Mama’s Boy by Avery Flynn

Chapter Eight

Fiona

The next night, Fiona was with her people at their most sacred site—the Ice Knights arena.

Tonight’s game was against the hated Cajun Rage. Sure, the Ice Knights fans despised other teams but none—absolutely none—as much as the Rage. The rivalry game had the fans pumped up as they yelled team cheers while walking through the wide halls filled with food stalls, beer kiosks, and excitable interns in full Ice Knights face makeup selling fifty-fifty raffle tickets for the Harbor City Food Pantry.

Fiona followed the crowd as they circled the ice on the third floor of the arena. To the left stood ushers at the top of every entrance leading to the seats, each section marked by a plaque on the wall and a sign that hung from the ceiling. As she made her way past the deep-fried Oreo stand toward section 300, she made a longing look at the arena store. Okay, fine, she knew she could get jerseys or game pucks at much better prices online, but it was pretty much impossible not to at least peek at the latest and greatest to update her game-day look. As it was, she had on her Zach Blackburn jersey, an Ice Knights temporary tattoo across her right cheek, and extensions in the team colors of silver and navy threaded into her hair. Yeah, she was pretty damn game ready.

If only she could find Dixon and their seats.

She crossed under the sign listing sections 301 to 315 and came to a dead stop as people streamed past her as if she were a rock in the stream of life and they were the water. She turned around. The next hanging sign was for sections 385 to 399. Making a full circle while trying her best to ignore the siren call of Dippin’ Dots, she scanned the ceiling and top of the walls for a sign listing section 300. Nada. Zero. Zilch. She checked the text from Dixon again. Yep. It definitely said their seats were in section 300. What the hell?

Fiona walked over to a security guard done up in dark navy from head to toe with the cold, hard glare of the unfuckwithable.

“Hi,” she said when the guard lifted an exuberantly hirsute eyebrow, indicating she could talk. “I’m looking for section three hundred. Could you point me in the right direction?”

“Name?” he asked, his voice about twelve octaves lower than the super-low bass in a sea shanty group.

“I’m sorry?”

He let out a bored sigh, his gaze trained above her head as he scanned the crowd. “What’s your name and do you have ID?”

The hell?“I just want to get pointed in the right direction.”

He jerked his chin toward an unmarked door behind him. “This is section three hundred. Name and ID. I need to have both if you’re getting in.”

“Discombobulated” didn’t begin to cover it as she pulled her driver’s license out of the skinny crossbody bag emblazoned with the Ice Knights mascot, Arthur, on it. “Here.”

The guard looked at her ID and then gave her a narrow-eyed once-over. Then he shook his head with a chuckle as he handed back her license. “Good luck in there. Try not to kill him. The maintenance crew works too hard to have to deal with getting blood out of the special suites.”

Okay, then.

Fiona walked through the door and into one of the season-ticket-holder suites. She should have realized that Dixon wouldn’t be the type to sit among the regular fans, yelling about bad calls and illegal hits. Too common for him, no doubt. The fact that his suite was behind an unmarked door was an added layer of weird rich dude, though.

Straight ahead as she walked in was an area of ten cushioned seats bearing the Ice Knights logo. Technically, the seats were smack dab in the middle of the regular arena seats, but they were cordoned off behind a waist-high plexiglass fence so the only access to them was from the suite. To the right of the door was a bar with a bartender, a buffet table filled with a ton of delicious-looking food, and an ice sculpture of—

“Oh, good. I was beginning to worry,” Dixon said as he poured an ungodly fabulous amount of nacho cheese over his tortilla chips.

That wasn’t what stopped her dead in her tracks, though; made her press her palm to her chest; and forced a gasp of horror from her lungs.

No.

This couldn’t be.

But it was. It really, really was.

She looked closer at her surroundings, her stomach feeling worse with each heartbeat. The ice sculpture in the middle of the buffet table surrounded by pigs in a blanket, oversize German pretzels, and sliders was of a hockey puck with Go Rage etched into the center and the final score of the last rivalry game they’d played when the Rage had swept the ice with the Knights. Obviously that was because of shitty call after shitty call. That was bad. Even worse (as if that were possible?), Dixon was wearing head-to-toe maroon and gold.

“What in the hell are you wearing?” she asked.

Dixon shot her a shit-eating grin. “My Nate Clifton jersey.”

“On purpose?” The horror of it all. “To an Ice Knights game?”

“In this suite”—he popped a nacho into his mouth and crunched it—“it’s a Cajun Rage game, and I only attend when I can watch my Rage destroy the Ice Knights.”

She was going to puke. It was just too awful. “I can’t do this.”

“I don’t blame you,” Dixon said. “Wearing that symbol of mediocrity has got to be painful.”

Oh no he didn’t.

He.

Did.

Not.

Her back up and fire just about to shoot out of her fingertips—all aimed at one obnoxious Rage fan in particular—she squared her shoulders. No one did the Knights like that, especially not in their own house.

“Take it back,” she said through gritted teeth.

He let loose with a snarky chuckle that managed to be patronizing and defiant at the same time. “Not on your life.”

Oooohhhhhhh! She fisted and loosened her hands a million times. The security guard’s warning sat on one of her shoulders and her Hartigan temper on the other.

This man was the worst. The absolute, without-a-doubt, couldn’t-be-worser (yeah, she was a teacher and knew that wasn’t a word, but these were trying times) human being of all time. And he had a lot of competition for that title! But still, violence—as she told her third graders—was never the solution.

The truth of it was that she was here, not because of the man in a hideous jersey that he actually almost made look good—broad shoulders really were a sight to behold in a hockey sweater—but for her nana. She was on a mission, and this piece of work was not going to dissuade her from helping Nana realize her dreams.

She let out a cleansing breath, counted to a bazillion, and made her way over to the buffet table, ready to utilize melted cheese and potato skins for their medicinal properties.

“I’m beginning to understand why you had to find a date as an experiment,” she grumbled.

He held up a platter of wings. “Mild or burn the roof of your mouth off?”

As the fifth of seven kids, she knew a challenge when one was offered. Well, she wasn’t about to back down—no pretending to be Fallon needed.

“I like it hot.”

“You sure?” He turned the platter so that the bright-red wings were facing her. “These aren’t made for the timid.”

She grabbed a wing, sent up a quick prayer for her tongue, and took a bite. They were sweet chili pepper and wouldn’t have made a baby cry.

Dixon winked at her. “Gotcha.”

That. Loathsome. Man. UGH.

She couldn’t wait to watch him lose it when the Ice Knights pounded the Rage into oblivion while his stupid ice puck melted.