Chapter 15 Avery #2
Her mother and her aunt weren’t close. She suspected there had always been black-hearted envy on Delia’s side, quiet superiority on her mom’s.
Neither warranted, neither dealt with. Her mother could have lorded it over Aunt Delia less when she became the wife of the local mayor.
Her aunt could have been kinder when everything went to shit.
Maybe there were some advantages to being an only child after all.
Delia sniffed, taking Tanner’s order with another brief smile. She scribbled Avery’s down without looking at her again and schlepped off to the kitchen.
“I’m guessing the two of you don’t make friendship bracelets together.” Tanner watched her go.
“Not often.”
“I bought you something.” Reaching for the bag next to him, he passed it over the table.
Avery eyed him suspiciously. “Why?”
Tanner’s lips lifted again; the scar on the lower one pulled a little. He drummed lightly on the tabletop. “I wanted to.”
She closed her fingers around the bag but made no move to open it.
“It’s a ‘no strings attached’ gift to make up for us not winning the Bach Bash trophy. From one old friend to another.” His voice was casual, but his eyes were strained. As if it really mattered to him that she liked whatever was inside.
Keeping her eyes on Tanner all the while, Avery stuck her hand into the bag and drew out a heather gray hoodie, the material as soft as a cloud in her fingers.
It was the sort of hoodie you couldn’t wait to pull on at the end of a long day.
The sort of hoodie you would wear to death and then wear some more.
“I thought you could maybe use a new favorite because of the burn mark on your other one.” Beneath the table, Tanner’s knee bounced, knocking against hers. She was taken aback he’d even remembered the incident.
“It’s perfect.” A smile broke through her husky words and his face lit up like a sparkler. “Thank you.”
Unfortunately, she then couldn’t think of anything to follow up with.
The fractured silence that followed as they waited for their food had Avery instantly overthinking her decision to meet up.
But Tanner soon eased into a description of the farmhouse he was renting from Sam and the edgy discomfort was kicked into touch by her interest in his plans.
When Aunt Delia crashed a tray down between them, Avery snatched up the new, precious hoodie before anything splattered on it.
“Breakfast stack. Pancakes with bacon. One cappuccino. One water.” Delia spared Tanner a nod, then left again.
They dug into their food.
“I wonder how many people in Pine Springs have had their first date here,” he mused aloud.
Avery’s knife stilled, mid-cut through a slice of bacon. “This isn’t a date.”
“I realize that.” His eyes darkened as he looked away. “I should have asked you to join me for a milkshake when we were at school. My job at Jerry’s Pizza didn’t pay well enough to run to much more.” Tanner’s words were loaded with self-deprecation, his thumb rubbed the bone on his opposite wrist.
Did he mean that he’d wanted to? Or was it just an off-hand comment? She’d never imagined that he’d considered asking her out on a date, and the thought brought a fresh swell of regret.
“Look at you now, though.” Deciding that deflection was probably her friend in this instance, Avery sipped her cappuccino. “You could probably buy everything off the menu in Jerry’s Pizza and the diner combined.”
“How times change, huh?”
Wasn’t that the truth.
“Not just for you either,” Avery said, searching for more stable ground. “Did you know Tyson Dax got locked up? His dad, too.”
Tanner leaned back and grinned, as the sliver of tension drained away again. “Yeah, my mom told me. I was shocked.”
She allowed herself a giggle. “No, you weren’t. None of us were.”
“So Chief Roberts finally pulled his finger out of his ass, huh?”
“Not likely,” Avery scoffed. “It didn’t happen until after he retired.”
“Useless schmuck.”
Avery swiped a jagged square of pancake through the swirl of syrup on her plate. “The new chief married Elenie Dax. They put Tyson, Dean, and Frank Dax away between them. She gathered the information, he backed her up. And he’s done a lot to crack down on local drug problems, too.”
Tanner’s knee bounced beneath the table. “I like the sound of this guy.”
“Yeah, Chief Martinez is cool.” Avery nodded. “Cool and hot.”
He choked on a sip of water. “Say that again.”
“He’s a good-looking guy.”
“I’m gonna pretend you didn’t say that, Stretch.” Tanner’s brow clouded with a mock scowl as he slouched on the bench seat. “It’s bad form to rate the hotness of another man when I’m buying you pancakes.”
A smile tickled its way up through Avery’s rib cage; she was comfortable with his teasing. It felt safer when their conversation stayed light. “Objectively speaking, I suppose you’re hotter, but the police chief is pretty attractive.”
Tanner brightened. “How much hotter am I?”
“Don’t be needy.” Pressing her lips together, she kept a straight face.
“Are we talking so hot I redefine perfection?”
“Is that what the puck bunnies tell you?”
“So hot you’d drink my bathwater?”
“That’s gross.”
“So hot you want to bake cookies on me?” Tanner leaned back, a wide, cocky smile splitting his lips, and Avery suspected he could carry on like this forever.
She rolled her eyes. “I’m good, thanks. But Aunt Delia might.”
“So hot you’d eat soup out of my armpits?”
That did it. She spluttered, coughed, lost the battle with her mouth, and threw her hands up to catch the laugh that spilled out; it drew the attention of Brody McAlpine, owner of the local gun shop, and Nathan Reyes, from the liquor store. “You did not . . . just say that!”
Tanner’s grin grew, as if it was powered by his satisfaction in making her crack. His laugh was infectious, his company as easy as it had been when they’d played hooky at the Bach Bash.
And Avery continued to turn a blind eye to her strict rules on dating, because this absolutely wasn’t a date.