Page 12 of One Bet

My phone vibrated for the tenth time, Avery glanced from it to me and I picked it up to shove it into my pocket. “You can answer it.”

“It’s no big deal.” And I meant it. “Not important.”

She smiled and sat back, arms crossed, eyes narrowed. “Yes, unimportant things call ten times in an hour.”

“I kind of forgot a date I’m supposed to be on.” Why did I tell her? I hadn’t planned to, but she short-circuited all my systems enough I couldn’t control my mouth or much else. She closed her book then reached for mine and flipped the cover closed. “You should go.”

“It’s no big deal.” Not to me, but I had a suspicion Beth Cooper felt quite differently. Had this date not been arranged last week when the Sigma girls had arranged a mixed bowling night and Beth put our names down, I wouldn’t have forgotten it, or maybe it was Avery that made me forget. Well, not Avery exactly, but the fact I wanted to be with her more than I wanted to go bowling with the Sigmas.

The phone vibrated again.

“You should definitely go.” She shoved her books into her bag and stood before the ringing even stopped. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She pushed around the table and almost jogged to the door.

By the time I gathered my stuff, shoved it into my backpack, and caught up with her, she was already out the door and halfway down the sidewalk. “Avery, wait.”

She sniffed and turned, but it was more like she flung her body in a half-circle to stare at me. And oh no. She was crying.

“Avery, what’s wrong?” She shook her head and resumed walking. This time, she went in the other direction. I stepped in front of her. “Tell me.”

She shook her head then ran her fingers through her short hair making it stand up on top. I would’ve described her as adorably disheveled and sad. “I don’t know, okay? I just…I don’t know.” She swerved around me and started walking again. “It’s the stupidest thing and I don’t understand it.”

Something inside me broke when she sniffed again. “Hey. It’s okay. Whatever it is you can tell me, we’re friends, you can tell me anything.” I just wanted her to be okay. Even if she said she hated me and never wanted to see me again. Well, that might’ve been a lie, but I wanted to be the kind of man who said it as truth, that had to count for something.

“We’re not friends, Keaton. The only reason we’re here is that you need better grades, and I wanted to go out with Ryder.”

Wanted to, past tense, my heart kicked up its pace. This time, I took her hand and stopped walking, tugged when she kept going. I had no idea what I was doing. I only knew I wanted to do it more than anything in the world.

When she turned to face me, I gave her fingers a squeeze. “That’s the reason we were in there. Not why we’re out here.” I moved closer, still holding onto her hand.

“You have a date.” She swallowed hard as I lifted my free hand to her cheek, to brush my thumb over her lips. I’d been dying to touch her since I first walked into the library and saw her smiling as she read some book she hid as soon as she saw me.

“I’d rather be with you.” And just as I lowered my head to kiss her, a car screeched to a stop beside us. Beth Cooper had impeccably bad timing.

“What the actual fuck are you doing with her when you’re supposed to be on a date with me?” Her shriek echoed off the building around us as she climbed out of her little red coupe and stomped to the sidewalk, bowling shoes flapping on the concrete with each step.

I dropped my hands and stared at Beth as if I’d never seen her before and honestly, I hadn’t, not this side of her anyway.

“Beth, we were studying.” Of course, that didn’t explain why I’d been about to kiss Avery, and saying it like that was wrong on so many levels when I had certainly been about to kiss her.

“She’s trash, Keaton, the little charity case doesn’t belong here, she belongs at a community college.” I’d never heard such venom come out of another person’s mouth, and maybe the surprise of it was why I didn’t spring to Avery’s defense, or maybe it was the fact I expected Avery to jump in and kill Beth, but instead, she nodded next to me, smiled and walked away. Shamefully, I didn’t stop her or go after her, I just stood there like an asshole and let her go.

9

Avery

Four stitches, on my face, didn’t that just figure? Keaton was back in town one day, and all of a sudden, I had a facial laceration.

He sat on a chair in the exam room as the doctor finished sewing me up. “If you want to go…,” I’d been embarrassed before, a lot of times, but I’d never been kicked out of a bar for fighting, getting my ass kicked on accident, or ended up in an emergency room after a bar fight.

He cocked his head and stared with his mouth in a half frown, half-smile and I waited until the doctor walked out of the room before I could think of anything else to say. “Don’t you have to get back to the frat house?”

He continued staring. “I’m staying at a hotel in Brighton.”

If this day could get worse, I wasn’t sure how. “Okay.”

“Are you going to be in trouble at work?”