Chapter 11 Avery
Avery
The day before Tanner had left for college, he’d caught her halfway along Main Street and pulled his truck up to the curb.
“Hold up!” he’d called through a part-open window, and Avery had corralled the butterflies in her chest as he slammed the door of the Chevy behind him and loped around the hood to join her on the sidewalk.
“No car yet?” Tanner had asked with a wince, pushing a few scruffy strands of hair out of his eyes.
She’d shaken her head. “I have to pay for half of the repairs, so I’ll pick up some shifts in the diner over the summer break.”
Avery remembered the way that guilt had twisted his mouth as he shoved both hands into the pockets of his jeans. “I’ll send you the money, I swear. I don’t have it now, but I’ll pay you back as soon as I can.”
“It’s fine,” she said, brushing him off. “I don’t mind the work. It keeps me busy and my friends will come in to see me.”
“Let me know if you have any trouble with Tyson Dax. I’ll find a way to kick his ass from a distance.” Then he’d given her that dimpled grin, no less appealing for its hesitance.
And Avery had pushed her own lips into a smile. “Maybe you could take a contract out on him when you earn your first million.”
“Oh, please—I could get a contract on Ty for a chewed mouthguard and a packet of peanuts. I’m not wasting my millions on him.” She could still hear Tanner’s chuckle now.
Unwinding the band from her hair, she’d held out the elastic. “Take this. You might need another one before I see you again.”
Snaking it through his fingers, he’d pulled in a shallow breath, the smile sliding slowly from his lips. There was a rip in the neck of his t-shirt and Avery could see a sliver of paler skin where it gaped. “Thanks. I owe you.”
“No, you don’t. Not for anything.” She’d answered him seriously. “This is your chance. It’s what you’ve worked for. Go out there and make it count.”
He’d nodded, almost said something, but stayed silent instead. So many lost maybes hung in the air between them—things that could have been and never were, chances not taken. Avery felt an emptiness take root in the space Tanner was about to vacate.
“Hey, you—this ain’t no parking spot for delinquents!” The irate interruption from Chief Roberts shattered the moment as he slowed his SUV to a crawl and bellowed through the window. “Move your goddamn truck!”
“Sorry, sir.” Tanner had raised a hand in apology, his eyes sliding back to Avery’s face as the chief of police drove on. And there was no time for more chat. “Stay in touch, Stretch,” he’d said as he backed away.
And she’d promised him she would, already knowing that Pine Springs was going to be a less colorful place without him.
That second lie, unlike the first, was unintentional—and the snapshot of Tanner’s answering smile had played on repeat in her memory for so much longer than she’d ever imagined it might.
Tap, tap, tap.
Avery turned to find Gemma wiggling her fingers in an apologetic wave. She swung back to Tanner but he shook his head and laid one large, heavy hand over the top of hers. It felt like a balm on her nervous system, as if he’d tucked a weighted blanket around her shoulders.
“You know what? It doesn’t matter right now.” His lips tipped into the hint of a smile. “Let’s leave further confessionals for another time. Our next escape.”
She wondered if he meant that or if they were just easy words. Maybe he didn’t actually care what had happened after he’d left town. Why should he? He’d moved on to better things, changed in a multitude of different ways. And her experiences weren’t likely to interest him after all these years.
Sliding her hand out from under Tanner’s, Avery just nodded and climbed out of the car.
“How are you feeling?” Gemma stroked her arm cautiously as she eyed the blossoming bruise. “Is your head OK? You missed a fun morning!”
“Lots better, thanks.” Waiting for Tanner to join them, Avery arched an eyebrow. “Tell me you and Leo gave Bel a run for her money.”
Gemma grinned, sweeping a curl out of her face. “We did our best, but Leo’s legs got tangled up in the crawling net. Sam and Kash were on fire though. They smashed it.”
“Faster than Bel and Drew?”
“Not sure. Johnnie and Mia wouldn’t give out the times,” said Gemma, peeling off toward Bel’s car. “I came to grab my sliders. I’ll see you two back at the clubhouse.”
“Ready, Stretch?” Tanner’s voice, when he rounded the hood, was casual and Avery seized the return to safer ground with gratitude. A sideways glance caught him rolling his shoulder the way she’d seen him do at breakfast and she wondered if it was painful.
“I guess we should go see what the plan is for the afternoon.” She turned reluctant feet toward the cabins, suddenly less than eager to rejoin the chaos. But also not really willing to delve deeper into her broken promises . . .
“Well, I’m starving again,” he admitted with a dimpled smile, “so unless we’re fencing with Taylor Swift on unicorns within the next half hour, they’ll need to fucking feed me first.”
“Jeez, Taylor and unicorns? Anything else is going to be a huge disappointment now.”
“One thing first, though.” Tanner crooked a finger through one of her jean loops. “Come here.”
Avery’s breath stuttered and stilled as he pulled her into a no-nonsense embrace.
Unbidden, her hands curled instinctively around his back to the curve of his shoulders, where their breadth stretched out his t-shirt, and her heart leaped into her throat, strangling any protest she might have mustered with the biological impossibility of having organs where they didn’t belong.
They’d never hugged before, but Tanner’s body felt familiar and utterly unfamiliar at the same time. Stomach-swoopingly disturbing. Blissfully terrifying.
Her pulse thrashed at the base of her throat like debris caught on a wire fence.
What . . . ? Why?
“This is a ‘thank you’ hug, Stretch,” Tanner said, reading her mind, and his smooth exhale slid across the rough words like seaweed over barnacles.
“Thank you for seeing more than the screw-up with the missing shirt buttons at school. Thank you for my scholarship. Thank you for what you did for me and my family.”
Avery felt the sincerity in the clench of his jaw against her temple, heard it in the low timbre of his voice reverberating through her sternum, but she couldn’t look up.
He was way too close. Too tempting. She’d want to study the scar on his lower lip, pick out the flare in his amber eyes.
She already knew she wouldn’t want to look away.
Letting her head fall onto Tanner’s shoulder, Avery tucked her face into his neck, overwhelmed and struggling for control. The bruise on her cheek twinged but she didn’t care. His scent, soporific and sexy, warmed her through to her core—salt and mint and cotton and coffee.
“You didn’t have to send the money.” Her voice was shaky against the softness of his tee. “I’d already paid off the repairs when Sam gave it to me.”
Tanner’s gruff laugh echoed beneath her ear. “It wasn’t your debt, Stretch. I told you I’d send it as soon as I could.”
Her hands traveled of their own accord to press flat against his chest, absorbing the rise and fall of his breaths as his thumbs traced the delicate skin on the outside of each arm, halfway between tickly and sensual.
If she did do relationships, she’d want a hug like this one every day.
Maybe multiple times.
Hauling her common sense back from its temporary vacation, Avery scraped together her scattered resolve and decided that two minutes was an acceptable amount of time for a gratitude hug.
She enjoyed all one hundred and twenty seconds way too much, before disentangling herself with a desperate reluctance that bordered on misery.
“Thank you for the thank you.” She was glad he couldn’t see the tremor in her knees. “And for breakfast, too.”
“No problem. I’m your partner this weekend, here for all needs—getaway driver, paddleboard rescue, sunscreen application. You name it.” Tanner accompanied the husky offer with a winning smile as they started across the parking lot.
But Avery was already steeling herself to resist needing him at all. Pretty words were easily spoken and, in her experience, people were quick to say all kinds of things they didn’t really mean.
The afternoon featured no Taylor, no unicorns—just a far too energetic game of volleyball in which no one paid much attention to the rules and Bel moaned constantly about the “goddamn frickin’ height” of the opposing team.
She was less than impressed that it didn’t count toward the Bach Bash Championship points.
Once they were a sweaty, exhausted mess, everyone cooled off in the lake.
By the evening, there was an end-of-semester feel to the celebrations and a wildness hung in the air. As Avery filled her plate from a table laden with side dishes, Bel gestured to the grill with a dangerously careless fork and a greedy moan.
“You’ve outdone yourself with the organizing, Sav,” she said. “Great place, great food. Good job.”
Savannah beamed.
“Have you left any for us?” Bel scrutinized Tanner’s plate, which was heaped with corn, coleslaw, and two hot dogs so loaded he had to secure each of them with a thumb apiece to stop the toppings from escaping.
“I think there might be a pickle to split between you, if you’re lucky.” He took an extravagant bite of one hot dog and flipped a wink at Avery that should have come with a health warning.
After their hug, she was still struggling to meet his eye.
Someone cranked up the music. Gemma shimmied over from the bar, holding three bottles of Peroni above her head. She pushed one toward Bel, another at Avery. Her hips were swinging and there was a wide, sloppy curve to her painted lips.
“She’s been on the shots,” Avery murmured in explanation when Tanner raised an eyebrow. “Got the party started early at the cabin.”
Bel stepped closer and he bent his head to hear her. “Dutch courage. It could get messy. Gem can’t hold her alcohol.”
That soon became a literal statement when Gemma spun happily on the spot and a jet of beer sprayed in an arc from the neck of her bottle. Covering her food to protect it, Bel rolled her eyes.
Whoever was in charge of the playlist had done a great job of lining up all the best songs from their high school days.
It didn’t take Bel long to dump their plates and grab Avery by the hand, pulling her into the thrum of people already dancing.
Within minutes, Gemma had joined them, towing Leo in her wake.
As Tanner chatted with Drew, Avery gave herself up to the music, achingly aware of his proximity with her every move. He was impossible to ignore. Warning bells rang in her ears, even as the sparks of unwelcome electricity fizzed in her rib cage.
Physical attraction. That’s all it was.
And who could blame her?
“I Gotta Feeling” sang the Black Eyed Peas, as if they could read her mind, and Gemma joined in at the top of her voice.
Reaching for Avery’s hand, Leo spun her fast, letting go again when her hair whipped his face, and she stepped back into a solid wall of steel, her head connecting sharply with Tanner’s chin.
He caught her hips in a strong grip before his fingers gentled.
“Careful, Stretch. My jaw can take it but your head’s been through enough already.”
The words vibrated like the low growl of an idling motorcycle into the shell of Avery’s ear, giving her a full-body shiver, and she knew he felt it.
When she turned to face him, Gemma slipped into the gap she left, twirling around Leo with carefree abandon, and Tanner tugged Avery smoothly out of the way.
His lips curved, his hair was mussed. White t-shirt, silver chain, denim shorts.
How could such a simple outfit look so damn hot?
She’d just seen him demolish three plates of food yet there wasn’t an ounce of spare fat on him.
It honestly wasn’t her fault he seized her breath. It was all him. She was only human.
Although, it turned out Tanner couldn’t dance. So maybe life was fair, after all.
On the ice and in the water, he had fluid moves to spare.
Avery watched his games more often than she’d ever admit.
He’d once said in a magazine interview that skating was like harnessing sheet lightning and surfing like riding a bird.
But on the dance floor, the bird escaped and the lightning was a liability.
Free and unselfconscious, he was a dancing disaster.
It was a mystery because Avery knew he could play the guitar, too.
Where was his rhythm now? Where had his famous coordination gone?
She couldn’t help herself. The smile grew, tugging her lips wide. She covered it with her hand until Tanner took out Sam’s beer with his elbow and then the laugh burst between her fingers; she couldn’t stop it.
Even as Sam griped, Tanner’s tawny eyes turned molten. His face lit up, powered by her own giggles. He was wonderfully, gloriously unconcerned that she was laughing at him and it increased his sexiness by one hundred percent.
Tanner was the most compelling guy she’d ever known.
Nothing had changed there. Avery’s heartbeat, already thrumming from the dancing, raced even faster, driving her blood like river rapids through her veins.
The breeze from the open doors blew his scent into her nose and she wondered if the makers of his cologne had insider knowledge of everything that made her mouth water.
Since when had breathing become something she had to concentrate on doing?
Just dragging the air in through her throat was a challenge when he was this close.
The need scrabbling in her gut was frightening.
It defied all the emotional blockades she’d put in place, every pledge she’d made to protect her heart.
Avery had a feeling Bel might be right: things could get messy. Especially if she stayed right here, within reach of temptation.
Dancing was fun, but running was what she did best.
She needed some air.