“Okay. So, um.” Was he nervous? He seemed nervous. “I’m sorry about everyone ganging up on you earlier about the wedding.”
Well, that was certainly a segue.
“Oh, yeah, they’re overly interested in my romantic life. They’re just happy I finally got away from Gage.”
“Definitely. I mean, we all are.”
Hailey looked over at Avery. He rarely said anything negative about Gage or got involved with the conversations about her romantic life like the others. The one person she actually really wanted interested in her romantic life. All she could do was nod and hum an affirmation.
“I was … um … I was wondering, ya know if you really needed it and you really wanted to…” Oh my goodness he was adorable. Hailey couldn’t help but smile at him. He seemedto shake off his nerves because the rest of his sentence came out quickly. “Icouldbeyourdateifyouwanted.”
“Uh, what was that?” Hailey thought she understood, but didn’t believe her ears.
Avery took a deep breath before slowing down when he said, “I could be your date if you wanted.” Hailey was speechless. Was he really asking her what she— “You know, as friends of course.”
Oh.
“Sure!” Hailey responded in a higher pitch than she was used to speaking. “I mean, you really want to come?”
“Yeah, if you’ll have me.”
“What about the girl you were talking to?”
“I don’t think she’ll mind. She’s really cool and she knows we’re friends.”
Right. Friends. Well, this was definitely better than nothing, but she wasn’t sure about the logistics and if he’d still want to go since it was just as friends.
“It’s just…” Avery turned to her expectantly. It was too dark to see if he was blushing. “Um, it’s just that the wedding is an hour away. And I know that’s far. And I was going to stay the night. I already got a … hotel room.”
Avery opened his mouth to say something, but seemed to change his mind. Hailey was hoping he wasn’tgetting the wrong idea.
“But, I got a room with two beds if … ya know … you needed to crash.”
Son of a bitch this was torture. How do people date? Hailey was pretty sure she was about to die.
He took another glance at Hailey, who was trying to keep a straight face, before turning back to the road. Hailey was sure that was going to change his mind. He was definitely not going to—
“Yeah, I’ll still go. Staying over is probably a good idea if we’re … drinking.” He still seemed nervous as he took a deep breath. “Are you sure you’re okay with that? If I crashed in the same room?”
She didn’t want to seem too eager so she played it super cool like she did with everything else, obviously.
“Yeah! I mean, sure! I mean, why not? It’s not like we would have to share a bed if we didn’t want to.”
She covered her face with her hands before running them through her hair. Not super cool at all. Oh dear God, why did she say that? No. She was not cool. Nothing she was saying was super cool.
“Not that we’d want to since we’re going as friends. Just friends. You and I are friends.”
She closed her eyes for a moment and groaned inwardly before she looked back over at Avery to see how badly she just fucked up. She was surprised to find he was staring at her with his lips sucked between histeeth like he was holding back a laugh. And they were parked in her apartment’s lot. When did they get here?
Avery seemed to compose himself before saying, “If we don’t want to. Sounds like a plan.”
Hailey released a breath she didn’t realize she was holding and chuckled at how ridiculous this conversation was, still holding eye contact with Avery.
“Great. Good. I’m gonna go die now. Thanks for the ride.” She reached for the door handle while Avery also started laughing.
“No problem. Just send me the details for the wedding and I promise not to tease you about anything else you said tonight.”
She was cracking up now and knew she had to leave before she made things more awkward.
