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“Well, I don’t,” Avery said, and then she did something that he knew, without a doubt, he would remember with crystal clarity for the rest of his fucking life.

She sank to her knees.

Theo sipped at his pop, wishing he wasn’t so responsible. A little rum with his Coke would have made the rest of the night a lot easier to bear, but he had to drive his ass home tonight, so plain Coke would have to suffice for now. Avery was sitting next to him, looking—fine, he’d admit it—unfairly pretty in her dress, just like he’d known she would when he picked her up a few days ago. The navy of her dress made her hair glow like a candle, standing out above everything else he could see in the room. Her lips looked just the tiniest bit swollen from his kisses, and he liked that more than he probably should.

Christ. It had only been a handful of days, and now everything was fucked. Even worse, across the room Cameron was throwing darker and darker looks their way. There was no way Theo was going to get out of this night without a bigger confrontation with the dick, no matter what he promised Avery.

Especially since, while Theo was being responsible and in control, Cameron, as usual, was not. He really didn’t understand how Dr. and Dr. Nielson liked Cameron as much as they did, given that he was doing goddamn shots at the bar like he was in some shitty dive bar off campus and not a country club. The bartender looked annoyed, which told Theo Cameron had probably threatened her to make sure she kept serving him despite the fact that he was clearly already very drunk and obviously underage.

Beside him, Avery tensed. Theo jerked out of his rumination on Cameron’s many, many faults and realized the jerk himself was walking toward them, his jaw jutting forward. Avery reached over and covered Theo’s hands with hers, but whether for herself or to keep him in check, he didn’t know.

“Avy, can we talk?” Cameron said, throwing dirty looks at Theo between each word. He wasn’t slurring, but it looked like it was taking a lot of effort not to.

Avery glanced around, shoulders lowering slightly when her gaze landed on her parents, who were deep in conversation with someone Theo didn’t recognize. “Cam, now’s probably not a great time,” she said soothingly.

“Why not? Because he’s here?” Cameron replied, gesturing with his drink and slopping some over the rim.

“Because you’re drunk,” Theo snapped.

Cameron whirled to face him—or attempted to at least. He was even drunker than Theo had thought, seeing as he looked like he was moving in slow motion. “Fuck you,” Cameron hissed. “I wasn’t fucking talking to you.”

“Cam—”

“But I’m talking to you,” Theo said, cutting Avery off. “You’re drunk. Go home, sleep it off, and if Avery wants to talk to you, she’ll call you tomorrow.”

“Avery can speak for herself,” she interjected, sounding pissed.

“Yeah, Avery can speak for herself,” Cameron mocked.

Theo stood, his chair shoving back with a loud screech. “Watch it,” he ordered, being careful to keep his voice low.

But Cameron wasn’t having any of it. “I’m not talking to you,” Cameron said, and stepped close enough that Theo could smell his alcohol-ripe breath.

“Back off,” he said, jaw tight.

But Cameron had always been kind of an idiot, grades notwithstanding, and rather than do the smart thing, he shoved Theo. It wasn’t hard enough to hurt him, but it did knock him slightly off balance.

Fury blazed through Theo and he tightened his hands into fists. “Touch me again. I dare you.”

Avery blew out a breath through her nostrils and stood, moving between them. “Outside. Now,” she ordered. She stomped to the doors to the veranda that overlooked the golf course without looking back.

For a second, Theo and Cameron stared at each other before belatedly realizing they were supposed to be following her. Theo made it to the door first, thanks to the fact that his body still worked properly, but Cameron shoulder-checked him as he tried to open the door, successfully throwing Theo to the side for long enough to make it outside first.

Avery was standing there with her arms crossed, glaring at them both like she was Señora Schmidt during fifth-period Spanish and they were the Xiong twins who had just gotten caught texting again. “The fuck was that?”

Both of them started to speak at once, but Avery cut them off with a deadly shake of her head. “You,” she said to Cameron. “What the hell do you want?”

He looked suddenly forlorn. “To talk to you, Avy,” he whined. “We were—so good together.”

Theo couldn’t help himself. “Until you dumped her for someone else.”

Avery sent Theo yet another dark look, but Cameron rose to the bait. “So you could swoop in, like you always do.”

“Always?” Theo said mildly. Next to him, Avery shivered, and Theo shrugged out of his jacket, handing it over to her without taking his eyes off Cameron.

Cameron’s eyes tracked Avery slipping Theo’s coat on before managing to focus on him with a surprising amount of hatred in them. “Homecoming,” he practically spat. “Actually, no, before that. You’ve been waiting on my slop—you’ve been wanting Avery since you met her.”

“Did you just call me your sloppy seconds?” Avery demanded, fortunately not paying attention to the second half of Cameron’s accusation. Her hands were hidden by the length of the suit coat’s sleeves, but Theo was pretty sure her hands were in fists themselves now.