Page 79 of Pressure Point

“Who’s that?”

“Hi! I’m Talia, Avery’s new roommate. Or, in the version of the story you’ve probably heard, I’m Regina George.” Talia giggled at her own comment. Avery had learned at that first “family dinner” at Bunz that one of the ways Talia and Gunnar were bonding was through movies, so it made sense that she was ready with a reference. Although Mean Girls was not something she would have thought would be a father/daughter bonding movie, what did she know. She’d had one of the best orgasms of her life during Iron Man.

“I never would have called you Regina George,” Avery pointed out.

“She knows Mean Girls, I like her already,” Hazel commented. “But, if you’re with Talia, did things not go as planned last night?”

Avery let out a long sigh, before launching into the play-by-play of how the night went down. She managed to get through the whole story without tears, although at this point she was pretty sure that was simply because she was too dehydrated from crying all night to be able to produce any more. She certainly felt like she could spend the rest of time crying.

“I have so many questions,” Hazel said when Avery finally finished her tale.

“That makes two of us,” Avery muttered.

"Starting with, when exactly did things flip from Dash to Liam?”

Good question.

One she didn’t have the answer to. There hadn’t been an ah-ha moment, had there? Just all the time they’d spent together and how comfortable in herself she had become. How she’d gone from thinking she needed to find her sexy to learning to embrace what she had. All the things that Liam had already liked about her even before she’d dragged him through all this.

“I don’t know. I didn’t realize I was falling for him. I just thought that…I don’t even know what I thought. All I know right now is that dancing with Dash last night meant nothing. And when he tried to kiss me, well, I felt all the excitement of trying to kiss my boss.”

“Can we keep Gunnar out of this? I get enough of that with Felicity,” Talia said, wincing slightly. Avery mouthed sorry—she had been thinking of Cowboy when she’d used the word boss, but now that she thought about it, either of the two men would work. And neither of them was someone she wanted to be kissing.

“But it was prior to last night, yes?” Hazel prompted.

“Yeah,” Avery admitted, closing her eyes and letting her head fall back onto the couch.

As if she were back in school, her mind flashed through a slide show of these last few weeks with Liam. The adventure at the mall, movie nights, dancing at Club 404. All the knowing glances and sweet kisses that had been just between them. How he knew when to be gentle and when to be not so gentle with his touch. The whole photo shoot he’d arranged and how she’d never felt sexier than when she had been in nothing but his kit. Like she had been claiming him for her own, knowing she was already his.

“The whole time I was with Dash, all I wanted was to be with Liam. To feel his arms around me, to be laughing at our jokes. He’s the only one I want to be kissing.”

Avery felt a tear slowly trail down her cheek. Maybe she did have some left. All she knew was that her heart hurt. Hurt worse than she ever thought it could. Hurt because she knew that she had ruined their friendship. Ruined their more-than-friendship too. But that was only the start of it. She had hurt him. Deeply. She’d seen it in his eyes as he stood there, pushing her away. She had broken his heart. No, she had shredded it. She only wished she knew how to make it right.

“You need to tell him,” Hazel said.

Tell him. Oh hell, did Avery want to tell him. She ached to run to him, throw her arms around his neck and let him know that he was it. Not Dash, not anyone else. Him. If for one second Avery had thought that he would talk to her, she would have already marched downstairs and knocked on his door. But she knew him. Knew him better than anyone else—save for maybe Mrs. Daley. And that meant knowing that he wouldn’t answer that door. That he wasn’t interested in what she had to say. He wasn’t much of a talker on the best of days, and this was certainly not the best of days. She knew he’d already told her everything he intended to last night standing in front of the elevator.

“He doesn't want to hear it. He doesn’t want to talk to me. I broke his heart. There’s no coming back from that.”

“Actually, I would bet that he does want to hear it,” Talia interjected. “You’ll have to beat him over the head with it, but deep down, what he wants is to know that you choose him. That he’s the one you want, not Dash.”

“I tried to tell him that last night. He didn’t believe me! And I can’t blame him. I did the exact same thing she did. All I did was confirm his biggest fear.”

“Wait, she who?” Hazel interjected.

“Orla,” Avery said, heaving out a breath. “His ex. They were together since they were teenagers, until she broke up with him last summer, for his brother. Who she is now married to and having their baby.”

“Oh.”

“And he has this insecurity that he’s second-rate because of it. That he’s not good enough, when he’s seriously the best guy I have ever met. But he’ll never believe me now. Not after he thinks I chose someone else.”

“Did I or did I not say you would have to beat him over the head with it?” Talia asked. “You’re right, he does have it in his head that he’s not good enough and that his lot in life is to play backup. So now the ball is in your court to show him that he’s not only first-string in your world, but captain of the team and the only one you want to be physically training with.”

“That’s a lot of sports metaphors for a girl who doesn’t understand the game,” Avery commented. Talia shrugged in response, as if to say, “I tried.”

“Talia’s right. And I think I have just the idea of how to do it,” Hazel said, launching into her plan, Talia enthusiastically nodding along the way. Avery almost had to laugh, her eyes flicking back and forth between her best friend’s photo on the phone and her new friend beside her on the couch. The two of them were quite the pair, and they’d never even met.

“Really? That’s your idea? That’s insane,” Avery replied when Hazel finished.