Page 41 of The Friendsgiving Pact

“Where are your skates?” Grace asked.

“Just got here,” Avery said. “Apparently Tommy has a curfew tonight, though, so we should get skating before Cinderella turns into a pumpkin,” she added.

“Cinderella didn’t turn into a pumpkin, her carriage did,” Tommy sniffed, but Grace looked confused.

“Your mom knows you’re staying with me tonight, right?” Grace asked Tommy, head cocked to the side. “Why would she care when you get there?”

Theo knew right then his luck was about to run out, because a suspicious look had entered Avery’s eyes. “Let’s go get our skates,” he announced, probably a little too loudly, if the expressions on his friends’ faces were any indication. He held out his hand to Avery, and she took it, letting him lead her away from the table.

They grabbed their skates from the counter and laced them up while the DJ announced a special bride-and-groom skate. Avery glanced out at the rink and then shrugged. “While we wait, here you go,” she said, holding out her package. It was small and heavy—dense—and he carefully loosened the tape, removing the paper deliberately.

He flipped it over and the corner of his mouth lifted in a half grin. His Latin teacher had mentioned a book on women in ancient Rome that had sounded interesting, and he had said so offhand to Avery on their drive up. “They had this at Owl’s Roost?”

“I was just as surprised as you,” she said with an echoing grin.

Theo handed his gift to her, and smothered his knowing grin as Avery impatiently ripped off the wrapping paper. “Oh my God, thank you,” she gushed, looking at him with such real happiness the nerves he felt from his conversation with Tommy melted away.

A crackle from the speaker was followed by the DJ announcing an all-couple skate. Theo held his hand out to her, finally admitting to himself that he didn’t want this to be pretend anymore.

And just as he’d accepted it and made his peace with the fact that Avery might not feel the same, she took it.

The contrast with last night couldn’t have been stronger. Rather than being surrounded by rich assholes his parents’ age and guys like Cameron who felt entitled to everything by virtue of having been born to the right family and nothing else, Theo was holding Avery’s hand as they skated around the rink while Harper’s middle-aged cousins screamed along to a Kelly Clarkson song. Theo had never really had anything like a “scene” in Itasca, and in fact he had never truly felt comfortable anywhere outside of hanging out with Avery, Tommy, Harper, and Grace, but at least he knew none of Harper’s cousins would look askance at his lack of a suit, since clearly none of them owned one either.

Plus, he was holding Avery’s hand. She kept sneaking glances at him out of the corner of her eye, an almost-nervous grin flashing across her face. Over near the wall that was inexplicably made of carpet, Theo slowed to a stop and pulled her around to look at him. “What?” he asked, knowing his own grin was just as nervous-looking. He had a pack of butterflies rioting in his stomach in a not-unpleasant way.

“I—I have to confess something,” Avery said. “This, you and me, it’s been fun. Like, really fun. And I feel like . . . what if it wasn’t pretend?”

The butterflies exploded, and so did his heart. “You mean be together for real?”

“If you didn’t want—if that felt—we don’t have to—”

So of course they would have to be interrupted by Tommy before he could respond. “Uh, Theo?” Tommy said, clearing his throat ostentatiously. “I, uh, don’t mean to interrupt, but—”

Theo sighed. “What is it?”

“Genuinely the worst timing possible, I know, because I can tell whatever you’re talking about is serious. But I wouldn’t have interrupted, you know, this if it wasn’t important, and—”

“Tommy, what is it?” Avery interrupted.

“Izzy’s here.”

Theo did his best to keep his face neutral. “She and I already talked about stuff at Grace’s. She knows about us.”

“Yeah, it’s not that. She wants to talk to you again. But they wouldn’t let her out onto the rink without skates, and she didn’t want to rent them, since she only came to talk to you, so I said I’d go get you, and I know you guys look like you’re in the middle of something, and like I said, I wouldn’t have interrupted if I didn’t think it mattered, but—”

“Tommy, please shut up,” Avery said. She turned to Theo with a rueful smile. “Go talk to her, I’m not going anywhere,” she said, but he noticed she wasn’t turning around to look at Izzy. Avery had always been a little uncomfortable around her, and apparently that hadn’t changed in the intervening months.

Theo wound his way across the rink and did the awkward skate-step-stumble thing that always happened when he went from the hardwood floor of the rink to the carpet of the dining area. Izzy was standing a few tables away, arms crossed, with a rather impressive frown on her face.

He understood why people found her intimidating. She was not known for smiling, and she took her art very, very seriously. Perhaps a little too seriously, if he was being entirely honest. He liked that she cared about it so much, and he knew she was very good, but he didn’t always get what she was talking about, and sometimes he suspected she knew he didn’t take it as seriously as she did.

“Hey,” he said as warmly as he could.

“Hi,” she said flatly, and sat down. She looked at him pointedly until he took the seat across from her. “I see things are going well with Avery.”

“Is that really what you came to talk about?” he asked. He and Izzy hadn’t fought often—that was more Avery and Cameron’s thing—but the few times they had, he hadn’t exactly rolled over and played dead.

Anger flared across her expression. “Actually, yeah, it is. I want to know how long.”