15. Chapter 15
Benson
I should have gone back to my hotel. I’m too tired and thrown by seeing Avery again to be good company, and Eric is a lot more enthusiastic about this dinner outing than I am.
He’s been talking nonstop since we left the office an hour ago, filling me in on the years I’ve missed, but I just want to go to bed.
But it was Lynda’s idea for the two of us to go out to eat and catch up, and I can’t deny that woman anything.
At least the food is good.
“I still can’t believe it’s been eight years since we saw each other last,” Eric says, waving his chopsticks around. This is the third time he’s said that. “Crazy how life flies by the older we get.”
“Crazy,” I repeat, shoveling a ton of ramen into my mouth in the hopes that it’ll keep me from having to talk.
I’d much rather let Eric fill in the silence in case I let slip something about Avery that I shouldn’t.
Being in that tiny office with her was torture, surrounded by her sweet scent, and every little noise and movement she made pulled my attention away from the work I was trying to concentrate on.
“And you haven’t changed,” Eric says with a chuckle. “I figured you’d have gotten married long before now.”
If I really haven’t changed, he should know better than to think that.
Maybe I wasn’t as committed to casual as I am now, but I’ve always been flighty, for lack of a better word.
College was no different. If Eric hadn’t managed to convince me not to change my major from business to graphic design our junior year, I would have never finished a degree, instead jumping around to different paths and never sticking with one thing.
I force a smile and shake my head. “Nah, you know me. Too many things to explore for me to settle down.” A question sits on the tip of my tongue, and though I shouldn’t ask because I already know the answer, I can’t hold it back. I want to hear it from him. “What about you? No one catch your eye?”
Eric’s happy expression falters, his eyes dropping to his bowl. “Oh, right. Well, Avery and I were a thing for a while.”
He clearly doesn’t want to talk about it. I should leave it alone. “Avery, your business partner?” I ask.
He nods. “We met at a book club, actually, and started dating long before we came up with the idea to start Rose & Quill. But that relationship ended a couple of months ago.”
“What happened?” That’s the question I really want an answer to.
How did he give up a woman like Avery? I’ve only known her for a week, and I fell so hard that I’ve barely been able to sleep since leaving Italy.
I’m not the kind of guy who falls! But I did for Avery, and were I anyone else, I don’t think I’d be able to let her go.
Shrugging, Eric looks up and rests his arm on the back of his chair. “I don’t know.”
Come on, man. You have to give me more than that.
“I guess…” He shakes his head. “We both decided it was for the best. We were more invested in the company than we were in each other.”
Avery was crying over this guy. Sobbing . Something tells me he wasn’t aware of the full scope of her investment in that relationship. “And you still work together?” I ask.
“We have to. I can’t handle it all without Avery, and she’s not business-minded enough to run the place on her own.”
I don’t like that answer, and I tuck my hands beneath the table before he sees my clenched fists.
Hiding my feelings is as much for Avery’s sake as it is the company’s.
“Do you see your failed relationship affecting Rose & Quill?” I can’t do anything to help them if the company is going to suffer under their estrangement, and if that’s the case, I might as well head back home and put distance between Avery and me before I start coming up with ideas to spend as much time with her as I can.
I need to be building my business. Not building a relationship with a woman I can’t have.
Shrugging again, Eric returns to his food. “We can make it work. We just have to figure out how to be business partners instead of romantic ones.”
He makes it sound so easy, but I felt every ounce of the awkwardness between the two of them this morning.
In the brief moments I talked one-on-one with Lynda while Avery and Eric took their lunch breaks, she confirmed how tense the office has been since the breakup.
She also told me she heard most of my argument with Avery, which is… embarrassing.
I think the only reason Lynda’s still being nice to me is because of our history.
“It’s good to see your mom again,” I mutter, hoping the change in subject will keep me from rehashing the argument with Avery for the dozenth time. Could I have handled things better? Of course. Do I regret shutting things down? Absolutely. Do I wish Eric hadn’t interrupted us? I don’t know.
Eric grins at the mention of his mom. “I’m so glad she agreed to help us out. She’s surprisingly great at handling the customer side of things and communicating with our authors. But I’m pretty sure she likes Avery more than she likes me.”
I laugh, and it’s a good thing Eric laughs too because otherwise I would feel like a jerk. “Yeah?”
“Yeah. It’s not like I can blame her. Avery is perfect.”
So why did you break up? Eric said it was mutual, but I still don’t know who was the first one to suggest breaking up, and that’s going to drive me nuts. I need something to distract me. “Tell me about her.” Something that isn’t that.
Tilting his head to one side, Eric studies me for a long moment with narrowed eyes. “Why?”
Oh, come on. Does he really think I’m asking because I’m planning to make a move?
I can’t hold back an eye roll. “Because I already know one half of the Rose & Quill team, but I’m going to need to know about the other eventually.
” If I had thought this through, I would have realized this would be a great excuse to interact with Avery.
An excuse you don’t need , I remind myself. Now, more than ever, I’m going to need to keep emotional distance in mind.
Thankfully, Eric accepts my reasoning without any more argument. “She’s… Well, she’s Avery.”
“That’s all you’ve got for me? I thought you dated.”
“We were engaged .” Eric frowns, as if surprised by his own correction. “But she’s…she’s the kind of person who can’t be defined. You’ll just have to get to know her.”
Can’t be defined? Avery is bold and spunky.
Passionate and snarky. She’s the kind of person who will fight for someone to get the most out of life and push them to love the things she does because they make her happy and she wants people to be happy too.
She’s a loving older sister and cousin and supports the people she loves in any way she can.
When Dani told me about her book, she also told me that Avery has been her biggest cheerleader her entire life and tends to put others’ needs before her own.
Of course, I don’t say any of this out loud because Eric has no idea I’ve been around Avery before today, and I want it to stay that way. Does this count as lying to my friend? Maybe. But I don’t see how admitting the truth will benefit anyone.
“How do you split the duties with the company?” I ask, hoping Eric will have something more concrete for this question than he did with the last one.
“Avery has the ideas,” he answers immediately. “She’s more of a broad thinker and handles the creative aspects, like working with the cover designers and formatters.”
So why did none of the marketing ideas this morning sound like her?
I spent my day going through the presentation and picking out anything useful to connect to the prior research I did while on the flight to Utah yesterday, but there wasn’t much.
All the while I had to pretend Avery wasn’t sitting a few feet from me because otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to concentrate, but that’s neither here nor there. I failed at that part anyway.
“And you’re the business side?” I guess, leaning back in my seat while the restaurant buzzes with activity around us. Tired though I am, this part of the conversation is quickly helping me settle into more of a norm. This is the kind of thing I can do in my sleep.
“I take Avery’s vision and make it functional,” Eric says, a hint of pride in his voice. “She has these huge dreams, which is great, but I make sure they’re within the scope of our capability.”
Eric said he and Avery care more about the company than their relationship, and I’m starting to see why.
They seem to balance well, their opposing viewpoints leading to a middle ground that works.
It’s good for me to know as I go into this consultation, especially with my history with both of them.
I’ve known Eric far longer, but I see some of myself in Avery.
I can straddle these lines and help their company thrive, assuming I don’t get distracted by thoughts of tiramisu.
My next question is one I’ll have to ask Avery too, but I’m more curious about Eric’s answer. “Why publishing?”
Eric chuckles, relaxing in his seat like I have, but his smile has shifted to something I don’t think I’ve seen from him before.
In a way, it reminds me of the way Riccardo looked in Florence whenever he was next to Siena, and it makes me queasy.
Does he still have feelings for Avery? “Because Avery made me fall in love with it,” he says, almost dreamily.
“I was mostly a nonfiction kind of guy, but a friend invited me to a book club about six years ago. They were reading a fantasy, which wasn’t really my thing, but I decided to go and meet some new people.
And there she was. She convinced me to fall in love with reading because she made it look so… freeing. You know?”