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“Don’t start,” she warned.

“Wouldn’t dream of it. Have you finished number three?”

Avery narrowed her eyes at him. “You know I haven’t.”

“You did tell your mom you were coming over to work on homework this morning. I would hate for you to lie to the great Dr. Kelly Nielson. Might get you grounded before tonight’s big dance.”

“Fine, just—one second,” she said as her phone buzzed with yet another message. Probably from Cameron. Again.

Theo just didn’t understand what she saw in that jackass, other than his jawline and shoulders. Everything above those features was less substantial than a soap bubble, and about as sharp. Tommy once accused him of being jealous of Cameron, but that couldn’t have been further from the truth. If he was jealous of Cameron, why would he have asked Izzy out last week? They weren’t anything official yet—her insistence, not his—but his feelings for Izzy were real. Also, Avery had third-period AP World Lit with Izzy, and they seemed to get along just fine. Maybe a little overly cordial on Avery’s side, but he was pretty sure that was just her trying to make Izzy comfortable.

Avery was staring at her phone in utter disbelief, and Theo stopped even trying to do math. “Aves?” he asked quietly. “You okay?”

“I—just—read this,” she stammered, and handed her phone over, open to her most recent exchange with him.

Cameron: I’m just not sure we’re right for each other right now

Avery: What should we do then?

Cameron: We should take a break. Just for a few weeks, so we can figure this out

Avery: Homecoming is tonight????

Cameron: Yeah, I know

Sorry

We could still go, and just wait to tell people. Start the break tomorrow.

“Can you believe that asshole?” she sputtered.

“I mean, do you really want me to answer that?” Theo replied. He knew they had been a little rocky lately—in his opinion, Cameron always had the air of someone who was killing time until something (or someone) better came along—and he hated that for her. But he also knew from bitter experience that Avery did not like it when he brought that up. She bonked him on the shoulder with his pillow and let out something that might have been a laugh.

Theo handed her phone back. “What have you even been fighting about anyway?” They were sort of always low-level fighting, and truth be told, he didn’t pay a ton of attention to why. Mostly because it just got him pissed at Cameron on her behalf, and then she would defend him, and then they would end up fighting instead.

“Just—stuff. He wants to only apply to out-of-state schools, and I said it makes sense to consider a few places closer to home, just in case, and then he thought I was saying he can’t get in somewhere super-selective when I just meant, you know, he should have a plan B, just in case.”

“Yeah, wow, how dare you,” Theo deadpanned. His application process was somewhat simpler since, even with loans, he could afford only an in-state public school.

Avery rolled her eyes at him. “But seriously, I cannot believe he’d do this to me right now. I’m supposed to start getting ready in, like, two hours.”

Theo considered pointing out that, technically, Cameron had offered to go with her, but decided against it. Aside from Cameron, the only other argument they tended to have was that Avery cared a lot about things like homecoming, whereas Theo . . . did not. At all. Couldn’t even fake it, really. None of it made much sense to Theo, who personally agreed with Izzy that homecoming was an outdated ritual that had long outlived its purpose. But Avery was on homecoming court, and he knew she and her mom had driven all the way over to Duluth to go shopping for her dress, which she was very excited about. So it might not matter much at all to him, but he knew it mattered an awful lot to her. He also knew that Cameron bailing on her at this point, with the dance in about eight hours, made it even more humiliating for Avery. Even if they went together, she’d know he didn’t want to be there, and Avery would hate that.

In short, what Cameron had done was a real dick move. “I’ll take you instead,” he said impulsively.

Avery looked at him blankly. “I’m sorry, I think I misheard you. I thought you just offered to take me to homecoming. You know, a school dance? Something you’ve never once in your life done, and something you once said you would literally rather die than do?”

“Yeah, but you want to go, right?”

“I mean—I guess I do, but—”

“Then we can go together.”

“Are you sure?” Avery asked, chewing on her lower lip.

Theo’s stomach felt odd, like a flock of ducks had just decided to take off from a pond, if that pond existed somewhere below his sternum. “Of course I am. Tell him the break starts now, and you and I can go instead.”

She cocked her head to the side. “Aren’t you, um, dating Izzy now?”