Chapter 16
AVERY
Dallas cast me a few curious glances after Wilder left, but you didn’t grow up the youngest of seven kids without learning never to volunteer information, so I distracted him with questions about how to format my class newsletter—ha!
As if I didn’t already know how! I was born to be a kindergarten teacher, with a Canva subscription in one hand and a hot glue gun in the other.
“You know, you could spend less time making chickens out of egg cartons and feathers and maybe take a look at sanding back your floorboards,” he said.
“Back to what?” I asked. “A secret second floor? Oh!” I pointed at the screen. “Add that photograph of the goose at the top and move the others down.”
He gave me the side eye. “Then we’ll need another photo at the end, to balance it out.”
I went through my photos from the Adventurama and found one of Wilder piggybacking Tyrell. It was cute as hell. Tyrell was cute as hell. Of course he was. He was five and had dimples. And I was definitely looking at them instead of at Wilder’s ass. “We’ll use this one.”
“Oh, it’s your neighbor,” Dallas said and hummed. “Being not the most annoying parent in the world.”
“Well, yeah,” I said. “I would have had to cancel the whole trip if he hadn’t come. So it was really nice of him.”
Dallas hummed again. “Yeah, he seems nice. Volunteering as a parent helper at short notice. Inviting you to a birthday party.” He raised his eyebrows. “Offering to suck your dick if you’re not too busy.”
My face heated up. “You heard that.”
“Yes,” he said. “Because I was right here. And I have ears. And questions. Foremost, if you’re not too busy? What the fuck is that?”
“Um,” I said. “He’s polite?”
Dallas stared at me. “He’s polite.”
“Look,” I said. “We have… an arrangement. He’s busy, and I’m busy, so he was checking that I wasn’t busy just now. Which obviously I was, so.” I shrugged.
“No, don’t make it sound all reasonable,” Dallas said. He poked me in the shoulder. “What do you mean, an arrangement?”
“It’s casual,” I said.
“No, casual is casual. An arrangement is something else.”
“I am using the word arrangement in its most casual sense,” I tried, and Dallas rolled his eyes. “It’s casual, then. That’s what I meant.”
“You have never done anything casually in your life,” Dallas said, “especially not dating.”
I stared at the screen for a moment. “That’s because it’s not dating. It’s—”
“If you say casual again, I’m going to smack you.” It was an empty threat. Dallas had never raised a hand to me in his life. He was way too laid-back for that, which was why the intensity in his tone caught my attention.
“What?” I asked, trying to deflect him. “Everyone does casual.”
“You don’t,” he said. “Avery, you overthink everything. It’s why we’ve been working on this newsletter for forty-five minutes and ten of that was you choosing a font.”
“We should just go back to Times New Roman,” I said. “It’s a classic for a reason.”
“No,” he said, nudging me out of the way when I reached for the mouse. He let out a breath. “Tell me about whatever the hell is going on with you and your neighbor.”
I knew from experience that he wasn’t going to let this go. “Fine. Wilder’s figuring out some stuff about his sexuality, and I offered to show him the ropes, that’s all.”
Dallas’s eyebrows made a dash for his hairline. “When you say ropes…”
It was my turn to roll my eyes. “Not literally, obviously.” Although maybe that was something Wilder might like to explore later. A hitherto undiscovered kinky side of me liked that idea a lot. Maybe it wasn’t that unexpected, though. I’d always liked macrame.
“Earth to Avery. Where did you go just now?”
“I was thinking of the macrame owl I made you when I was six,” I said honestly.
Dallas gave me a look. “But back to your neighbor?”
No, I wasn’t going to tell him what I was thinking of there. “It’s casual, like I said. He wants to learn stuff about being with guys, and I—” I blinked. “I guess I’m a really good teacher?”
Dallas looked at my computer and then back at me. “God. You don’t send him a newsletter too, do you?”
“No!”
“I bet you give him homework, though,” Dallas said, grinning. When I didn’t answer right away, his gaze narrowed. “Oh my god, you do, don’t you?”
“Research is helpful!”
“What do you even—no, you know what? I don’t want to know the details.” He leaned back in his chair and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Jesus, Avery.”
“What?”
He shook his head as though he’d just walked into my room and found me, and everything around me, covered in poster paints.
Which, in fairness, hadn’t happened nearly as much in the last decade as it had in the previous one.
“You know that you can just date the guy, right? Like, I know I’m Mr. Boundaries over here, but there is actually nothing wrong with you dating a parent, just so long as you disclose it to your principal and you’re not, you know, stupid about it. ”
It took a second for that to sink in. “I can?”
Dallas gave me a look that clearly said I was an idiot. “Check your staff protocols to be sure, but I’ve never known it to be an issue in any school I’ve worked at.”
Huh.
Maybe I could ask Wilder out, or at least float the idea of dating. And yeah, he’d said he didn’t do relationships. But that had been weeks ago when we’d first started this and it had just been about sex. Things might have changed since then.
Except what exactly had changed? Wilder still had two jobs, he still had a five-year-old to take care of, and he was still snowed under. The only difference now was that I wanted it to be something more. And that had never been part of the deal.
“I don’t want to date Wilder,” I said. “It’s good, the way it is. It’s fun and it’s casual.”
If Dallas could tell I was lying, he was good enough not to call me out on it.
“Okay, if you say so. But if you ever change your mind, at least you won’t have to overthink the part about breaking the rules.
Just, boundaries, remember? And not just with dating, but with whatever you want to call this.
It could get messy because his kid is in your class. ”
“I know,” I said. “But it won’t, it’s—”
“Casual, sure,” Dallas said, his mouth quirking. “How are you not overthinking this when you overthink everything?”
“I’m still thinking about Times New Roman,” I said. “I don’t have any room for anything else right now.”
Dallas laughed, but I could see the concern in his eyes. “Just be careful, okay, Avery?”
“I will,” I said, flushing. “I know, with, like school and everything… I know.”
“Yeah,” he said and reached forward and punched me gently in the chest. “With school too.”
Nobody told me Bobby Merritt would be at the twins’ party—or that he’d bring his goose.
The first I knew about it was the following Saturday when I was crossing the yard between our houses with a container of potato salad, and the goose rushed at me in a wild flurry of feathers and anger.
I yelled and tried not to drop the potato salad while the goose jabbed and bit around my knees.
“Now, now, Lucille!” Bobby exclaimed, swooping in to rescue me like Temu Captain America—it was his stars and stripes shorts. “That ain’t very neighborly! Oooh, is that potato salad?”
He hefted Lucille under his arm, where she glared at me while he snapped a lead onto her harness before setting her down.
I took a few steps back in case she made a break for it, but she just gave a single indignant honk before poking her beak into the garden bed, presumably looking for something smaller than my knees to eat.
“Thanks,” I said, edging around Lucille and heading for the front porch with my salad clutched to my chest.
The door was open, so I didn’t bother to knock. I’d already been over earlier to hang the decorations I’d made with Gracie’s help. I hoped the twins wanted a pink-glitter-unicorn-themed party because that was what they were getting. Gracie had been adamant.
I put the salad in the refrigerator and made my way out to the back porch where Danny handed me a beer.
“Hey,” I said, pulling my gaze away from where Wilder was sitting on the bench that ran along the back of the house, “did you know Bobby’s here with his goose?”
Danny pulled a face. “Yeah. I asked him if we could switch Chase’s schedule around so we both had the afternoon off and explained we were having a birthday party, and he said sure and what time should he come around? And I couldn’t exactly tell him no, you know?”
“I get it,” I said. My gaze found Wilder again, and his slight smile sent my heart racing stupidly. We hadn’t seen each other all week except in passing, and I was shocked at how much I’d missed him.
“And Chase actually likes the goose, the weirdo,” Danny said. “So I guess we can call Lucille part of the entertainment?”
“Hey, Lucille’s awesome,” Chase said, coming over to stand near us. He was wearing a unicorn party hat. “She’s not a people pleaser, and I can respect that.”
Danny shuddered. “As long as she stays the fu-flip away from me.” He threw a sideways glance over at Gracie, who was sitting on Cash’s lap and threading friendship bracelets onto his wrists. There was a stuffed frog on her lap.
“Hi, Gracie,” I said.
She leaped off Cash’s lap and twirled toward me, sending the frog flying. She was wearing a sparkly purple skirt. Cash was wearing a matching tiara. Gracie hugged me. “Hello, Mr. Smith! I’m going to make you a bracelet too!”
She gave my legs another squeeze and ran off inside.
“Thanks for giving her the beading set,” Wilder said, sliding into place next to me. “She loves it.” He held out his arms so I could see the array of bracelets he was wearing. The pink and purple beads were a stark contrast to the black ink of his tattoo.