Page 21 of One Lovely Lie

No, I’m going to keep this a secret for as long as I can. I don’t need anyone telling me how idiotic I’m being.

“Who got laid?” says another voice.

“Avery, what the fuck happened to you?”

My saving grace comes just in time. Avery’s returned from his nighttime gardening expedition, and he looks rough as hell. I didn’t get a good look at him when he left, but now that I see him, I have no idea how no one’s stopped him yet.

He’s covered in dirt from head to toe, still in his boxers, and holding a bouquet of flowers that look like they were ripped from the ground, roots still attached.

“What?” Avery asks with a shrug. “I was just gardening.”

“Are those Headmaster Harding’s peonies from his personal garden?” Carter asks.

“Oh shit, I guess they are,” Avery chuckles, scratching at his bare chest as he looks at his prized flowers. “I want to give them to Sebastian.”

“At two in the morning?”

“Why? Is it too early for flowers?”

Carter takes a deep breath. “Are you dating him?”

“No, we have a friend date,” Avery says with a cheeky smile, blushing and running his dirty hand through his dirty hair.

Damn, it seems like all of my friends are being sketchy as hell tonight.

“What sort of friend date?” Carter asks cautiously.

Avery snaps at him, uncharacteristically aggressive for such a loveable hulk. “That’s private.”

“I think Carter was trying to say…” I give Carter a look that tells him to back off from Avery when he’s like this. “Is that it’s too early to be delivering those.”

“I see…” Avery rocks back and forth on his heels. “So I should wait until breakfast?”

“That might be for the best. Or, just maybe, you don’t give them to him?” Carter suggests, taking the flowers from Avery and holding them at arm’s length.

Avery looks at me for reassurance. “You think that’s best?”

“Yeah, buddy,” I say with a soft smile, patting his back and cringing when I pull my hand away and it’s covered in dirt. “You don’t want to come off too strong.”

“He’s so pretty, you know?” Avery coos with a dreamy, faraway look in his eyes. “I love the way he dresses. Do you know he wears nail polish?”

This is concerning. Avery has always had a tendency to become…fixated on things. Usually, it’s not actual people.

The last time I’ve seen him so obsessed with something was when one of the guys in our class, Gerald, got a pet rabbit. Avery couldn’t stop fucking talking about Bunny and spent all his time befriending Gerald just to get closer to Bunny.

It probably would have been fine…if Avery hadn’t ended up kidnapping Bunny.

“Is that a hickey?” Avery asks, pointing at Carter’s neck, which definitely has a dark purple bruise.

“What? No,” Carter says quickly, pulling up the collar of his shirt with a snarl. “Fuck off.”

And Carter, himself, fucks off. Avery and I are left standing there in the hall, watching Carter run away, and we both stare at each other for a minute.

“Weird,” Avery says.

I reach up and brush some dirt off of his nose. “It seems to be the theme of the night.”

Avery shrugs it off quickly and changes the subject. “Well, I’m going to head to our room.”

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