, holding out a chair for her to sit down, “that was Nash.”
That prickly unease marched across his skin again, but she shoved it aside. This was Dixon. The guy who’d brought her favorite lunch to work and ate it with her in the cafeteria. He’d braved brunch with her family and her best friend. He fixed necklace clasps and made ugly ravioli and shared the secrets he never told anyone else. She didn’t need to be on her guard with him. He wasn’t a Chad.
There was champagne waiting for them in an ice bucket next to the table.
Anticipation and unease had her on the edge of her seat—literally. “Are we celebrating?”
“Of course.” He popped the cork and poured them each a glass that bubbled and fizzed. Dixon held up his glass in a toast. “To our last date. I couldn’t have won without you.”
It took her a second to process what he’d said.
Fiona’s chest didn’t ache. No, this was much worse than that. It was as if her ribs had snapped apart in one great blast that sent bone shrapnel into her heart. “Our last date?”
“Of course,” he said, his eyes hard, his body practically rigid with tension. “That was the plan all along. Six dates. No feelings. And then we never see each other again.” He took a sip, still standing up, looking down at her. “It has been fun, though.”
“I don’t understand.” She set her glass of champagne down on the table in a jerky motion that sent some of the golden liquid sloshing over the edge. “I thought things had changed. I thought—”
What had she thought? That things could work out? That maybe she’d finally gotten it right this time? That she wasn’t a complete and total fool?
Knee bouncing up and down under the table, the panic making her go from zero to a million on the jittery scale, she closed her mouth because, really, what in the hell was she supposed to say?
“I admit I was going to ask if we could take a break just long enough for the bet to finish.” He kept his cool, flat gaze on her, and it made her stomach turn. “It was an elegant solution. A win-win. We wouldn’t be in a relationship, so I’d come out on top with the bet, and then we could pick up again after Christmas.”
It was just white noise in her head as she worked her way through what Dixon had said, but by the time she’d made it through the whoa, the wait, and the what the fuck, she was seeing red.
“That’s how you think relationships work?” she asked, her brain catching up with the absolute insult of it all. “Like a transaction?”
“Interesting word choice, because that’s exactly how you see this, isn’t it?” He gave her a tight, patronizing smile that made the arctic look like the equator. “Let’s finally be honest with each other—or at least you can be honest with me for once.”
He downed the entire glass of champagne in one swallow as she sat there, mouth agape, trying to catch up. She didn’t recognize this Dixon. This wasn’t the man she’d been with—the one she’d fallen in love with despite fighting it every step of the way.
“I’ve always been up front with you, Fiona. I’ve been honest. I’ve never lied.” His gaze darkened as he narrowed his gaze. “I didn’t try to lie and connive and fake that I gave a shit about someone else just to get a business deal for my grandma.”
The world fell out from beneath her feet, and her breath left her lungs in one big whoosh. No. He couldn’t think that. There was no way he would ever— She glanced up at his face, searching it for any trace of the man who’d left her bed this morning. It had been so early that the sun was just thinking about rising. He’d kissed her, his day-old beard scratching her cheek, and promised he’d text later. That man was gone, if he’d ever existed at all, if he hadn’t just been a figment of Old Fiona’s gullible imagination.
“That’s right,” Dixon continued while she sat there silent, unable to find any words. “I know about the appointments Ernie canceled. Your little ploy to take advantage of the situation didn’t work. I see right through you, remember? I know just what kind of person you are. A liar willing to do whatever it takes to make a business deal happen. Nicole would have admired your skill in the game. Frankly, you made her look like an amateur.”
It was a verbal slap that landed like a physical one. Her entire body didn’t just sting from the impact, the blow smacked her hard enough that she was surprised her teeth didn’t rattle in her head.
What. The. Fuck.
How dare he?
Heat beat at her cheeks as her heart threatened to beat out of her chest it was going so fast. He couldn’t— This wasn’t how— She fought to process what was going on as clasping her shaking hands together in her lap and blinking back the tears of shock and hurt.
“You just jumped to the conclusion that I was spending all this time with you, having you at my house, introducing you to my family, passing every waking moment tucked up with you just to win a contract for my grandma? I told you I wanted a favor as part of the agreement for me to go on the dates, which had nothing to do with what developed between us. That was special. That was—”
“Love?” he interrupted, a cold, cruel smile on his face. “We both know that’s bullshit. At least, unlike Nicole, you didn’t have to marry me to get that win you wanted.”
Anger, pure and practically solid to the touch, blasted through her. How dare he? That wasn’t who she was, what she was like.
He knew that.
How could her instincts have been so wrong about him? Even for her, this was extraordinary.
“That’s not how my brain works,” she said, each word coming out brittle as she white knuckled the thin shred of control she still had. “Of course that’s where you went with it, because that’s the only way you can look at the world. It’s about winning with you. It always is.”
He shrugged, sitting down at the table with practiced ease, and poured himself another glass of champagne. “There’s nothing wrong with winning, even if making someone think you actually cared about them just to get that W seems like a bit much even for someone like me.”
She flinched back.
He poured himself another glass of champagne, each move to do so—reaching for the bottle, adjusting the towel wrap so it didn’t drip melted ice water on the table, tilting the bottle just so, and letting the liquid flow—was slow, deliberate. While she was nothing but raging fire, he’d gone to ice.
Gone to or always was?
Had she, once again, seen what she wanted to instead of what was right in front of her? She really was an absolute gullible fool.
“There is something wrong with winning when it’s all you care about,” she said, seething with anger at him, with herself, with the world. “When you use it as an excuse to block yourself off from the rest of the world.” She stood up with enough force that her chair fell back behind her and planted her hands on the table, leaning forward and getting into his privileged personal bubble, her body shaking with fury and hurt. “Yes, I answered your ad. Yes, I did it because I wanted to make you pay for ditching those appointments. Yes, the favor you promised to give was going to be meeting with Nana about her skincare line. But I never faked anything with you. Why would I need to when you already agreed to owe me a favor? Besides, I was going to tell you tonight, because against my better judgment, I’d fallen in love with you. There, that’s all of it, that’s everything. The whole truth. Happy now?”
He lifted an eyebrow, so calm, so casually awful. “We both know that’s not all of it.”
“What are you talking about?” she asked, fighting back tears that he didn’t deserve to know he’d caused.
