7. Avery
7
AVERY
“These are amazing!” Haley gushes as she scans through the photos on my laptop from the firefighter calendar shoot. I may or may not have locked myself in my bedroom all morning to get these edited. It had nothing to do with avoiding a certain someone down the hall and the memory of him feasting on my pussy in the middle of the night.
“I picked a top three for each month,” I explain, desperately clenching my thighs to ward off the tingle of desire that has picked a very inconvenient time to manifest. What happened in the hallway last night is Future Avery’s problem.
“You’re going to make us narrow it down?” Cassidy complains.
“You only have to worry about Mr. July,” Haley says to Cassidy, referring to Declan. “No way I’m picking out the sexiest photo with my brother in it.”
“Can I keep the ones of Mr. July we don’t use?” Cassidy coos.
“Sure,” I say with a laugh. Maybe I can do this. I can be totally normal and not think about how sexy Micah was on his knees, that wicked gleam in his eyes as he flicked his tongue?—
“You should pick out Mr. March,” Haley suggests, nudging me with a playful elbow.
“What?” Heat rushes through me, and I’m fairly certain I have an entire body blush going on right now.
“Henry’s your favorite, after all.”
“Right. Henry .” The dog I wish I could adopt but still can’t figure out how to make it work. Not until I’m able to solely work my photography business and give up my extra shifts at the bakery. It wouldn’t be fair to Henry or any other dog, for that matter. It suddenly becomes a little easier to calm my overheated body. Damn you Micah for toying with my emotions over Henry.
“He’s been looking a little sad since you brought him back,” Haley says.
“Please don’t do that to me,” I quietly beg.
“Look, I’m not going to twist your arm. If you don’t have time for Henry, you can’t have him. But we make time for the things that are important to us.” Haley looks up from her desk chair, the laptop screen paused on a photo that does not belong in the calendar lineup—the one I took of Micah carrying Henry out of the park the other day. “But Avery?”
“Yeah?”
“And I say this lovingly. Figure your shit out. You and Henry deserve each other.”
“Just you and Henry?” Cassidy chimes in, wriggling her eyebrows.
“Who else would there be?” But the attempted tone of innocence nearly makes me choke on my own lie.
Haley and Cassidy share a conspiratorial look before both turning their eyes on me.
“Honey, that man has been in love with you for forever,” Haley says matter-of-factly.
“How would you know? You haven’t known me that long.” God I sound like a spoiled brat right now, even if it’s true. I only moved to Daisy Hills a year ago. Before then, the only person I knew from this small town was Micah.
“I know that look,” she says, pointing at the picture. “Micah’s looking at the camera like he wants to lick it. Forever.”
Another flood of heat rushes my body, settling straight in my core.
“From the looks of it, you might already be well acquainted with Micah’s licking abilities,” Cassidy accuses, her eyebrow raised at me.
I could keep lying. But what’s the point. And maybe some advice would be…helpful. “Can you two keep a secret?”
“Of course.” And, “You have to even ask?” come out at the same time.
“I mean it. You can’t say anything .”
Haley rolls her eyes at me while Cassidy zips her lips with her fingers and throws away the invisible key.
“I kissed him.”
“What?” they ask in unison.
“After the park, we took Henry back to the house and all fell asleep on Micah’s bed. When I woke up, I was making out with Micah.”
Cassidy’s mouth hangs open in shock.
Haley’s expression has turned stiff. “Do I need to get a shovel?” she asks through gritted teeth.
“What?” I asked, genuinely confused for a moment. Then I understand. “No, no. It’s not like that. I was dreaming about him, and when I woke up, I was straddling his lap and kissing him like my life depended on it. This was all me.”
“Did he kiss you back?” Cassidy asks.
“What a stupid question,” Haley says, another eye roll. “Look at her face.”
“Okay, so of course he did,” Cassidy says. It’s as though those two are having my conversation without me. It’d be more amusing if my heart wasn’t beating so fast it was threatening to bust through my ribs and jump right out of my chest.
“There’s more,” I admit, both their heads snapping to attention.
“Go on,” Haley says.
“Last night… or was it this morning?” I have no idea what time I woke up because my phone was dead. I had every intention of sneaking up to the second floor to check on the progress since Micah’s been forbidding me to go up there to see. It seemed like payback after the Henry thing. But I don’t tell them this part. Instead, I skip right to the part where Micah gave me the best orgasm of my entire life.
“Finally!” Haley proclaims.
“Finally what?”
“You’re together then?” Cassidy asks, excitement tingling in her eyes.
“No!” I practically shout.
“Why the hell not?”
“Because we’re friends,” I say, as though that explains everything. “ Best friends.”
“Doesn’t that make it better?” Cassidy asks, eyebrows drawn in confusion.
“I might have just ruined everything.” I don’t know exactly what came over me last night in that hallway. I was sleep deprived, a little dazed, and perhaps convinced it was all a dream. I was the one who encouraged what happened when Micah was ready to walk away. And now, I may have doomed our friendship.
“You want to elaborate on that?” Haley pushes.
“I’ve seen this go down before.”
“What exactly?” Cassidy asks.
“You know. Two best friends start sleeping together, even try to date, things are good for a while. Then they start bickering about stupid things that never mattered before until they’re all out fighting.” I can’t help but think about the whole adopting Henry thing that’s been slowly inserting a wedge between us. “And then everything implodes. Their longtime friendship is shot to hell.”
I look at both of them, pleading for them to understand my fear.
“You’re afraid that’ll be you two?” Cassidy guesses, her tone unconvinced.
“I can’t lose Micah. He’s been there for me since college. He’s been through every flat tire, every stressful job interview, and every celebration. He’s the one who convinced me to move to Daisy Hills and take a chance on my dreams after I got laid off and didn’t know what I was going to do. If I lose him?—”
“No man—best friend or not—does all of that for a woman he doesn’t want to marry,” Haley insists.
“M-marry?” I stutter.
“You’re scaring her,” Cassidy says to Haley.
“Look, no one’s getting a ring after one amazing orgasm,” Haley says. “Just…give this a real chance.”
“How?”
“Tell the man to take you on a date,” Cassidy says. “No, demand it.”
“You make it sound so simple.”
“It is simple,” Haley says.
“I’m scared,” I admit.
“I didn’t say it wasn’t terrifying,” Haley says. “But you’ve done scarier shit, right? You picked up your entire life to move to a town where you knew exactly one person. You managed to make immediate friends and launch your dream business. You can do scary shit.”
“I can do scary shit,” I repeat, almost convinced I mean the words.