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Theo leaned closer, and just in the nick of time their phones buzzed simultaneously with messages. “That’s probably our friends,” Avery said in a hoarse voice that sounded nothing like her usual self.

Theo didn’t move, and neither did she. He looked into her eyes and her stomach flipped over. “Probably, yeah. They’re probably wondering where we are.”

“We should—probably get going,” Avery said, although given that she was currently doing her best impression of a statue, she didn’t sound very convincing.

“Yeah, probably,” he said, remaining frozen in place.

Another message sounded, and Avery flicked her eyes down toward her phone. That was enough to break the spell, and they both leaned away at the exact same time. “Harper’s out for blood if we’re not there in ten,” Avery said, her heart pounding like she’d just run a race, and not like she was just sitting in her best friend’s bedroom. A best friend with a large asterisk next to his name now that she knew how good he was at kissing, but still: her best friend. She needed to remember that.

Theo was busy staring at his phone, concentrating entirely too hard on a series of messages that were mostly just angry-faced emojis. “Yeah, yeah, we should—we should go,” he said, still without looking at her.

Chapter Seventeen

Avery

Thirteen Months Ago

Downstairs, the doorbell rang. “Avery, Cam’s here!” Kelly called upstairs.

Avery froze. Cameron? Did he change his mind? She should have been relieved that he came to his senses, but instead she felt crestfallen. “Be right down,” Avery called as she hurried out of her room, still fiddling with her necklace clasp. It had been her grandmother’s, a delicate white-gold chain with a small heart-shaped charm. Simple but sweet, although the clasp was stiff from age.

“Cam, I thought you said—” Avery started, and then cut herself off, her tongue suddenly too thick to speak.

It wasn’t Cameron. It was Theo standing in her foyer. In a goddamn suit. She’d never seen him in one before. Hell, she didn’t even know he owned one, much less one that looked that good. It was a dark, charcoal grey, and beneath it was a white shirt and a dark blue tie. It was understated in a way that packed a hell of a punch. His hair was still that familiar mass of dark curls, but they looked wet, like he’d just gotten out of the shower. “Uh, hey,” she said, suddenly awkward. What is wrong with me? It’s just Theo.

But Theo seemed to be having the same problem. “Hey,” he said shyly. “You look, um, nice.”

Her parents were standing off to the side, looking from one to the other like they were watching a tennis match. “Where’s—what—we weren’t expecting Theo, honey,” her mom said, stammering through her questions and ending up not asking one.

“Cameron couldn’t make it, so I stepped in,” Theo said smoothly and with unexpected diplomacy. Couldn’t make it was an awful lot nicer than dumped her this morning, after all.

“That was nice of you,” her dad added. “And you look lovely, sweetie.”

Kelly recovered from her surprise and nodded. “You do. Pictures?”

Theo handed over his phone and they stood in front of the door, arms draped around each other’s backs, for a handful of stilted, posed photos. At one point her mom insisted that Theo slip the corsage he’d brought on her wrist (Where the hell did he get a corsage on such short notice? Avery wondered), while her hands went oddly clammy. Avery had never felt like this before, jittery and clumsy, and all because she was abruptly aware that Theo was both handsome and smelled . . . really good.

Like, really, really good. Had he always smelled like this—like woodsy shampoo and a subtle, spicy whiff of cologne—or was this new? If he had, how did she miss it before? What changed?

Belatedly, Avery realized they were already in the school parking lot and Theo had turned the car off. “Sorry, I—zoned out there,” she mumbled.

But Theo made no move to get out. “We don’t have to, you know.”

“We don’t have to what?”

“Go in together. If—if you’re having second thoughts. I can just drop you off, since I know you have to go and all, but if you don’t want to be, you know, seen with me, I—I get it.”

Avery stared at him. “You think I don’t want to be seen with you?”

“You’ve been weird as hell since I picked you up. And you didn’t even tell your parents I was coming, so how are people going to react when we go in together?”

“When have you ever cared what people think?”

Theo sat silently for a second. “It’s not that. It’s that you do care.”

“And you think I might be ashamed of you?”

“Aren’t you?”