Page 9 of The Friendsgiving Pact

“She won’t care,” he said, and hoped that was true. He was pretty sure it was. “She hates dances and that shit, and we’d be going as friends anyway. I’ll text her and let her know, but I swear, she won’t mind.” Avery looked dubious, but Theo forged ahead. “You don’t want to go alone, right?”

“Do you have anything to wear?”

“I’ll figure it out,” he said dismissively. “And it’s not like Mr. Krueger will turn me away at the door. He’s going to be so excited I actually came to a school event he’ll forget all about any dress code.”

She cracked half a smile, and the ducks flapped harder. He was trying to go through a mental list of his clothes, because he wasn’t that sure Krueger would let him in if he was in jeans and a T-shirt, but he had to have something that would at least sort of pass muster. And he would have to talk to Izzy, so she wouldn’t be caught off guard by any gossip. All of a sudden, he had some doubts. Maybe this was the wrong move, maybe it was too much, maybe—

“You’d do that? For me?” Avery asked hesitantly.

Maybe it was the best idea he’d ever had. “Of course I would.”

Avery bit her lower lip in a mischievous grin and tapped out a response to Cameron, hopefully one with fuck you appended to it. “Done,” she said.

Theo mentally encased the ducks in his stomach in ice, holding them still. “Pick you up at seven?” he said as Avery beamed. He grinned before turning back to their homework. “So this question here. What the hell does this even mean?”

“I’m not even in that class with you,” she protested.

“Yeah, but you took it last year and I know you know the answer.”

Avery made a face and rolled her eyes, and they went back to work, with her explaining the concept and him pretending he was listening, as if nothing had changed. Because really, nothing had.

Maybe.

Chapter Eight

Avery

Avery didn’t speak until she’d shut the door to Grace’s brother’s bedroom behind them. She collapsed back against it, desperately trying to read his expression. “Oh my God? Did we just do that?”

“Are you mad?”

“No. Just surprised,” Avery said, breathing unusually hard. The stairs up to James’s room weren’t particularly steep, but she felt like she’d just had to run a mile. They had talked about kissing back at the diner, but she hadn’t really considered what it would be like to kiss Theo, somehow.

Really kiss him. Like really, really kiss him. She wanted to touch her lips with her fingertips, because they seemed to be tingling, but she resisted. Her head was spinning as she absorbed some new, critical information.

Theo is a good kisser. Actually, better than just good. Excellent? She might go that far, if only because one kiss from him had her body singing more than Cameron ever had, and one of the reasons she stayed with him was because Cameron, for all his fault, was good in bed. Suddenly, she had to integrate a new version of Theo into her mind, one she had studiously avoided considering.

“We don’t have to do that again,” he said, his face still unreadable. “You just said to do something, and so I did it.”

“No, no, it’s fine, I just—” Avery broke off and became suddenly interested in James’s hockey trophies. The room was surprisingly clean for a thirteen-year-old. It looks like last year was his best year, she thought to herself, mostly to keep from saying anything out loud that she couldn’t take back. “It was a lot, that’s all. Not in a bad way, just like, an unexpected one.”

“What happened with Cameron?” Theo asked, and part of her wondered if maybe Theo also wanted to avoid talking about the kiss.

Suddenly, she didn’t want to tell Theo that she’d been considering kissing Cameron. He would be annoyed, because he was always annoyed when it came to Cameron. “It was just—Cameron being Cameron,” she said vaguely. “How did it go with Izzy?”

He winced. “Not great. I didn’t really think through how I would tell her that we were together, and I didn’t really plan on her finding out like she did.”

“Fucking Matt, am I right?” she said with a crooked grin.

Theo chuckled ruefully. “He is way too damn loud,” he agreed.

“Are you okay?” Avery asked, genuinely concerned. Her idea was supposed to fix problems for them, not create them, after all. “I know you were worried about hurting her.”

Theo looked at her for a long minute, and she wondered if he was going to say something irrevocable. But then he shook his head. “I guess there was no good way for her to find out, in the end. I’m fine. I promise,” he added, when she raised her eyebrows.

Avery didn’t fully believe him, but she didn’t want to push and discover something that would hurt. Like that he didn’t like kissing her, or that he was already regretting their whole charade. She was desperate to get things back on track and under control, but she didn’t know how.

She also couldn’t help but notice that neither of them was really addressing the kiss issue, and she couldn’t decide if that was a good thing or a bad thing.