Chapter Twelve #2
She stepped into his chest and Miles wrapped his arms around her and, without thinking, planted a soft kiss on her cool forehead.
“Maybe you’ll find someone at Paulson’s hotel bar. What was it? Bemelmans.”
She lay her ear against his chest and looked toward the dark lake.
“Yeah, Bemelmans,” she said. “With the murals.”
“I’d have picked Bar Chrystie at the Public Hotel for you,” he said.
“Everything’s emerald green. They have lighted chandeliers lying sideways on pedestals.
The whole time we’re there, I’ll be trying to figure out if the room is making you sparkle or if you’re making it sparkle. Even though I know it’s the latter.”
She picked her head up off his chest and in the dim light, he saw a smile. He wondered what color her eyes were. It didn’t matter. She was beautiful.
“Can you follow me around and whisper all of that to me every day?” She patted his chest.
That was the dream, and Miles felt the thrill of entering a scary carnival ride. He wanted her to know how special she was.
“Sure.” He smiled.
He reached up and ever so lightly ran the pad of his thumb over her cheekbone. He went liquid on the inside when she closed her eyes and leaned into his hand. As his gaze drifted over her, the idea of the dollhouse came to him. He needed to tell her what she didn’t know.
“I think I see you places.” He kept his voice soft and steady, so she’d know his words came from deep within him.
“Crowds, lines, running ahead of me along the Hudson. I spy a reddish-blond ponytail, one that could’ve been rinsed in the Tabasco sauce they named you after.
I catch my breath and think, it’s Avery. ”
He said her name with a hitch, as if he had seen a fish jump. When her breath hitched too, he knew his words had hit their mark. He slowly tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, softly brushing his thumb over the spot he used to kiss. Her lips parted.
Getting closer was a gamble. She might run.
All that existed in this moment was Avery and the softness of her skin under his hand. For years, he’d envisioned what he wanted. She was standing right in front of him and the prospect of getting himself where he wanted to be seemed possible.
“Obviously, she’s never you.” He lowered his hand. “But damn, Avery, for the last ten years, I haven’t stopped looking, no matter what else is going on in my life.”
Maybe he’d revealed too much, but Avery didn’t run. She stayed in his embrace and wrapped her arms around his neck. It was a risk to open himself a little more, but one nudge forward and she might understand what he really wanted.
“I used to worry that at some point, I wouldn’t remember you anymore.
” His voice fell to almost a whisper, and he grasped a handful of her jacket …
which was his jacket … right at the small of her back.
“The crinkle in your nose when you giggle, or that you smell like a flower I can’t quite name. I never ever want you to fade.”
Avery’s lips parted ever so slightly, as if inhaling his words.
In the dim light, he could have sworn she wanted a kiss, and the anticipation made him quiver.
She licked her lower lip and studied him, and he wished he could read the thoughts spinning through her beautiful mind.
Avery rose on her tiptoes and came closer, reducing the distance between them to mere millimeters.
Time ground to a halt. Stars collided. Planets aligned. Miles closed his eyes.
He wasn’t sure their lips were touching until her mouth gave way and her tongue skirted his lower lip. She ran her hand ran up the back of his neck and into his hair, pulling him to her. Her torso pressed into his, her hips writhing against his jeans.
Avery Easton was kissing him. Like she meant it, like she wanted him.
Miles opened his eyes in shock and quickly closed them, hurrying to catch up.
The taste of mint lip balm tempted him with all the things he could do, right here, right now.
And good God, he wanted to do them all. He pulled her in, wondering if she felt the rock-solid length of him through the layers of fabric between them.
He was about to cup the back of her head when Avery pulled away.
His mind filled with questions. It had all happened so fast, and he’d been unprepared.
That kiss meant something, but what? He stared as Avery rubbed her lips.
A pulse jolted through him at the thought of those lips exploring every inch of him.
Her kiss had turned him into a lovesick puppy.
He’d follow her anywhere and everywhere if she let him.
Avery forced a smile.
“I’m sorry.” She shook her head and fixed his collar. “We are supposed to be friends. I shouldn’t have, um…”
Miles had waited so long for this moment. He froze, knowing whatever he said next could make or break his chances.
“The thing is,” she said with a sigh, “we’ve changed. You have your famous friends, your red-carpet events, and your amazing apartment with the same sofa as Kendall Jenner. It’s beautiful. It also costs a small fortune.”
He reached a new level of regret for that one frivolous purchase.
“Avery,” he started. “It’s not…”
She placed her finger over his lips.
“Let me finish,” she said. “I love that you have a beautiful life. You work hard, give back, and escape here to the best house on the lake. You deserve all of that. Thing is … I’d be expecting the boy I fell in love with ten summers ago.
And it’s for the best that he’s gone because him not loving me shattered me.
I can’t take that kind of heartbreak again.
So thank you for being my friend and making me feel better. ”
Her words crashed through him like a freight train filled with cement. He didn’t know where to start. With her perception of his lifestyle, or the couch he hadn’t chosen, or that his goal hadn’t changed in a decade, or that she kissed him.
“We need to give our best friends the conflict-free wedding they deserve,” she said. “So they can take a cruise or whatever for their honeymoon, with happy memories.”
Miles had been so quiet, parsing each word and figuring out how to refute every single weak argument when something dawned on him. Something more important than the defeat he felt now.
Take a cruise. Shit. He knew one more place to look for Casper.
“Avery,” he said, pulling her elbow toward the waterfront. “Come on, there’s one more place.”
Miles took off across the lawn to Sam’s private beach. There on the sand was Sam’s dark-green Old Town canoe. The one he paddled around the lake with his best friend in the bow.
Come on, Casper, wanna take a cruise? The thought of Sam saying it made Miles miss Sam.
And there in the canoe lay a ghostly white lump, waiting for his best friend. Casper raised his eyes but not his head when Miles shined the light on him. Avery pulled up a second later.
“Casper, are you okay?” She clamored into the boat.
“I think he misses Sam. They go out on the lake together. Sam calls them cruises. When you said that word, I knew.”
“Poor guy.” She ran her hand over the dog’s head. “I’ll take you out on the lake.”
A few minutes and a hotdog later, Casper followed them up the hill and jumped in the back of the Mail Jeep.
When Miles shifted into reverse, he started to loop his hand behind Avery’s headrest to look out the rear window as he backed up.
It had taken so long to get her back into his passenger seat.
But Casper’s giant head panted between them, dripping drool onto the floorboard.
She nuzzled her nose into the dog’s neck.
“Casper, you scared me.” She kissed the top of his head and held his muzzle in her hands. “Don’t you ever leave me again.”
Miles wanted her nuzzling his neck, her kissing his face, her telling him not to leave. So badly his stomach hurt at the realization someone who made you so happy could make you so sad. He’d done that to her once.
Miles let his eyes linger on her profile, all the time wondering at what point a man should give up on his dream. Casper gave her his paw and dropped his eyes as if to say no one had ever loved him. Completely false, but Avery lapped it up.
That dog was a player. Miles admired his skills.
Dammit, Casper, he thought as he backed up. One day he was going to print that on a T-shirt.