Page 129 of Flirting Lessons

Avery shrugged, but now the smile touched her lips.

“Hope springs eternal.”

Taylor reached for Avery’s hand, and they walked together down the street. They didn’t talk as they walked, but this time the silence between them didn’t feel heavy, loaded, the way the silence in the car had. Now they were just comfortable, walking down the street hand in hand the same way they’d done dozens of times over the past few months. The same way they’d done ever since that night, when they’d walked together toward the Barrel, the same walk they were taking right now.

The same, but different. Now it was two months later, it was darker, cooler, at least at night. Before, that other time, they hadn’t even kissed yet. Before, they were just friends. Before, Taylor hadn’t fallen for Avery. Now, everything was different.

When they got to the same block as the Barrel but were still a few feet from it, Avery stopped and let go of Taylor’s hand.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I know you have something planned, but I can’t take it anymore. I have to say this, I have to get this over with, in case we…in case it changes things. I’ve been holding it in, but I have to get it out now or else I might never do it.”

Taylor’s heart dropped. Avery was going to break up with her, wasn’t she? This was it. She was going to do it now, before Taylor could even say her piece. She wanted to fight, to say no, to say she had to plead her case first, but wow, how humiliating, to plead with someone to love her back. All she could do was look at Avery, her skin glowing in the streetlights, the warm breeze blowing her hair off her shoulder, and nod.

Avery took a long, shaky breath.

“I know that neither of us planned for this, between us, I mean.And that we both tried to avoid it, push it away when it happened the first time, for all sorts of good reasons. And we both ignored all those good reasons, and decided to jump into something, because we couldn’t help ourselves, because we were having so much fun and we wanted to keep having so much fun, but we both knew that was all it was going to be—fun, right?”

She looked hard at Taylor when she said that, and paused, like she was looking for a response from Taylor, so Taylor said what it seemed like she was looking for.

“Right.”

Avery nodded.

“Right.”

Were those tears in Avery’s eyes? She couldn’t quite tell in this light. She hoped that Avery at least felt bad about breaking up with her.

“The thing is—oh God, I don’t want to say this, I hate everything about this, but I’ve already started, so I guess I have to finish, and this is growth, I guess, confrontation and doing something hard that I don’t want to do, being vulnerable and all those terrible things.” She let out a breath. “Sorry, sorry. The thing is, that conversation we had the other day, about that bet, Erica’s bet, and how I said we should break up after Erica had the baby to ensure that Sloane won—”

“Yeah, I know which bet you’re talking about,” Taylor said. She was trying to let Avery say her piece, but she had to fucking get this over with.

“Of course you do. The thing is, that conversation brought up a few things for me, and I guess—I mean I know—over the past week I’ve realized that I don’t want to break up.”

Taylor’s head shot up.

“What? What did you say?”

Had she heard her right? Maybe she’d heard only what she wanted to hear? Maybe it was those other people walking down the street saying something that she’d heard instead of what Avery had actually said? Or maybe Avery didn’t mean what Taylor wanted her to mean?

“I don’t want to break up. I understand if you do, I get it. I know that all you wanted out of this relationship was some fun, and we’ve had that, and I know what you’re going to say to this, but I had to tell you…my feelings for you are more than just fun. I mean, that wasn’t a good way of putting it, let me try again, I want—”

“I think I’m falling in love with you,” Taylor said.

“What? What did you say?” Avery asked.

Now Taylor knew she had tears in her eyes.

“I’m falling in love with you. I realized it at the shower. No, I realized it a few days later, but at the shower, when I overheard that bet, I realized I hated the thought of breaking up with you. I hated the thought of breaking up with you in seven weeks, six months, whatever. I love having you in my life, I love talking to you and waking up with you and kissing you and laughing with you and coming up with surprises for you and being surprised by you, and I don’t want to stop.”

“Are you…Really? You’re serious?”

Taylor couldn’t help but laugh at the stunned look on Avery’s face. Though, wow, she hoped, she really, really fucking hoped, that it was a stunned and happy look.

“Does this sound like a thing I would joke about?” she asked. “I avoided you all week—I even bailed on our Tuesday night—because I was so hurt that you would just casually refer to our breakup, like it was no big deal to you, like it didn’t matter, like our relationship didn’t matter to you. But then I realized that maybe I hadn’t actually told you how much our relationship matters to me, sinceI hadn’t actually realized it for myself, and that I should probably tell you that before I determined that you didn’t care about me the same way I care about you. And most of all, I realized that I cared about you—cared about us—too much to just give up on us. That I wanted, needed, to fight for us. So, I brought you here—” She gestured in the direction of the Barrel. “Or at least intended to bring you here tonight, to the place we first kissed, because I was trying to be romantic, even though that’s not really my strength, so I could tell you that—”

Avery backed her up against the wall.

“Taylor?” she said. “Now is when you kiss me.”

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