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“Are you okay?” Theo asked, and she realized she hadn’t been talking for a while, too wrapped up in her panic-driven ruminations.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Really,” she said, but her traitorous eyes looked straight at his lips as she spoke. And then once again she was remembering what it felt like to kiss him, and it was incredibly, incredibly hard to think about what they were supposed to be discussing.

Theo cleared his throat. “I wonder if we should maybe set some more ground rules? About how we act around each other?”

He was right, but for some reason she didn’t want to deal with it right then. Maybe because it made her stomach sink, or maybe because she didn’t like the idea of her friend being uncomfortable around her. Yes, that was it—she didn’t want Theo to be uncomfortable. That was why him wanting ground rules hurt, and definitely not anything else. “We should, but maybe not right now? We can just say no more kissing tonight, maybe?”

Theo looked away and nodded, his jaw tight. “Then unless we want to start a rumor that we had sex in Grace’s little brother’s room, we should probably go back downstairs.”

Avery grimaced. That would go a long way toward selling their lie, but she also didn’t want to be gross about it. “After you,” she said, sweeping her arm in front of her. That was something she had never done in her life—it was a Tommy gesture, not an Avery one, and in fact she and Theo probably would have good-naturedly teased Tommy for doing it. But in a sign of how weird things were between them now, Theo walked out without even commenting.

Avery couldn’t decide if that was a good or bad thing.

Chapter Nine

Theo

Theo didn’t want to let Avery drift away from him, but he also didn’t know how to say so without sounding like a pathetic dweeb. He watched her get pulled into a conversation with Leah, a girl he knew she had classes with and whom Theo thought was personally nice enough but also so boring it was like watching paint dry, and considered going to get himself another beer.

But he looked toward the kitchen and realized that Cameron was apparently guarding the keg with his life. Theo didn’t really want a straight-up confrontation with him, but then again, he didn’t want to let Cameron stop him from doing anything. He had, after all, just kissed Cameron’s ex-girlfriend in front of him. If he hadn’t punched Theo for that, he probably wouldn’t punch him just for getting another beer. Probably.

Besides, Cameron might be broader than him, sure, and had well over a decade of experience as a hockey enforcer, which meant he had both moderate brain damage and a complete lack of aversion to being punched himself. But Theo was also reasonably sure he was faster than him.

“I guess we should talk,” a voice said from what felt like down near his elbow. He glanced over and saw Izzy standing at the bottom of the steps, just off to his left. He was on the third stair, arms crossed like a villain in a comic book movie, and even though Izzy was tall, he towered over her here. “If you want,” he said, uncrossing his arms and moving down. Their previous conversation hadn’t gone super well—it had mostly been him apologizing for her finding out like that—but he owed it to her to have another conversation, if that was what she wanted.

“Don’t apologize again,” she said when he opened his mouth.

“Okay,” he replied carefully. “What did you want to talk about?”

“I think I’m just surprised you two finally acted on it.”

Theo’s stomach did the familiar jolt it usually did when someone spoke of him and Avery as inevitable, although this felt considerably worse, considering who was saying it. He had spent a long time telling himself it was just discomfort with the “you’re destined” quality of observations about them, and part of him wanted to keep chalking it up to that, even if he suspected that maybe wasn’t all of it. But he couldn’t let that show on his face now, he remembered at the last possible second. “It wasn’t like we were waiting to be together. It just—happened,” he said, in what he hoped was a trustworthy tone.

Before he could pull it away, Izzy followed his gaze, which had landed on Avery, still deep in conversation with Leah. “I guess I didn’t mean it like that,” she said.

“How else could you mean it?”

Izzy shrugged. “You guys just never really made sense, you know? She’s homecoming queen and school clubs and hockey games, and you’re . . . none of those things. I know everyone assumed you guys were dating, but I never did, because I figured you both knew it was sort of an uphill climb. No offense.”

“None taken,” Theo said, teeth clenched. He deserved whatever Izzy threw at him, but it didn’t mean he had to like it. And what she said was something Avery had pointed out to him dozens, if not hundreds, of times. Izzy wasn’t being overtly cruel; she was just saying what probably everyone in town thought—that he and Avery were an odd pairing. In Theo’s opinion, that was part of what made them work. But he hadn’t thought about how it might make them not work, the ways their differences could tear them apart. He wasn’t sure why that bothered him so much at the moment, when their relationship wasn’t even real. Maybe it was reminding him that Avery had alluded a few times to them being an odd pairing even as friends, and he wondered what he wasn’t seeing—and why he needed to see that, when they weren’t anything, not really. “I know you don’t want to hear it, but for the record, just one more time, I am sorry.”

Izzy sighed heavily. “I know, Theo,” she said, and she sounded at least marginally less pissed off at him now.

He held up his empty cup. To hell with Cameron—if he wanted to punch him, he could. “I’m going to get a refill. Did you want something?”

Izzy shook her head. “I’m on a break from demolishing some of the theater kids at beer pong, so I should probably head back before my partner sends out a search party.” It was the most congenial she’d been since she arrived, and Theo took the peace offering. “Break their legs,” he said, and she rolled her eyes, the glimmer of a smile at the corners of her mouth. That helped ease the tightness in his chest at least.

Chapter Ten

Avery

Back downstairs, Avery found herself roped into a conversation with Leah, her sophomore year lab partner. Leah had gone to Duluth, like Harper, and while Avery had always liked her, it did surprise her how fond of Leah she suddenly felt. Maybe the time away had softened her more than she thought, since seeing Leah—someone she probably hadn’t thought about since graduation, and who probably hadn’t thought about her either—felt warm and familiar. It helped that Theo was always in her general vicinity, never straying too far from her sight, even if they weren’t together.

The only sour note was Cameron, who was still staked out by the keg. Avery was fine with that, since she didn’t want to go home reeking of beer, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she needed to actually talk to him.

Running inside and kissing Theo had solved the problem of not having to actually tell Cameron she was “dating” him, but it was cowardly. She and Cameron had dated for just over a year, and even if he’d been kind of shitty about dumping her, she probably owed him a conversation. He had asked for the chance to talk to her earlier in the day, and she knew she couldn’t put it off forever.

Leah announced she was going to watch some beer pong, so Avery took the chance to slip away and head into the kitchen. “Can we talk, Cam?” she asked, pitching her voice low so no one else would hear.