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Chapter Thirty

Avery

Avery watched Theo approach Izzy warily, like she was a wounded wild animal, and wanted to mentally throw herself off a cliff. She wondered if she could handle this better if she hated Izzy the way Theo hated Cameron. It might be easier, she reckoned, if she wasn’t constantly assuming Theo would realize she was just his boring old friend, rather than sexy, mysterious, exciting Isabelle. Maybe if Izzy had cheated on him, or had dumped him rather than vice versa, or even just had a crappy sense of humor—all of that would have made this easier.

Avery knew she couldn’t just stand there and watch them. It would be creepy as hell, and anyway, she didn’t want Theo to feel like he was under surveillance.

If only she hadn’t gone and gotten sappy as hell. She might have been able to pull out of this with some dignity if Izzy had timed her appearance to just five minutes earlier. But she hadn’t, and Avery had confessed to Theo that she was developing feelings—real feelings for him, not pretend ones—just in time for his ex to show back up.

Avery skated over to the edge of the crowd around the bride, more to look like she had something to do than any real desire to talk to Harper’s cousin. She felt like she was going out of her skin, wondering if she’d just thrown her entire friendship with Theo out the door.

Or maybe she had done that the second she suggested they pretend to be dating. It had seemed so easy at the time, and so selfless, that it hadn’t registered as risky. Even when Theo had offered to be her fuckbuddy, she had told herself it wasn’t a big deal. She had very enlightened ideas about sex and casualness, in her opinion, and she was sure they could keep their feelings separate. She was so sure about it until everything suddenly shifted.

One second, Avery had been happy with her life as it was, and then, all at once, she knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she had feelings for Theo. She couldn’t say what triggered it, or why she hadn’t taken more than half a second to think about it before she said it out loud, like a fucking idiot.

It wasn’t like she’d never thought about it before. Theo was objectively handsome, and they were good friends. Hell, she’d had a little thing for him the first time they met, but it was the passing crush of a fourteen-year-old girl, not any serious, real feelings. She didn’t even remember when she moved on from it, just that it was over before it really even started. Theo had just seemed like he was too different, too cool for her. She was a nerd, he was someone who knew where to buy pot. Before it had gotten a chance to turn into anything, she had successfully smushed her crush. Avery didn’t believe in letting herself get hurt like that, in a way that would be nearly impossible to recover from. Cameron didn’t have that power, but Theo definitely did, almost from the start. She had known that before she went and feelings-vomited on him, but she had, for once in her life, let her control slip. And now she would pay the price.

If she hadn’t said anything, Avery probably would have been able to move past the humiliation of Theo turning her down. But knowing that it was out there, that she was vulnerable, while Theo was having a serious-looking conversation with his ex was just unbearable.

Worse, Theo looked sad, which made sense. He hadn’t really dumped Izzy for anything other than general unease with the distance, and while he’d said he didn’t want her coming back to Minnesota just for him, Avery knew that wasn’t all of it. He wanted Izzy to make the right choice for herself, not just what he might want, and Theo was exactly the sort of self-sacrificing guy to take himself out of the running for what he really wanted, just to make sure someone else got what they wanted. It didn’t really fit with his public persona, but Avery knew him to his very core, and the man talking to Izzy right now was someone who was regretting everything.

And the person most responsible for those regrets was wearing roller skates and standing around, pining over him like a fucking dumbass.

Avery decided she couldn’t handle it anymore. She needed to leave, and now. She wasn’t sure how she would get home, but it was Itasca. There was bound to be someone she knew in the parking lot who was going in the rough direction of her parents’ house. Failing that, she’d walk.

She would be able to figure it out, and that would be better than sitting around waiting for Theo to come and carefully, thoughtfully, shatter her heart.

Chapter Thirty-One

Theo

Izzy left, but Theo stayed sitting, their argument swirling in his head. Avery was busy out on the rink, not paying attention to him. Which was good, because he felt like shit.

Izzy was right, of course. He’d been lying to himself for a long time, and even when he almost let himself admit it—homecoming, or that drunken night with Tommy over the summer—he would pull back at the last second. He would tell himself that he wasn’t feeling what he knew he was feeling, and anyway, if he was, Avery would never feel the same way, so better to just bury those feelings until they suffocated.

But now, he had no choice. Not only had Izzy thrown it in his face, but Avery wanted it to be real—something he had, he could now admit, wanted for years. But Avery had only just now realized she might have feelings for him, and if he came out with the whole truth right away, that he was in love with her, she might bolt. Karl was right, she is skittish, he thought to himself. He needed to go slowly, or else risk losing her forever.

That meant Theo faced a choice—admit the truth and blow it all up, or keep just this one thing to himself. Not forever, and not even for too long, just for now, until things with them were more solid. That wasn’t too hard for him to pull off, although he would have to make sure Tommy knew not to tell her, which would be harder. But if Tommy knew the stakes, he could probably be persuaded.

“You okay?” Grace skated slowly over to the booth and slid into the seat Izzy had recently vacated. “That looked intense.”

“Izzy’s pissed.”

“I gathered. Did you want to talk about it?”

Grace wasn’t his usual confidant—that was Avery, followed by Tommy, and that was really the full extent of his list. Theo hadn’t really gotten the hang of trusting many people, but he didn’t really feel like this was something to discuss with Avery, and Tommy knew a little too much context for Theo’s comfort. “She’s mad I’m with Avery,” he admitted.

“Tommy said she was thinking of transferring back for you,” Grace said. “I assume that’s out?”

“Transferring for me is out I would think. She might still come back, but I don’t think I’m part of that anymore.”

Grace looked at him shrewdly, her dark eyes scanning his face. “What else is going on?”

“I just feel bad.” Theo rested his head in his hands, looking down with his fingers tugging on his hair. “I never meant to hurt her.”

“You had to know that the way you guys did your big reveal would sting,” Grace countered. “I mean, showing up to the party as a couple? Not even soft-launching it with us first? Making out in the middle of the dance floor? That was for maximum impact and you know it.”

That’s because it wasn’t real. Or isn’t. And we only came up with it a few hours before the party. But he couldn’t admit that without the whole damn thing unraveling. But the truth was, he had been in a panic after hearing Izzy was thinking of making such a major life change for him, and he didn’t want to be the bad guy by telling her that directly. Except now he was the bad guy, incontrovertibly, and he couldn’t even apologize properly because the whole damn thing was based on a lie.