Page 65 of Flirting Lessons

She stood at the bathroom door and shouted over the sound of the shower.

“Do you know what happened to my clothes?”

“Bedroom!” Avery shouted back.

Bedroom? She had definitely taken the majority of her clothes off before they’d made it into the bedroom, she absolutely remembered that. But when she walked back into Avery’s bedroom,there were her clothes, folded neatly on the bench at the foot of Avery’s bed. Taylor laughed to herself and shook her head. Avery must have done some post-sex tidying after Taylor had fallen asleep.

When Avery got out of the shower and came back to the bedroom, she threw open the doors to her closet.

“No wonder I have to give you guidance on what to wear every week,” Taylor said. “You have more clothes than I’ve ever seen outside of a department store!”

Avery rolled her eyes at her as she pulled on her bra and underwear.

“Just because your wardrobe is wholly made up of fourteen black shirts and twelve pairs of jeans, that does not make my perfectly normal wardrobe extreme.”

“Excuse me, but I do also have some gray shirts, and I have hoodies for when it gets cold.”

Avery just laughed at her, grabbed a dress out of the closet, and pulled it over her head.

“How did you do that so fast? Doesn’t it take you forever to decide what to wear?”

Avery shook her head.

“This is my event clothes section of the closet. I have specific kinds of clothes that I wear when I’m running events, as opposed to meeting with clients or with vendors, and of course, my work clothes are in a totally different part of my closet than my clothes for fun or for relaxing.”

“Mmm, of course, totally different sections, yeah, me too,” Taylor said with a straight face. Avery threw a pillow at her, and they both started giggling. It was very entertaining to make gentle fun of Avery.

“Anyway, that takes a lot of the decision-making out of theprocess,” Avery said, moving to the mirror. She quickly put at least four layers of skin care products on her face, then put her hair up in a very tidy bun. Taylor went to stand behind Avery as she started doing her makeup. She had to get this over with.

“Uh, Avery, I wanted to…” She shook her head at herself and started again. “I, um, didn’t mean for last night to happen; it’s not like I secretly planned that or whatever when I made it your flirting lesson midterm or anything.”

Avery patted on a layer of eyeshadow.

“No, I know. I didn’t think you did.”

Okay, that wasn’t Taylor’s main worry, but still, she hadn’t wanted Avery to think that this whole flirting lesson thing had been about getting in her pants.

“Great, I’m glad. But I…” She just had to say it. “Last night was so fun, but you know I’m legendarily hopeless at relationships, and I don’t think we should…I mean, I don’t want you to think that we’re—” Oof, that was clumsy. She was about to start again when Avery interrupted her.

“No. No, of course I don’t.” Avery turned around to face her, eyeshadow brush still in her hand. “Don’t worry, I know you too well for that. And I’m definitely not ready to date anyone, you know that.”

Taylor sighed with relief.

“I mean yeah, but I didn’t want us to have any misunderstandings. I wanted to make sure we were on the same page.”

Avery patted her hand.

“We are. Absolutely. Last night was great, I passed my flirting midterm with flying colors, I can’t wait to test out the skills I’ve learned, no misunderstandings here.” She turned back to the mirror and picked up an eyeliner. “Now, go home and get some more sleep before you have to go to work. See you Tuesday?”

Taylor blinked. This conversation had gone so differently than she’d expected that she didn’t know what Avery was even talking about.

“Tuesday?”

Avery looked at her in the mirror.

“For flirting lessons?” Avery said slowly, like Taylor was confused. Which, she guessed, she was.

“Oh yeah, of course,” Taylor said. “I wasn’t sure if you still wanted to do the flirting lessons, like, if you thought you still needed them, after passing your midterm with flying colors, like you said.” What she really wasn’t sure of was if Avery wanted to keep hanging out with her after they’d slept together.

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