I yank the door open but stand still at her words. “See you at work.”
I try, unsuccessfully, to push Avery and my feelings out of my head as I hop on the scooter. Normally we’d carpool and Maddie would either hop on the back or I’d jump in her car, but I have to run some errands on my lunch break, picking up supplies for a project for my interior design class, so I drive.
Just days after having sex with him, the euphoria has vanished and so has the delusion. Why would I be any different to Avery from anyone else he’s slept with? I know he’s had a few no-strings flings. They’re usually with friends of friends and people he knows he can trust to keep it secret. Is that what I am to him? Because I’m his neighbor? Because I’m his former teammate’s sister? Because I’m a friend? Did he just slide me into the “benefits” category and that’s all?
I want to feel relief at that, because if I’m just a friend with benefits, then I don’t have to tell him about my past. I’m not a risk to him and he won’t have to worry about how I affect his image if I’m just a friend he had benefits with. But…the idea that might happen, even if it’s an easy out…hurts.
Am I overreacting? Part of me says I am. But I’m so emotionally involved in this, I just can’t be rational. My heart is too attached. I’ve had feelings for Avery since Seattle. At first I thought he was weak and kind of a giant pussy for letting his dad run his life. And I completely wrote him off in my head as a jerk when one night before play-offs last year he talked about how he had ignored his friend Trey in college when he was going through an addiction to painkillers. That hit home because I had the same sort of addiction when I was in high school, and into my twenties.
I ran away from home. I did very, very stupid things and made horrendous decisions, but my brother Sebastian never walked away from me—even when I was running away from him. Even when my mom gave up on me and our father disowned me, Sebastian tried to keep tabs on me. He spent stupid amounts of money on investigators to find me. And when I finally crashed and burned, he was there and he got me the help I needed. So to hear that Avery was good friends with Trey but abandoned him in his time of need made me want to write him off, not just as a friend but also as a human being. Sure, he was very attractive and he was one hell of a hockey player—the best, there was no denying that—but he wasn’t a good person, in my opinion.
Avery, for some reason, after that confession and my judgmental reaction, had the exact opposite reaction. He decided to try to become a close friend of mine. He started calling me—which he had never done before—and I ran into him at the coffee shop outside my work a few times. He started jogging with me.
It was impossible to write him off completely because he was charming, and he was candid. He opened up to me, and I realized he wasn’t a bad guy; he was just a guy with a lot of pressure who didn’t always handle it well. I found myself liking him as a person—really liking him. When he left the Winterhawks and I moved to San Diego, I figured my little crush would eventually evaporate, but then he ended up on the Saints.
I park the scooter in employee parking and smile at our security guard behind the desk in the lobby of our building as I head up to the seventh floor where my office is located. The floor has a loft-like feel to it. All the secretaries’ desks are in a large open space at the back of the floor, away from the receptionist, with a wall of windows behind us. The lawyers we’re paired with are in offices directly across from us. They have the water view, while we have the city view. Both are gorgeous, though.
I smile at Letitia, our receptionist, and keep my head down as I make my way to my desk. I just don’t feel like making small talk with anyone. I sit at my desk, tuck my helmet into the big drawer at the bottom of my desk, and flip on my laptop. I check my emails. Three new ones from clients, one from a paralegal and nothing else. I feel deflated and then I feel stupid again. Avery has my work email, but he’s never used it. Why would he start now?
My phone, which I placed on my desk when I got here, starts to ring. I usually silence it as soon as I get to the office because personal calls are frowned upon, but I forgot. Luckily, it’s early, and my boss isn’t here. I glance at the screen and see Avery’s name. A smile bursts across my face.
“Hey.”
He groans instead of returning my greeting, like he’s in physical pain. “Your brother is the devil.”
I laugh. “What happened?”
“He made me go for a drink after the game,” Avery explains. “Actually, he made me go for ten drinks after the game.”
I laugh again. “You must really miss him to let him convince you to go out at all, let alone get hangover drunk.”
He pauses and the groaning stops. “Actually, I think I miss you more, which is why I decided to hang out with him. He reminds me of you.”
And just like that I am no longer feeling doubt or panic or anything but a warm swell of bliss in my chest. “You’re a charmer when you’re hungover.”
“I’m a charmer all the time. If you haven’t figured that out, I’ll have to work harder,” he murmurs, and it’s sexy as fuck. But then he clears his throat and his tone changes, becoming less intimate and more businesslike. “So I have a message from your brother.”
Oh, God, this can’t be good. I don’t say anything. I just wait for Avery to continue and nervously fidget in my desk chair.
“He says you need to call him. I guess he feels like you’ve been ignoring him.”
I sigh. “Not on purpose. I’ve just been busy. He’s just used to me being in Seattle and talking every day.”
“You should call him today so he knows I delivered the message,” Avery advises, and adds, “Maybe it’ll make him less likely to kill me when he finds out about us.”
I swallow and feel another wave of relief because that means he didn’t say anything to Seb. I want to be the one to tell him…eventually. And the other thing that has me feeling warm and fuzzy is the use of the word “us.” But it also makes me nervous because if there is an “us”—which I think would be kind of amazing—I have to tell him about my past.
“I would have called or texted you last night, but I didn’t want him to see and start asking questions,” Avery goes on. I hear some noise around him. “And then it was late when I got home and I was so inebriated that I just passed out. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” I say, because now that I know the situation, itisfine. “Thanks for not saying anything about our night to Sebastian.”
“You know me, I’m excellent at being Fort Knox when it comes to my sex life,” he returns. I hear someone call his name. “Listen, I have to go. We’re about to board the plane to Vancouver.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll definitely call you after the game tonight,” he promises, and then hangs up. I smile that kind of smile that’s all-consuming and so big it almost makes your cheeks hurt but you have no control over it.
He likes me. Inthatway. And I like him. Inthatway. A lot.
