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Avery giggled but went back to her plate.
“Are you going to eat anything but the whipped cream?”
She froze with her fork in midair. “I have a system,” she said, absolutely serious. Like I was ridiculous for not knowing her method. “Whipped cream first. Because it’s my favorite.” She licked another dollop of it off the fork. “Bananas next, because they usually have the most whipped cream remnants.” She pointed her fork at the cream-covered slices. “Then if I have room, I might eat a few bites of the pancakes.”
Frowning, I scrutinized her. “So…” I cocked my head. “Why don’t you just order bananas and whipped cream?”
“Who eats just bananas and whipped cream for breakfast?” She shook her head like I was the crazy one in this conversation.
“You.” That was my entire point.
“No.” She scooted the plate a little closer to me and pointed at it again. “Clearly, there are pancakes here.”
I looked at Emerson, because that shit didn’t make sense. But he just smiled and shrugged, then went back to chatting with Jana.
“Want one? I’ll never finish them all.” Without waiting for a response, she hooked the lower pancake with her fork and pulled it out from under the top one. With a plop, she dropped it onto my plate next to my half-eaten omelet.
I frowned at the damn thing. No, I didn’t want it, but I hated to waste food, and Avery didn’t seem to have that issue.
Pam came by with a drink refill and finally brought Avery her own water. Maybe now she’d stop drinking mine.
“You guys are off on Friday, right?” Jana set her bagel on her plate. “You should come out with us.”
“Like a double date?” Emerson asked, his eyes dancing.
“We can’t label it that way,” Jana huffed, hitting Avery with a frown.
“I’m doing a dating cleanse.” Avery had finally finished the whipped cream and was now working on the bananas.
I was working on the pancake she’d dropped onto my plate.
“The fuck?” Emerson looked from her to me, wearing a scowl that was so unlike him.
“Right?” Jana shook her head.
“Jana thinks it’s dumb. Wren does too. But I’m taking a year off from dating to rid myself of all my bad habits. It’s a good thing.” Avery was more confident about it today than she had been when she explained it to me last week.
Hot anger flared up inside me at the idea that men had treated her so badly in the past. In this moment, I wanted nothing more than to track them down and teach them a lesson in how to treat women.
“So it’s a just friends thing. Want to come?”
Emerson met my eyes. The question there wasn’t whether I was in. He was silently asking me what the hell I was doing with her if she wasn’t dating.
I ignored him and focused on Avery again. Beneath the table, I tapped my wrist twice. “We’d love to.”
Fucker always wanted to go out, so he wouldn’t complain.
Maybe Emerson didn’t get it, but I knew what I was doing.
Did I love that she wasn’t dating? No. I hated it. But she deserved time to figure out what she wanted. And as much as I’d love to pull her into my arms and kiss her, just sitting beside her, eating her pancakes so she could have just whipped cream, listening to her laugh, was enough. For now. And I’d take this time to show her that we could have something great. Whether she knew it or not, she was giving me a chance to earn the spot of boyfriend when she was ready for it.
So I’d take friendship for now. Being just her friend might not be easy, because I wanted more. But when something was worth it, I was willing to do all the heavy lifting. Because if there was one thing I was sure of, it was that Avery Wilson was worth it.
September
Cortney tapped the back of his hand against his inner thigh twice and flashed four fingers. But I shook off the signal for the third time.
The sixty-plus feet between us didn’t hide the way the catcher’s shoulders tightened in response.
