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Cameron looked at her flatly, then jerked his head in a nod and drained the rest of his cup. He followed her to the small landing above the steps to the basement, which, between the cleaning supplies stacked in one corner and some suspicious-smelling hockey gear hanging from another wall, just barely fit them. “Well?” he said coldly. “Talk.”

His anger shoved away her guilt, and she crossed her arms. “You were the one who dumped me, you know,” she snapped.

“Yeah, and it was a mistake. I didn’t think Theo would be waiting in the wings to swoop in on you.”

“How was I supposed to know you didn’t mean to dump me? If I remember correctly, your exact words were ‘It’s just not working, Avy. We’re done.’ That sounded pretty final to me.” Avery had never quite known what would push Cameron into another one of his moods where he’d decide maybe they needed to take a break, but it was usually around when something big would be happening—college applications around homecoming last fall, and then a brief breakup in the spring when he’d decided to go to Boston College that had barely lasted twenty-four hours before they were rather enthusiastically making up in his car.

“Yeah, and I was going to apologize for that now,” he said, and the whining note in his voice irritated her. He could go two ways when he was drunk—whiny and annoying, or belligerent and annoying. Tonight, apparently, he was going with whiny. And that bugged the shit out of her, because when Cameron wanted to be, he was really good at apologizing.

“So?”

“So you said you’d listen to me.”

“And here I am, listening.”

Cameron frowned. “Fine, Riley was a mistake.”

Avery’s stomach twisted. She had seen plenty of photos of Cameron and his new girlfriend, but her social media handle was just RyeRye06, and she hadn’t known her name. “Riley, huh?” she said acidly. “And how did you meet Riley?”

“At a party. It doesn’t matter. She was just a mistake, okay?”

“Okay. And?” In all honesty, Avery was struggling to figure out how she felt about Cameron. Their relationship had always been rocky, but whenever things got bad before, she had always wound up accepting his apology. It was just easier that way. She couldn’t pretend like it hadn’t hurt to be dumped so unceremoniously by him, and that there weren’t certain things about him that she missed—sex, yes, but also the fact that he could be funny and charming, and how her relationship with her parents was slightly easier when she was with him. But that didn’t mean she wasn’t pissed at him, and grateful that her charade with Theo was causing him some discomfort.

“And you were far away. What we had was always so—physical, you know?”

“You dumped me because I couldn’t have sex with you while we were in different states? Did you think that we’d be able to manage that somehow, or were you under the impression that Boston and Minneapolis were somehow not far apart?”

“No, I just thought it wouldn’t bother me so much, you know?”

“And? What’s changed?”

“I realized that wasn’t all it was with us.”

“Wow, so glad to hear I’m more than just a vagina,” she deadpanned.

“Come on, Avy, you know that’s not what I meant.” She raised her eyebrows, and he sighed. “I meant—I missed you, you know? Just hanging out and talking.”

Truth be told, Avery didn’t have a ton of memories of Cameron that just involved talking. Usually talking was a prelude to making out, which was a prelude to hooking up. They did have fun together, that much was true, but part of her felt like he was sort of overstating things. “Riley wasn’t much fun to talk to?”

“Riley didn’t like me very much,” he admitted, and there was another point in Cam’s favor. He could be disarmingly honest when he wanted to be, and even a little self-deprecating. His blue eyes were appealing in the light shining in from the side door next to them, and Avery found herself wanting to take a step back, lest she undo everything she and Theo had worked to set up so far.

“Well, it’s too late. I’m with Theo.”

“I saw,” he said bitterly.

“You mean like how I saw you hadn’t just dumped me but found someone else thanks to your posts on PopTalk?” All of Itasca was on PopTalk, and had been since middle school, so it wasn’t like Cameron could pretend he didn’t think she’d see it. It was the primary method of communication for everyone their age.

Cameron at least had the decency to wince at that. “I wasn’t thinking when I posted those,” he admitted. “But I shouldn’t have.”

“Okay.”

Cameron waited for her to say something else, but when she didn’t, his face hardened. “Aren’t you going to apologize for not telling me about Theo?”

“Why should I? It’s not like I had a lot of chances to tell you. You and I only really started talking last week, and as far as I knew, you might still be seeing someone else.”

Cameron sighed and shook his head, looking outside for a long beat. “Fine. Whatever,” he said, and then glanced over her shoulder. What little warmth was left in his face drained away, replaced by bitter coldness. “Theo,” he said tightly.

Avery turned, relief flooding her chest. “Cameron,” Theo replied in the same tone of voice. Cameron stepped past Avery, but Theo didn’t move out of the way, forcing Cameron to squeeze between Theo’s shoulder and the wall.