She had to be thinking about something else, but Miles needed her to arrive at this party in a better place. So he kept it light.
“It’s Wes. He probably said something silly.” Miles shifted into his smoothest, lowest voice. “Something like, ‘Jeanette, these bats have me wondering, would you like to hang out for the rest of our lives?’”
Avery pressed her lips together in amusement, but he wanted her full smile.
“The only way this story works for me is if Jeanette’s first reaction was, ‘I didn’t see this coming.’” Miles held back a laugh. “And Wes replied, ‘bats what she said.’”
Avery’s eyes lit up, and the balloon of tension between them burst into a sweet swell of laughter. Ten seconds later, she was laughing tears. He offered her his clean, white handkerchief.
“I’m going to get it messy.” She held up a hand to refuse it. “I’ve made enough messes tonight.”
“It’ll be like us,” he said. “A little messy, but worth having with you all the time.”
“I shouldn’t have said … you know. But I missed you last week.” She took the cloth and gently dabbed an eye. “I put pressure on you when you already had too much going on, which wasn’t very thoughtful.”
As the car door opened to let them out, he kissed her forehead. “Let’s go out there and have fun. We’ll talk later. Promise.”
She nodded and took his hand as he helped her out of the car.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Avery
July 22 - New York, New York
The elevator’s beep at each passing floor sounded louder than Avery remembered. She’d grown used to silence on the sullen ride home. Miles hadn’t said a word, despite the fundraiser’s success. After he and Hayes raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for a camp that hadn’t opened its doors yet, he should be jovial, celebratory, or at least proud of himself. He wasn’t even smiling.
Avery had barely seen Miles the entire night. They’d drifted from talking to a few people together to having separate conversations while standing next to each other. She hadn’t noticed the sea of people filling in between them and before she knew it, they were on opposite sides of the room. Every time she caught a glimpse and headed in his direction, he’d vanished by the time she arrived. There was no indication he’d looked for her in the swollen crowd. As the night wore on, Averywondered if Miles remembered he’d brought a date.
After an hour of cat and mouse, Avery gave up on looking for him, vowed to stop worrying about everything that happened before the party, and walked toward the band. Miles hated to dance, but the almost empty dance floor seemed like the easiest place for him to find her, if he wanted to. She felt a tap on her shoulder and spun around to find Paulson. He motioned to the floor, and they danced an entire set.
The evening had worked out for Paulson. When the band started a slow song, he and Avery headed to the bar. Victoria waved to Avery and came over to say hello. A spark ignited the second Avery introduced the two of them. Avery declined an invitation to join Paulson and Victoria out on the rooftop terrace, allowing them space to get acquainted. Again she’d gone in search of Miles.
“This elevator is taking forever,” she said into the silence.
“Ayuh.” He leaned his head back, sighed, and closed his eyes.
Maybe he was exhausted. Due to bad weather, it had taken more than a day for him to get home from Wyoming. In the car on the way to the Carter Park Avenue, he’d promised to discuss the fall once they got home. Perhaps he dreaded that conversation now that she’d made everything so serious between them.
It was possible theI love youexplained everything that had happened at the event. He might have used the crowd as a buffer to gather his thoughts. Once they exited this semi-private elevator and entered his apartment, they could talk freely.
She needed to apologize. The last week without him at the lake had been hard. She’d felt adrift, uncertain of what to do with her career and her life. Avery was never one for throwing cards into the wind and seeing where they landed. She craved the predictability of a solid outline. Her need to plan everything had driven her to say something intimate at the worst time and she’d been unfair to Miles, though truthful.
He stared straight ahead, his jaw tight. A vein at his temple pulsed.Maybe they should go to bed and deal with it in the morning. A shiver snaked down her spine. The tension was eerily similar to the moments right before their breakup that summer.
He’d been sopping wet after pulling Max Perry from the lake and resuscitating him. Water droplets falling off Miles’s shorts left small dots in the dust on the surface of the staff parking lot. Something about walking out of the water carrying a limp child had taken Miles somewhere else. After he’d breathed life back into the little boy and the ambulance arrived, Sam had asked Avery to take Miles home. At the parking lot he’d insisted on going home alone, staring straight ahead, jaw tensing and letting go. She’d called him a hero, and he’d denied it. She’d told him she loved him and wanted to help. He’d clutched his chest and called their relationship spoiled milk, well past its expiration date, before he got in the Mail Jeep and peeled out of the parking lot.
A pressure built behind Avery’s eyes. He’d clutched his chest that same way before they left for the gala too, a grip so tight it seemed like he was devoting all his energy to stopping something. The elevator pinged and the doors slid open. She stepped out into the hallway and waited as he unlocked his door.
As soon as they were inside the apartment, she started to apologize but stopped short when Miles’s face hardened into a chiseled bedrock of ridges and crevices like it had when Victoria asked about his private life. Avery removed her strappy sandals instead. When she finished, his face was no softer.
“You must have dazzled Paulson,” he said through gritted teeth, holding his phone so she could see the six-figure donation Paulson had made to the camp.
Thiscouldn’t be the root of his anger. The point of a fundraiser was to make money.
“Wow, that’s so nice.” She tried to sound upbeat. “The second you mentioned people could give through the camp’s app, everyone aroundme pulled out their phones. Your story inspired so many people to donate.”
“Oh, he didn’t do it for me.” Miles put his phone down and crossed his arms, leaning back on the kitchen counter.
