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When I didn’t respond, she apologized again. “I’m sorry, Grayson.”
“I know, Aves.” I sighed and kept my eyes trained on the paper football. I couldn’t look at her. If I did, all of my resolve would crumble.
“I’m too late, aren’t I?” Avery whispered in a trembling voice.
The guy behind the counter slid three large pizzas in front of me, but I totally ignored it.
“Too late for what?”
Avery stared at her lap, and I barely heard her next words. “You said you’d wait for me.”
“What?” I was so shocked I almost fell off my stool.
Avery mistook my question for confusion and started to ramble out an explanation.
“I know that was a long time ago. I know you usually have a short attention span where girls are concerned, and I know I lasted longer than all the girls before me, but I was sort of hoping you meant what you said about giving me another chance once my heart was all fixed.”
“But . . . but . . .”
I’d never looked so incredibly un-cool in my life. I couldn’t pull myself together. I just sat there sputtering words like a stammering idiot. I’d been so sure things were done between us. She had Aiden back! How could she be standing in front of me right now asking for a second chance when the guy of her dreams was right across the room and totally interested in her?
“But I thought you and Aiden were . . .”
Avery processed that and then gasped. “Is that why you’ve been acting so strange? You think Aiden and I are together?”
“You guys went out on Saturday.” It was dumb to feel jealous about that, but I did anyway.
“It was part of our science experiment.”
I resisted the urge to scoff at her. “I’ve got news for you, Aves. When a guy says he wants to take you out in the name of science, he’s totally full of it. He really just wants to take you out.”
“But you’ve taken me out like a million times for the experiment. You kissed me once in the name of science.”
“Exactly.”
Avery scrunched up her face. She was so adorably clueless I almost kissed her again right then and there. Instead, I crossed my arms and said, “Aiden likes you. He didn’t take you out on Saturday just to help you finish your science experiment.”
Avery’s face smoothed back out. “I know.” She sighed. “We had a good talk. He apologized. He explained a lot of things to me that I really needed to hear.” She shrugged her shoulders and held out her hands in a gesture of surrender. “I forgave him.”
“And that’s all?” I had a sneaking suspicion there was more to it than that. Aiden was too pissed at me Saturday morning not to have tried anything.
“We kissed,” she admitted. A soft layer of pink rose in her cheeks, but it wasn’t the normal overwhelming red that usually overtakes her face.
I didn’t realize my jaw was clenched so tightly until Avery brushed her fingers across it. “We had to Grayson. At least I did. Otherwise I never would have known.”
I caught her fingers and laced them in mine. “Known what?”
“That you were right,” she said simply. “I’m not in love with Aiden. He’s my best friend, and I love him, but I’m not in love with him.”
I was half tempted to say “I told you so,” but that would have been rude. “So what you’re saying is there’s hope for you after all.”
Avery chewed her bottom lip. I was going to have to talk to her about that habit because every time she did it, it got harder and harder for me not to kiss her. One of these days I was not going to be held responsible for whatever actions I was driven to.
I watched her mouth and felt myself starting to crack, but then she lifted her big blue eyes and looked up at me completely vulnerable from beneath her lashes, and I forgot about her lips. I forgot to breathe.
If it had been any other girl besides Avery, I would have known she’d done it on purpose in an attempt to kill me on the spot. The fact that she was completely unaware of the effect she had on me made the moment that much more maddening. I was done for.
“No,” she whispered. “I’m saying that I hope there’s hope for us.”
The only way to describe what happened next is the word attack. I totally attacked her. Hands and arms and lips and tongue. I fused us together so fast she probably didn’t even know what was going on until the first time I let her up for air.
Her face was all flushed, and I was panting hard and smiling like an idiot, but I didn’t care. “I’d say there’s more than hope for us, Aves.”
I brought my lips down to hers again—with slightly more self control this time, thankfully—but we were interrupted before I could kiss her. Levi and Brandon were standing there, all scowls and rolling eyes. “I thought we came here to bowl. Are you guys coming or what?”
I tightened my grip around Avery. “Bowling is overrated.”
“Seriously?”
Avery laughed at the a
“And take these pizzas with you,” I added, so glad that Avery and I were on the same page at the moment.
Brandon sighed and picked up one of the pizzas, but Levi groaned. “It’s not even your turn! Owen and Libby have both disappeared too.”
“Wait.” My hands finally fell away from Avery’s waist. “Owen and Libby are missing?”
I glanced at Avery in shock, but she didn’t seem as surprised. She had an amused gleam in her eyes that told me everything I needed to know. “No way!” I said. “This I have got to see.”
I jumped off my stool and dragged Avery with me, completely forgetting about the pizzas I’d ordered. Hopefully Brandon and Levi could manage all three of them.
“Check the arcade. Libby has a thing for photo booths.”
I stumbled to a stop and blinked down at Avery. “Are you serious?”
Avery laughed and then pointed toward the entrance to the arcade. There was a photo booth there, and it was definitely occupied by someone—or someones—very enthusiastic about getting their picture taken.
“No way,” I said again when Avery and I came to a stop in front of the booth.
The heavy breathing and slurping sounds had to have been somebody else.
“Okay,” Owen said, releasing a low moan that made my mouth fall open in astonishment. “You can tutor me in math. But absolutely no clothes with cats on them when you come over. It’s creepy.”
“Clothes are irrelevant,” Libby rasped. “And u
Just then something hit the curtain, and Owen’s shirt fell to the floor. The kissing sounds increased. When I heard the sound of a belt being undone and another deep groan from Owen, I looked at Avery and said, “Shouldn’t we stop them?”
To my surprise, Avery shrugged. “If anyone can handle Libby, it’s Owen.”
She reached for the strand of pictures that were being spit out of the machine and raised her eyebrows so high that I felt compelled to rescue my best friend. I snatched up the shirt off the floor and then pounded on the side of the booth. “Yo, Owen! Did you want me to go ahead and bowl for you or what?”
I laughed at the panicked string of curses that came from my friend’s mouth.
Libby emerged then, somehow managing to look completely dignified, even as she straightened her shirt and ran her fingers through her messed up hair. She smirked at my shock and plucked the string of pictures from Avery’s hands. “Yummy,” she said, heaving a shudder, and then walked away without another word.
I stared after her until I heard the curtain slide open. Avery had pulled it back. Owen was sitting there flushed red, lips swollen, hair mussed, with an odd look of both awe and horror frozen on his dazed face.
I tossed him his shirt. “You okay there, tiger?”
Owen blinked at the sound of my voice, and after he slipped his shirt back over his head, he looked up at Avery. “There is something seriously wrong with your friend.”