Chapter Nineteen #2
When Nate’s interview cut to commercial, Miles winked at Avery and sped down to the dock, possibly to avoid Victoria.
But Victoria had her eyes on another companion.
“Avery, my friend. I feel bad we haven’t had time to catch up.” She used her sweetest voice, as if ten years ago, Victoria hadn’t called Avery a prude and predicted Miles’s end-of-summer breakup. “Come with me.”
Another command. As Avery walked slowly to the dock with Victoria, she braced for another ridiculous request. Those trucks pulling out couldn’t come soon enough.
“So, you and Miles have reunited,” Victoria said.
“We’re both here to help the Coopers. That’s all.” Avery centered her gaze straight ahead to where Miles joked with the crew in the middle of the ski dock.
Victoria clicked her tongue. “His watch around your wrist and your stolen glances don’t fool me.”
Avery knew to be cautious. Miles had given Victoria nothing.
“Thank you so much for taking time out of your busy schedule to come here.” She attempted to change course. “I know the Coopers appreciate the—”
“He doesn’t fall in love.” Victoria eyed Avery up and down, as if assessing her and finding her lacking. “But you already know that.”
“What?” Avery stopped short. How dare she try this again?
“Miles doesn’t do love. He’s Mr. One and Done.”
Avery grabbed a loose towel hanging off the back of a chair and squeezed it to hide her shaking fists, reminding herself a shared calendar said otherwise.
“Woman to woman,” Victoria said in a sickeningly sweet, I’m-your-best-friend voice. “In the City, his life is different. Actors. Models. Rock stars. It’s no place for a girl who ogles at loons and paints pretty pictures.”
Avery bit her cheek to keep from exploding. It took every ounce of energy not to tell Victoria to pack her chilled face cream and leave.
“Think about it, Aves. You and Miles have different love languages. Like most Southern women, you crave attention and words of affirmation. Miles is all about physical touch. A guy that hot can have his needs met anywhere, anytime, with anyone. That’s why he never stays with the same woman.
I’m just trying to prepare you for the inevitable.
When you leave this lake, he’ll find someone else. ”
Avery swallowed. Somehow Victoria had not lost the ability to make her simultaneously implode and explode.
How dare she pick them apart? That was Avery’s job.
Except Miles did love touch. Whenever they were alone, his hands were all over her.
Trent had loved touch too … and look where that had landed her.
The time she and Miles carved out together on their shared calendar was all at the lake, and they hadn’t discussed their lives off the lake yet.
She wanted to take him home to Virginia the next time she visited her family, but it would be a while before she went again.
However, he frequently returned to New York and always by himself.
Blending their lives shouldn’t fall on him, but she worried absence would make his heart lose interest. What if they couldn’t coordinate their separate lives come fall?
What if weekends here and there weren’t enough?
Avery’s stomach sank as a small voice inside of her said, You’re fooling yourself, Avery Easton. This will never work.
She didn’t watch Miles’s segment. Avery curled up in the loft and cried. Half an hour later, someone knocked on her door. When she opened it, her best friend pulled her in for a hug.
“Oh sweetie, the Queen emotionally guillotined you.” Lily gave her a sad pout.
Avery sat on her bed and filled Lily in. Lily quietly contemplated the conversation.
“Everything she said could have applied to Trent,” Avery said. “And I know Miles is not Trent, but in some convoluted way, it makes sense. Maybe I have a type.”
“Don’t you think Miles’s love language is acts of service though?” Lily asked. “It’s why he’s opening the camp and why he pays every table’s check whenever he eats at the Lakeside Diner.”
“He does that? Every time?” Avery asked. This explained why Wes had prodded Miles to come by the diner.
“He thinks it’s a secret, but this is a small town. Nate and I noticed Jeanette asks him if he wants ‘the usual’ at the end of the meal. Wouldn’t you ask that before the person ordered?”
“Yeah.” Avery also assumed “the usual” was chocolate milk. Avery put a hand to her mouth. Lily might as well have discovered the answer to getting the Friends couch up the stairwell wasn’t to yell “pivot.”
Lily proudly tapped her temple. “The ‘usual’ is him paying for everyone’s breakfast. It’s his way of giving back. The camp is too.”
Avery had never been more thankful for Lily.
Yes, Miles loved through acts of service.
It explained why he insisted on giving Avery pleasure before seeking his own.
Miles thought so much about other people, he sometimes forgot about himself.
Between helping the Coopers, planning a camp, and reuniting with her, he might’ve forgotten his other life existed.
This summer was already different. He’d proven he wanted to make things work.
Maybe it hadn’t occurred to him that she might be interested in going to his events.
Hayes and Anna Catherine’s visit the following weekend could be the gateway to taking her to New York.
“Wow, the usual. He’s sly.” Avery wiped away a sniffle and smiled at how Paulson had been right. Miles was like maple syrup. Good to the last drop.
“Yep.” Lily popped her lips in satisfaction.
“I love him,” Avery blurted out. In an instant, a pang of panic rose in her throat at admitting her feelings so freely to the woman who might tell Miles’s best friend.
“I know.” Lily nodded with a comforting smile. “And I’m guessing you haven’t told him, so I won’t say a word. Now go put on a swimsuit so I can try out my half moose, half deer float.”
Avery chose a string bikini. He wasn’t going with them, but if she saw Miles, she wanted to look like all his dreams. As luck would have it, Nate and Miles were waiting on the dock, ready to send them off.
Lily jumped right in, but Avery let Miles’s gaze linger.
His devilish grin said his mind had gone elsewhere at the sight of those strings tied at her hips.
“She’s gone,” he whispered to Avery as he took back his watch. “And Anna Catherine and Hayes arrive tonight. I promise they’re more fun. For starters, they won’t need a skincare fridge. After that, it’s you, me, and a bunch of sunsets.”
“I love the sound of that.”
“I love that in four pulls, I could have you naked right now.” His breath tickled her neck.
“Let’s go,” Lily yelled. “The doose is on the loose.”
Avery swatted Miles’s bicep, kissed him, and jumped into the cool water.
Halfway to Lone Pine Island, it occurred to her that if Lily could tell how she felt, Miles might have sensed it too.
He hadn’t been ready for her to say she loved him that summer.
But surely he had changed since then. After all, he was talking about a sunset-filled future.
Given that he didn’t go on second dates, he might never have been close enough to someone to say he loved them.
Avery wanted to be the one to break the mold.