Chapter Twenty-Four
Miles
Miles woke the next morning clouded in brain fog, aware of the daylight but unsure of the time.
His hands skimmed the mattress. Alone again.
Not a trace of Avery’s warmth remained on the cool percale sheets.
For a second, he thought she’d gone to the airport until he heard the shower shut off.
He exhaled his relief and massaged his forehead.
They needed to talk about last night.
Mimi was right. Last night looked different today.
He didn’t know why the second Avery said she loved him, everything inside him shut down, but he knew she’d meant it and he’d hurt her.
There had to be a way through this. Other people entered long-distance relationships every day.
With the pressure of the fundraiser gone, he felt calmer and a little more level-headed.
When Miles thought about it from Avery’s perspective, she had every reason to be upset.
She was right; he hadn’t looked for her in the crowd last night.
He’d needed space to process the way he’d felt when she’d admitted she loved him.
He should have told her about his anxiety instead of shutting her out.
Given his inattentiveness, it was a wonder she’d stayed at the party. Of course she danced with Paulson.
Hayes had managed the party so easily while doting on Anna Catherine.
Anna knew people there, yet Hayes had included her in every conversation.
Miles should have done the same for Avery.
Instead, he had ignored her so he could stay in control of his emotions.
Seeing her doe-eyed gaze would’ve reminded him of his silence, or worse, brought back the heart palpitations.
No one wanted to donate to a cause led by a man covered in a sheen of anxious sweat.
They wanted confidence, not distress. He’d accomplished a calm demeanor, but Avery had paid the price.
He rolled over to her side of the mattress and sunk his head into her pillow, surrounding himself in her divine floral aroma.
He wanted to be the guy who knew what love was and gave it away easily.
He thought about the couples he knew. Anna Catherine and Hayes.
Lily and Nate. His parents. They opened their hearts easily, sure they had found the one.
If they could do it, he must be able to get there somehow.
If he was honest, it had been a relief not to have to introduce her to every single person he talked to last night.
He wasn’t ready for the panic of being asked if he’d finally found his person.
His person. He hated that term. She was more than his person.
She was everything, but somehow acknowledging her love felt like taking an exit labeled Road to Ruin. The one where Miles freezes. And runs.
He needed to make last night’s fumble up to her, but she was flying to Portland later that morning for Lily’s bachelorette in Boothbay Harbor.
Bright and Early had him hosting three live segments on “Building Your Nest Egg at Any Age” this week, so he had to stay in the City.
As soon as Wednesday’s show wrapped, he’d fly to Maine for Nate’s bachelor canoe trip. What a mess.
Last night he’d given her no reason to believe he loved her. He needed time to fix that. Time he didn’t have.
He sat on the edge of the bed and ran his hand down his face.
It made no sense for Avery’s love to paralyze him.
She was everything he wanted: smart, kind, loving, honest, invested.
Whenever he imagined his future, it was Avery sitting across from him at the end of the dock and standing beside him on the subway so he wouldn’t have to read alone to keep the world away.
It was Avery leaning in for a kiss in his Mail Jeep as he turned around from looking out the back window and shifted out of reverse.
Miles wanted to be what she needed. Support her through her highs and lows.
He’d get a dog, and that dog would be so much better than Casper because it was theirs.
He’d train it. That sounded like love, and maybe it was, but he needed more time to figure out how to lean into his dreams without panic.
He had to apologize. Tell her about the tightness in his chest, the racing heartbeat, and the irrational, but real to him, parallel he’d drawn between love and loss. How he wasn’t sure he could say the one thing she needed to hear.
Winning her back needed more than flowers and I’m sorry. Maybe he should drop everything and fly to Maine with her today. Or show up tomorrow, at the bachelorette party, Jerry Maguire style. Except that wouldn’t be fair to Lily.
Through the bathroom door, he heard Avery’s hair dryer.
He went to the kitchen, brewed tea for her, and left it on the bedside table next to her earrings and lip balm.
Miles waited in the living room, semi-reclined on his nest couch, drumming his fingers on the velvet armrest. His mind scrolled through various ways to start a discussion.
When Avery finally came out, dressed for her flight, he took it as a good sign when she sat next to him and not as far away as possible.
“Thank you for the tea.” She glanced at her phone, where the bright-pink Lyft app showed a map of his neighborhood. “Not sure I’ll finish it. My car will be here in four minutes.”
He reached for her hand, and she let him hold it but didn’t clasp his in return. She was a little shaky.
“Avery, about last night.” The couch squeaked as he shifted to face her. “I do know what it’s like to feel alone at a party. I didn’t handle the evening well, especially after we got home. And I’m sorry.”
His long legs didn’t know where to go on this low a couch, so he kept adjusting them. She drank a sip of tea and took a deep breath, slowly, as if preparing to say something she was afraid to say.
“Miles.” She smiled with a huff. “This summer is a giant déjà vu. All the way down to me telling you I love you, you not saying it back, and you putting physical distance between us. It doesn’t matter if it’s across ten states or across a ballroom.
We are heading for the same end. And I can’t live through that a second time.
I guess our love has muscle memory and is destined make the same mistake over and over again. ”
His heart skipped a beat. They weren’t a mistake. She was everything.
“Wait. We’re so great together.” He squeezed her hand. “I walked into this damaged and afraid of truly enjoying the good things. Big feelings scare me, because so much can go wrong. And that’s on me, not us, not you.”
Avery again took her hand away and smoothed a wrinkle out of her jeans.
“We’ve been down this path.” Her voice cracked.
“We spend every second together at the lake, and it’s great.
But summer ends. Isolation and heartbreak follow.
If last night proved anything, it’s that I don’t fit in your life here.
It’s best if we end this amicably. Our best friends are getting married. We need to get along for them.”
Avery sat back on the couch and jiggled her leg.
She checked the Lyft app. He could see the car was two blocks away and silently wished for a red light at the next intersection.
Miles’s chest was splitting in half. They had the power to make this summer different, better than that summer. It didn’t have to end.
“Avery.” He reached over and caressed her cheek.
“This summer is only like that one if we make it that way. Back then, I was a poor college athlete with a full schedule. You had three years left at Vanderbilt. That’s all changed.
I can travel to see you, and I can make it easy for you to come here.
I’ll do whatever it takes. I can lease time in a jet, so you never have to wait in an airport. ”
She stared at her lap, and then her phone buzzed.
“My car is here.” She stood and he followed her to her bag, wrapping his hand around her wrist.
“If you think about it, we went into last night wanting the same thing. To be together. And a whole slew of people got in our way. I’m sorry I ignored you.
Leaving you alone at a party should be easy to fix.
Give me another chance at another party.
And what you said to me before we left, I reacted poorly.
And I want to say it back to you, but I’m slower at this than you.
I have, um, issues I need to work through. ”
She lifted the handle on her suitcase and faced him, tears brimming in her eyes.
He stepped closer and wrapped his arms around her, wishing she didn’t have to leave now.
When she buried her face in his chest, he took it as a sign she didn’t believe they were over.
Telling him she loved him only to attempt to break up with him less than twenty-four hours later might be an act of protection.
Avery was trying to break her own heart before he could.
Miles knew the signs. He’d done it once to himself.
He reached over to the counter, grabbed his handkerchief from last night, and handed it to her. She took it, let out a small laugh, and wiped her tears.
“The thing is, Miles, Victoria’s right. You and I only work at the lake.”
Rage billowed in his chest. Victoria had no business putting that in her head.
“She said that to you?”
“Twice.” Avery wiped her nose. “That summer and this one.”
No wonder Avery didn’t like Victoria. Those were next-level head games. It had to sting when Victoria’s prediction came true. He needed to tell her about his anxiety, but not now, not when it sounded like an excuse, or worse, a plea.
Her phone rang. The driver. She asked him to wait and promised to be right down.
“I have to go,” she said as she hung up.
He followed her into the elevator and hugged her again.
“I don’t want to be the guy who makes you sad.
” He kissed the top of her head. “I think we can fix this. I need to go back to therapy again. Last night I discovered I have some things I need to work on, but right now you have Lily’s bachelorette, and I have three live segments this week.
As soon as I am done, I’m off to Nate’s canoe trip.
After that, we have the first two weeks of August with no other commitments.
Can you give me time to get my bearings?
There’s so much I need to tell you, but it’s too big a conversation for an elevator ride.
Please don’t end us yet. Hit the pause button.
And after we get through our obligations, give me an afternoon or maybe a day so we can discuss a different ending to our story. ”
“Like when Ross and Rachel took a break?”
“Nothing like that. Do you remember the week before we started dating a decade ago?”
“No.” Avery shook her head and let out a tearful snort.
“I ran into you in the woods and quoted Robert Frost.” Miles eyed the elevator’s floor counter.
They were only halfway down, moving more slowly than last night.
“I quoted the first two lines of ‘The Road Not Taken,’” he said.
“You answered with the ending of ‘Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening.’”
She nodded and let out a trace of a giggle. “You corrected me and said that wasn’t the same poem.”
“You told me you didn’t care because ‘Stopping by the Woods’ was better.”
He had loved that Avery hadn’t been afraid to be herself. He still did.
“I remember you said when you were little, your mom used to read you that poem and you thought the ‘miles to go’ part was about you.” She refolded the handkerchief she’d been clutching all this time. “So cute.”
He chuckled. She remembered.
“Both those poems are about taking pauses and the difference it made.” Miles was so sure this was one of his genius moments, if she bought into what he was saying.
“This is us taking a Robert Frost moment. One that will make a difference. Think of it as a pause to consider our path. And after the pause, if you still think we won’t work, I’ll respect your decision. ”
Not great, but it was the best elevator speech he could come up with on such short notice. And the twist in her lips told him she was considering it.
“No sleeping with other people,” she said, going back to Friends and probably Trent.
“Of course not,” he said. “I’ll go tantric. A sexual version of when Aaron Rodgers took that darkness retreat.”
Avery giggled, and he told himself to savor it. He wouldn’t hear her laugh for a week. Besides, her right eye twinkled, a sign she didn’t want to end it.
“Text me all you want,” he said. “If we want to talk, we call or FaceTime. But let’s wait until we can be together to discuss the big stuff.”
She concentrated on the display above the elevator buttons, watching the floors slowly tick down.
“Avery.” He cupped her chin and ran his thumb along her cheek. “Whatever happens, I do not want to walk through the world as ghosts ever again.”
She nodded, and he wasn’t sure if she agreed not to be ghosts or to his plan.
“In the grand scope of our lives, this pause will be a tiny blip,” he said. “But it has the potential to be the most important, most meaningful, and most mature moment you and I have ever experienced.”
“I’d like us to have that,” she said. “Especially the mature and meaningful parts.”
The elevator chimed. They’d reached the lobby. As they hugged goodbye, he took a breath of magnolia, imprinting the moment for himself. She let go and gazed up at him. He took her wistful smile as her being okay with their pause.
The doors still hadn’t opened. Maybe they were stuck. It wouldn’t be the worst thing.
“Miles, I have to go,” she said. But she didn’t wriggle out of his arms. She stayed put.
He leaned in and whisked his lips over hers.
“Pepper,” he said. “Next time we’re together, I promise to be a better man than the one who wants to kiss you right now. Can I kiss you anyway?”
She nodded and he slowly kissed her, building the intensity until the elevator doors whooshed open. No one kissed him like she did. It had to be love, but he didn’t say it.
When he let go, Symona Beauvais and Hazel Matheson stepped into the elevator.
Hazel raised an eyebrow at Miles. Avery scurried out and waved goodbye.
Miles stood in his pajamas and bare feet next to a model and a rock star but kept his eyes on Avery’s beautiful face as the doors closed.
His last thought, as he blew her a kiss, was that he’d turned her eyes gray and dull, and he’d do everything in his power to make them shine again.