Mama’s Boy by Avery Flynn

Chapter Six

Fiona

The Checkered Past was one of the best organic diners in Harbor City, and it also was manned by waitstaff dressed up to look like they just walked off the screen of a forties film noir. Fiona loved it—and not only a little because one bite of the patty melt on toasted rye got her as close to heaven as a sandwich possibly could. Plus, since she’d become a regular, she always ended up with extra pickle spears without even asking.

Her usual waitress, Chloe, came up to their booth, the Victory Roll her blond hair had been curled into drooping just enough to show that she was at the tail end of her shift. She took out her order pad, then gave Fiona the usual welcoming smile before sending a sly glance Dixon’s way and then offering a covert thumbs-up to Fiona.

Yeah, this was very much not that. Dixon was not a Cheating Chad the Assbag replacement. He wasn’t a rebound, either. He was just an entitled rich dude who wanted to date horrible women for some kind of experiment and couldn’t be counted on to keep his word. He was basically Chad Lite with a better wardrobe.

While Dixon read through the diner’s impressively thick menu, Fiona rolled her eyes and shook her head. Chloe let out a little sorry-girl sigh.

“The regular?” Chloe asked, starting to write it down on her pad.

Mouth already watering from the phantom taste of a patty melt, it physically hurt to utter the words that came next. “Just a water, thanks.”

Chloe mouthed the word “wow” and turned toward Dixon. “How about you?”

“Chicken and waffles, please,” he said, shutting his menu and sliding it back into the holder at the end of the booth that also held the fair-trade napkins and farm-fresh condiments.

Fiona’s stomach twitched and turned. It was her second-favorite choice. The crisp of the fried chicken. The soft give of the waffle. The little chunks of sausage in the creamy gravy. She could practically taste it. But she couldn’t risk scaring him off yet. She needed to be the woman in his ad…right up until the moment he agreed to her terms.

“You want country gravy on that?” Chloe asked.

Dixon wrinkled his nose. “I’ll pass.”

Her distressed squeak of protest escaped before Fiona could stop it.

“You object.” Dixon didn’t ask. He stated it.

The two little words were slathered with I-know-you’re-full-of-shit.

It took everything she had not to wince and shrink down in her seat. “No, it’s just that they list it on the menu as being a delicious must-try.” She pointed to the bolded text on her menu. “If you’re into that sort of thing.”

She nearly had him, but until she’d hooked him completely, she had to keep acting the part of the food-hating, dog-dismissing, no-tipping, horrible person he was looking for. Nana had a brilliant idea with her makeup line for the early-bird-special crowd. Just because she wasn’t young, rich, or connected shouldn’t stop her from getting her chance to live out her dream. Nana deserved this. Fiona couldn’t fuck this up like she had her dating life.

Be the hard-ass, not the fool.

“Into what? Good food?” Dixon asked, one side of his mouth quirking up and the dimple in his cheek deepening. “That’s right. You think eating for the pleasure of it is a waste of time.”

“That’s right.”

Girl, you are going to have to double your volunteer tutoring to make up for that big fat lie.

Chloe let out a series of coughs that sounded a little bit too much like a laugh and started toward the kitchen after Dixon said he’d changed his mind about the gravy.

For the next couple of minutes, Fiona fiddled with her menu while he seemed to be mentally cataloging each framed black-and-white movie poster on the diner’s walls. Awkward? Completely. And for some reason, that turned up the heat on the annoyance simmering in her veins. Fallon wouldn’t just sit here and pretend this was completely normal. No. Her sister would take the one thing that was ticking her off most and hang it right out there, as honest to a fault as Fiona was optimistic to a fault. Or at least she used to be.

But this was the new Fiona.

She would not automatically give the other person the benefit of the doubt—especially not after what Dixon had done to her. Really, if this date thing was some kind of weird experiment for him, why couldn’t he be just an experiment for her? One in which she could finally shake off Old Fiona and emerge like a butterfly-genus New Fiona.

She’d had three appointments to meet with him about Nana’s skincare line. Old Fiona would have chalked the canceled appointments up to communication errors (how she explained the first time he’d ditched her), misunderstandings (her optimistic spin on his second no-show), or her getting her wires crossed (which is the story she’d told herself when she’d walked home miserable after appointment two, when she’d half convinced herself that maybe he had a twin). New Fiona would not be making excuses for Dixon Beckett, that was for damn sure. And bonus, New Fiona would figure out a way to finally get Nana in front of the Beckett Cosmetics CEO. He was going to owe her a favor after all this was over, and she was going to call it in.

Maybe it was the way his shoulders had started the slump, maybe it was the guilt shining in his eyes, or maybe it was because Fiona Hartigan was a natural-born sucker, but she was breaths away from telling Dixon it didn’t matter and they could work it all out when Chloe stopped at their table with their—well, Dixon’s—food.

The smell of the country gravy brought her back to reality.

This wasn’t about her. It was about getting Nana in front of one stuffy rich guy who could license her skincare line and make her dreams come true. That’s why Old Fiona could have no presence at this table. This was all about New Fiona and doing whatever it took to never again be Old Fiona the chump, the sucker, the fool who ignored all the warning signs.

Will restored, she took a sip of her water and then leveled at Dixon what she hoped came across as an uncompromising glare. “I’ll do it. The dates. But you’re going to owe me at the end of this.”

His cocky grin pretty much screamed out that he’d never doubted it.

Good.

Perfect.

Being reminded that he was the enemy was exactly what she wanted.

That feeling lasted exactly until the moment when their hands touched to shake on the deal. The little zap of attraction that made her breath catch jerked her attention up to Dixon’s face. Even when it was set in a grim line, the man’s mouth was made for kissing. The hard set to his jaw just made her want to see him smile again. And the way he held her hand a few seconds too long, as if he’d been shocked, too? Yeah, she had to be just imagining that. Old habits of seeing possibilities and happily ever afters wherever she looked were hard to break—but that didn’t mean she was giving in to them ever again.

She slid her hand free. “And no matter what, I’m not seeing you after date six. A relationship is the last thing I want.”

A vein in Dixon’s temple bulged. “I’d rather spend the rest of my life with spinach stuck between my teeth and fart every three steps than get involved with someone.”

Good. At least there was agreement on this. “Relationships are the worst.”

“Without a doubt,” he said and shoveled a bite of gravy-covered waffle into his mouth, chewing it like it was his job and not a joy. “Six dates from now, we never have to see each other again.” He washed down the bite with a long drink of water. “So I need specifics on your terms. What is it that you want?”

Yeah, here was the flaw in her plan. The giant, gaping flaw the size of Texas and Alaska put together. She had to get him to agree to give Nana’s skin-care line actual consideration, but if he knew before it was time, he’d blow her off the same as he had up until now. She needed to figure out his soft spots so she could exploit them for the good of seniors’ skin care and Nana’s dreams—then she’d tell him everything. Until then, she had to be the bitchy femme fatale.

“You’re gonna owe me a favor and whatever I ask, you’ll say yes.” She bit back a groan at her own panicky incompetence. Oh yeah, that sounded totally mysterious and not at all like she dabbled heavily in conspiracy theories and invested in tinfoil.

He lifted an eyebrow. “No one would agree to that.”

“Well then, looks like you’re gonna lose,” she said, shrugging one shoulder like a dangerous dame in a forties flick.

He gave her an appraising look, the beginnings of a smile tugging at the right corner of his mouth. “You’re not gonna tell me, are you?”

She shook her head. “Nope.”

This was Nana’s one shot. Fiona wasn’t going to fuck it up by going soft. And if she got to torture him a little—or a lot—for being such a giant prick about meeting with her up until now (even if he didn’t know it was her), well, that was the extra hot fudge sauce on her success sundae.

He took another bite of delicious gravy-covered waffle. “It can’t be illegal, immoral, or fundamentally against my own self-interest.”

She nodded, not trusting her voice not to squeak with nerves if she answered verbally.

“This better work,” he grumbled.

“What could go wrong?” she asked, trying her best to sound a million times more confident than she felt.

She was here for Nana. That was it. And the fact that Dixon looked adorable with a dab of gravy on his chin as he sat there all growly? That didn’t factor into things at all.

Not.

At.

All.