Page 125 of Flirting Lessons

It was Luke’s fault that she felt so lost and ill at ease just because she hadn’t seen Taylor since Monday morning. He’d brought up all that stuff about whether Avery had feelings for Taylor and wanted a real relationship with her, and it had made her think about what could be, and it had made her needy. She spent a lot of time alone, she had no problem with being alone, she was fine! She’d see Taylor whenever; it was no big deal. They were no big deal, wasn’t that the whole point?

But she still felt off. She didn’t have any meetings or calls for the rest of the day, she had everything squared away for her eventsfor the weekend, and she didn’t have any plans tonight or tomorrow night. So she did the only thing she could think to do. She went to the garden.

There were a lot of people there, which was nice. She had people to smile at as she walked by, people to wave at across the way, so she wasn’t alone anymore, but she didn’t have to talk to anyone. She wasn’t really in the mood to talk. Instead, she got to work. She weeded, pulled off mottled leaves, harvested ripe tomatoes and discarded the fallen ones, plucked zucchini out of their hiding places, snipped herbs, pulled up a few radishes, and planted more radish seeds and cilantro seeds, hoping they’d sprout and grow for the next few months. Finally, she picked some flowers to bring back home to be a bright spot in her newly painted living room. They—she and Taylor—had decided on a soft pink and had painted it themselves. It made her happy every time she walked inside of it.

“Hey!” Beth said. Avery jumped, jolted from her thoughts about that night she and Taylor had started to paint, and what happened later. “I didn’t expect to see you here until later.”

“Oh,” Avery said. “I had some downtime, and it was such a nice day, so I thought I’d come by early to…putter around a bit.”

Beth dropped her garden basket at the edge of their plot and surveyed the work Avery had done.

“It looks great, doesn’t it?” she said. “Who would have ever thought we could do this? Not me. And yeah, it’s a gorgeous day, that’s why I came over here early, too. Greta and I just finished doing some tastings for our New Year’s Eve party, and I was going to go home and get some more work done before coming here, but it was too nice outside to waste the afternoon.”

Avery looked back down at the tomato plant as soon as Beth brought up their wedding. God, she was being so stupid about this.Why were her feelings so hurt that she wasn’t invited? She and Beth had known each other for only a few months, anyway. The same amount of time she’d known Taylor, practically. That wasn’t enough time to expect anyone to have strong enough feelings of friendship for someone to invite them to their wedding. Or strong enough feelings of…other things for someone to want a real relationship. She had to pretend that she wasn’t upset, that everything was fine, that she was just happy for Beth. She knew how to do that; she was an expert at pretending that everything was fine.

“Oh, that’s great,” she said. But it didn’t come out right, not how it was supposed to, not how it used to. Maybe now that she’d been actively working on not pretending about her feelings this summer, on being more honest, with Taylor, with herself, she didn’t know how to pretend anymore.

Beth looked at her. And then she smiled tentatively.

“Um, speaking of the New Year’s Eve party,” she said. “We aren’t sending out formal invitations, because, well, we don’t want people to think something’s up. But you know you’re obviously invited. Right?”

Avery’s head shot up. She didn’t even attempt to stop herself from smiling.

“Oh. No, um…I wasn’t sure. I thought since we didn’t really know each other that well…and you didn’t mention it, so…”

Beth shook her head.

“Didn’t I say we were bonded by soil? You’ll be there, right?”

Avery grinned back at her.

“Wouldn’t miss it.”

“Good. Maybe you can bring that hottie of yours.”

“Oh.” Avery said. “We won’t still be together by New Year’s Eve, but thank you.” She tried to make light of it, even though shewasn’t feeling light about it. “Your party will be a perfect place for me to practice flirting. Just make sure to invite some good options for me, okay?”

“Why are you so sure you two won’t still be together by then? You seem to really like her, and from what you say about how she is toward you, she seems to really like you, too.”

Avery tried to ignore the tears that came to her eyes when Beth said that, pretend them away, crush her feelings down into a little ball.

But she was tired of doing that. She didn’t want to do it anymore.

The problem was, now that she’d opened the door to thinking about her feelings for Taylor, the answers were all too clear in her mind.

“I do really like her,” she said to Beth. “But from the beginning, we said this would be a casual thing. I’m realizing I might want more than that. I guess I’m kind of sad about that today.”

“What if she wants more than that, too?” Beth asked. “Have you even asked her?”

Avery sat down on the edge of their garden bed.

“Why did you have to ask me that?”

Beth laughed and sat down next to her.

“I guess that’s a no. What are you waiting for?”

Avery bit her lip. She was waiting for the same reason she’d waited so long to break up with Derek, for the same reason that she’d been so well-behaved throughout her teens and twenties, for the same reason she hadn’t asked Beth if she was invited to the wedding. She was waiting because it was less scary to wait than to take action.

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