Page 49 of The Friendsgiving Pact

Harper rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I’m sure you care so much about Izzy’s feelings.”

“Fuck you,” Avery spat. “I do, okay? And you all are sitting here acting like it’s no big deal, but it is.”

“Aves, it’s not—” Tommy tried, but she was on a roll.

“Just stop it, okay? Stop defending him to me, and stop acting like it doesn’t matter. He lied to me, and I’m the one who gets to be pissed.” Avery stopped, breathing hard, and shook her head, so angry she could barely speak.

“But why, Avery?” Harper pushed. “Why, on God’s green fucking earth are you acting like this when you’re already dating?”

“Because we weren’t really together,” Avery blurted. She realized a second too late that admitting she and Theo had been lying to them, while she had been arguing that it mattered that he hadn’t told her the truth right away was probably not a great idea.

“Sorry, what was that?” Tommy asked in a dangerous tone.

“What do you mean, you weren’t together?” Grace asked, arms crossed.

“Explain,” Harper said, breathing through her nose, either because she was mad or because she was about to throw up. Or both.

Avery wasn’t sure how to dig herself out of this hole, so she gave up on digging. “We weren’t really together until last night.”

Her friends exchanged incredulous looks. “Sorry?” Tommy said.

“We were just pretending. It was a way to keep us from getting back together with Izzy and Cameron.”

“So that kiss at my place was fake?” Grace asked.

“Didn’t look fake,” Tommy said, still poisonously sweet. “Looked pretty goddamn real in fact.”

“Am I going to have to point out you were just raking us over the coals for letting Theo lie to you, all the while knowing you were lying to us?” Grace asked.

“It wasn’t about lying to you guys, it was about protecting ourselves.”

“Sounds an awful lot like something a liar would say,” Harper spat.

“Too far,” Grace said softly.

“No, not too far,” Harper said. “Not far enough. She doesn’t get to argue that Theo was lying to her for not telling her something totally reasonable, and then turn around and justify the same damn thing for herself.”

“That’s not fair,” Avery protested. “This was only supposed to be for a few days.”

“Oh yeah, that makes it a lot better,” Harper said sarcastically. She tossed her napkin onto her plate and stood up abruptly. “And now I’ve lost my appetite, so I’m going to go.” She stalked out, shoving her arms roughly into her coat.

Tommy looked at Avery pointedly while she stared, dumbfounded, at Harper’s retreating back. Harper practically never got mad, and Avery had definitely never seen her this angry. Grace was the one in the group with the sharpest temper; Harper apologized to tables when she ran into them. “Well?” he said. “You gonna go fix that?”

Belatedly she jumped up and hurried out, without even bothering to stop for her coat, despite the temperature barely breaking the double digits that morning. “Harper,” she yelled, and she saw her friend hesitate before she kept on walking like she hadn’t heard.

“Harper, come on, I know you know I’m here,” Avery said.

Harper stopped at the door to her car and turned around, arms crossed. “What?”

“What the hell’s your problem?” Avery said, and realized immediately that was maybe the worst thing she could have said.

Harper gave her a cold look, her usually soft features hard. “I should ask you that.”

“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have started like that.”

“No, you shouldn’t have.”

“I was just—so off guard, finding out about Theo.”