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“Not like this,” she replied. She crossed her arms too, but the effect was somewhat spoiled by the sleeves of his suit coat flopping around as she did so.

Theo looked down at her with an odd expression on his face, half guarded, half fond. “Should we go inside?” he suggested.

“Not yet.”

“Why not?”

“You’re being weird,” she argued. “Have been, actually.”

Theo frowned. He wished they were back in that darkened room and that Cameron had completely ceased to exist. “No, I haven’t.”

“Yes, you have. And you got extra weird when Cam said”—she swallowed hard, not really wanting to voice these words out loud—“that you’ve liked me for a while.”

“I don’t like the asshole,” Theo replied, which wasn’t an answer to her question at all, but maybe also sort of was.

“That’s not exactly news,” she said, still eyeing him thoughtfully. “But if there’s something you need to tell me, Theo, maybe just do it now.” Between keeping secrets from her friends and being lied to by her parents, Avery was at the end of her rope. She couldn’t handle Theo keeping something from her too.

Theo’s eyes flashed strangely. It wasn’t an expression she was used to seeing in them, and if she didn’t know him better, she would have said it was fear. But Theo wasn’t someone who scared easily, and definitely wasn’t someone who would be scared of her, so she must have been imagining things. “It’s nothing,” he said tightly.

“Theo,” she said softly, and put her hand on his arm. “What’s going on?”

He looked at her again, his expression still unreadable. “Nothing,” he repeated, but more to himself than to her. “I promise.”

“Okay,” she sighed, and then smiled, wishing her life was just a little less complicated. “Sorry, I think Cam just got under my skin, and—” she broke off, shaking her head.

“And?” Theo prompted gently.

She had been about to say and my parents are fighting, but she didn’t want to bring them up, not now. “And nothing, it’s fine.”

Theo reached out and touched her cheek, so softly and carefully she thought she might shatter. He dipped his head down to kiss her, so slowly it was like he thought she was a frightened animal. But when he kissed her it was urgent, like the world might end if they stopped kissing.

And suddenly, she felt the same. Like if she didn’t wind her arms around his neck she might float away, dancing on the wind, like a single snowflake. They had kissed several times already—hell, they’d done a lot more than kiss—but it had never felt quite like this. Needy but sweet, like he was trying to tell her something with his lips, something she knew but didn’t quite have the words for.

Avery slowly lowered herself down to her heels, looking up at him dreamily. She couldn’t stop the smile on her face, and she didn’t want to let go of him either. “What was that for?”

Theo shrugged, his smile something approaching shy. “Felt like it. Was that—should I not have—”

Avery silenced his doubts with another kiss. There was something odd stirring in her chest, something she was struggling to name.

She wanted to kiss Theo, not because she was horny, or because it would drive home the lie that they were together. She just wanted to kiss him. That was it.

But if she wanted to kiss him just because, that opened up a lot of other questions she wasn’t quite sure how to answer. Except the fluttery feeling in her stomach was so nice, she didn’t want to push it away like she had before. She wanted to chase it, keep that feeling around, and if that meant keeping Theo’s hands on her waist, so be it.

“Ahem,” her mother said pointedly from the door. “Isn’t it a little cold to be outside right now?”

Theo looked sheepish, but Avery just shrugged. “Wanted some fresh air, that’s all.”

“Why don’t you come on in, then,” she said sternly. “There’s someone here who worked for the state senator’s office, and she said she could get you an internship for the summer.”

Avery wasn’t even sure she wanted an internship in St. Paul, but it wasn’t worth telling her mother that. Kelly would just argue with her, and she didn’t want to do that now, not when her body was humming and tingling and Theo’s hand was on the small of her back, burning into her through the fabric of his suit coat. So she followed her mother inside and shrugged out of Theo’s jacket, holding on to the feeling inside her with both hands all the while.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Theo

Theo killed the engine and let the silence of Itasca in the morning settle over him. Something he hadn’t really noticed until he got back was how noisy it was at school—not just dorm noise, but city noise too, sirens and horns and the low rumble of a light rail train and the chiming bells as it crossed an intersection. But Itasca was nearly silent in comparison; there were tiny snowflakes falling and he could swear he could almost hear them settling onto his windshield before they melted. It was another thing about Itasca that he appreciated more now that he was back. He would never love it here, but with some distance, maybe he could enjoy his visits.

Avery’s house looked quiet and cold aside from the warm yellow light shining from her bedroom. Just as he was about to open his car door the light clicked off, and by the time he reached the front porch, she was stepping out of the front door and to his right the garage door was grinding open. “Morning,” she said, and held out a fancy-looking travel mug. “Coffee,” she said. “Almond milk and sugar.”