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Theo stared at her. “You?”

Maybe it was the long-haul-trucker-strength coffee humming through her veins, but Avery felt like a goddamn genius. It was the solution to all of their problems in one neat, easy package. “Yeah, me. We started dating, let’s say, over your fall break when you visited, but we didn’t want to tell anyone because it was so new, and because everyone would feel like they had to pick a side if we broke up. So we kept it to ourselves, but now we’re sure it’s real, so we’re hard-launching it.” More and more reasons kept occurring to her, and she barreled on even as he looked skeptical. “And it’ll keep me from getting back together with Cameron,” she added. She was only, like, thirty percent worried that she’d hook up with Cam, but she knew Theo would go along if it meant helping her. And especially if it meant keeping her away from Cameron. “Plus half of Itasca already thought we were dating whenever we weren’t with anyone else, so everyone will buy it.”

Theo still didn’t look sold. He was usually the more cautious of the two of them, but Avery was confident this would solve every problem they had, plus a few they hadn’t even thought of.

“You mean lie?” he asked. “Don’t you, like, notoriously hate lying? More than anyone has ever hated lying in the history of ever?”

Avery’s stomach lurched and she put her coffee down. “That’s an exaggeration,” she protested. Sure, she hated lying, and maybe she was more vocal about it than other people, but it wasn’t, like, an unusual character trait or anything. And besides, she had her reasons.

“Not by much,” he muttered.

“Anyway, it’s not lying exactly. Just pretending. It’s different.”

Theo didn’t look convinced. “Pretending to date could be tricky,” he said. “It could get messy fast. And what happens after Thanksgiving? Why would we break up?”

“We tell people that we decided to go back to being just friends. And since we are friends, that will be easy.”

“And Christmas break? Do we just get back together again?”

Avery pondered that for a second. “Cameron’s going to be gone for most of winter break. His parents always go to their house down in Hilton Head for New Year’s, and my parents want to go down to the Florida condo for Christmas.” She was dreading that trip more than anyone knew, but that wasn’t something she was going to share with Theo. At least not yet anyway.

“Izzy’s family doesn’t have a second home,” Theo pointed out, and she knew he was trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice, although he wasn’t entirely successful.

“Transfer deadline would have to be soon, though, right? At least for spring semester. It would at least have to be before Christmas, so we just wait until that break to tell people we broke up. Then, if she still wants to transfer for next year, you’ll know it’s because she really wants to, and not just for you.”

“What about if—we’d have to sell it. Which means—acting like a couple. Holding hands, kissing, that sort of thing. Wouldn’t that be weird?” He looked up from his mug, which he’d been staring into like the mysteries of the universe were inside.

She met his gaze and for the space of a heartbeat she was thrown back to a year ago. Theo in a navy suit, her in a light green dress, a corsage he’d grabbed from the grocery store on his way to her house tied to her wrist, while they slow-danced in the school gym. Theo licked his lips, and she wondered if he was thinking about that moment too, the moment everything almost changed but didn’t.

Avery made herself laugh. “We’ve already kissed, remember?” she teased, and now it was a different, less potent memory. Harper’s birthday party, sophomore year, spin the bottle and an extremely awkward, chaste kiss.

Theo cracked a half smile. “You ate so many Doritos that night,” he teased. “Like, a disgusting amount.”

Avery rolled her eyes. “Please, you loved it. But seriously, if you’re worried, we just make some rules. If either of us feels weird, or like—like our feelings are going to get involved, or one of us just wants out, we end it. No questions asked, no hard feelings. And it’s over the second we both get back to school. It wouldn’t really be like lying, it’d be more like . . . acting. In an improvisational play for several days.” Normally, Avery wouldn’t be so excited about what would amount to lying to their friends, but she figured she could bend her strict “liars are the worst kind of people” moral code just this once. It was for a good cause, after all. And who knows, maybe it would be fun.

“I don’t know,” he said, still fiddling with his mug. “I’m not a huge fan of improv.”

“Come on, think of how annoyed you’d be if I hooked up with Cameron again. You’d be saving me from my penchant for thinking with my libido.”

“Your libido does make terrible choices.”

“As long as we agree to be completely honest with each other, nothing can go wrong.”

“But what if . . . what if feelings do get involved?” he asked, and her stomach lurched abruptly, probably thanks to the coffee. Actually no, definitely thanks to the coffee. It was definitely what was responsible, and not anything else. “You’re my best friend, Aves. Losing that would really suck.”

“That’s why this will work so well. We are best friends, so, as long as we’re honest with each other, we can work it out. And it’s not like we’re going to magically develop feelings for each other over the course of four days. Come on, Theo, you know I’m right.”

“Do I?” he asked, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

“You do.”

Theo looked at her with that hard-to-read expression and then jerked his head in a tight nod. “Since we’re dating now, we’d better get going, sweetheart,” he announced drily, and she threw a few twenties down to cover their bill.

The fact that her heart skipped a beat at sweetheart was entirely immaterial.

Chapter Four

Theo