Chapter 6 #3
“Hold on!” Pete called out, still crouched on the ground. The woman tapped her foot a few times and stomped away. Avery tugged at Pete’s hair, a silent, desperate plea for him to finish her off. She felt woozy from the pressure coiling between her legs, begging to be released.
Knock .
“Whoever’s in there, open up.” That was another voice, a man’s this time.
Pete cleared his throat. “We—uh, I’ll be out in a minute!
” He sprang up from the ground and hoisted Avery into his arms, then pressed her back against the wall, slipped on a condom, and swiftly entered her, filling her completely.
He kept his gaze locked on her as each of his thrusts pushed her closer to bursting open.
When she finally cried out, the release nearly ripped her body in half, aftershocks pulsing through her limbs until she settled into quiet whimpers.
Pete didn’t take his eyes off her the whole time she came, like he wanted to see all of her, defenses down.
And to her surprise, she didn’t want him to look away.
The bathroom door flew open, and a bald man with a ring of keys stood at the doorway.
Avery sprung off the wall and crouched down to shield her naked body from this stranger’s view.
Pete tried to shield her, too, as best as he could, a gesture that was almost heartwarming enough to make Avery forget what was happening.
“Seriously, guys?” the man who was probably the manager said. He sounded more impatient than pissed off, like he’d seen this happen a hundred times before. He took out his phone menacingly. “It’s 7 PM and I only have one working stall. Get out or I’m calling the cops.”
Avery’s fuzzy postorgasmic bliss completely disappeared, replaced now with the sharp sting of real life.
The man folded his arms across his chest and rested them on his beer belly as he watched Avery throw on her clothes, flatten her tousled hair, and wipe the lipstick smudges from the corners of her mouth.
She stopped abruptly and stared at him, wide-eyed and wild.
“Please don’t do that,” she begged. She would not be able to live with herself if she went to the hospital and got arrested in the same month.
“If you get out right this second,” the manager hissed, “I won’t . ”
Avery hobbled out of the bathroom, disheveled and panting, her right shoe halfway on her foot, and bolted out of the bar.
She didn’t even care if Pete was behind her.
She needed to get out of there. Once outside, she sat on the curb a few feet from the entrance and smoked a cigarette, taking huge pulls and trapping the smoke in her lungs for as long as she could.
“Whew!” Pete suddenly appeared next to her, sitting down. Without the lights shining onto the awning of the bar, his face would have been hidden in the near-blackness of night. “That was fun. Definitely a close one though.”
Avery took another long pull of her cigarette. She wished she could disintegrate into a pile of ashes. “What are you saying? We got caught.”
“Well, yes.” Pete stretched out his legs and propped himself up on the concrete, getting comfortable. “But we’re not going to jail. That’s good, right?”
“Oh, sure. That’s fan tastic . Everything’s fine because we’re not going to jail. Glad that’s the standard we’re working with.”
Pete narrowed his eyes, watched her for a few seconds.
Then he lifted himself up off the ground, brushed the dirt off his pants, and made an about-face, like he was going to leave Avery to wallow in her bitchiness.
But she couldn’t help herself. On top of all the terrible, impulsive decisions she’d made lately, on top of the awful choices she made senior year, she’d just made another one.
But she didn’t need to take her anger at herself out on Pete.
“Hold on,” she said with a sigh.
Pete turned around and stared at her, looking like he’d had about enough of her bullshit. She didn’t blame him. She’d had enough of it, too.
“I’m sorry. I’m just mad at myself.” She hesitated. “I get myself into bad situations all the time. It—it just sucks.”
Pete sat down beside her again, softening. “Avery, it takes two people to have sex. We were both in the same situation.”
“But it was my idea.”
“So? I agreed to it. And guess what? I had a pretty great time. I might even go out on a limb and say you did, too.” His eyebrows bounced up and down on his forehead suggestively.
Avery nudged him. “Fuck you.”
He grinned. “Already did that.”
The corners of Avery’s mouth pulled into a smile. Maybe she could trust that Pete was right. That maybe everything was okay. No, that maybe everything was more than okay. Because despite the near-arrest, she was here. With him. And against all odds, enjoying it.
She wondered what would happen if they stayed on this street corner for the rest of the night.
Maybe they’d make their way to another bar, one of those dark cozy pubs illuminated year-round by Christmas lights.
Maybe they’d talk and laugh until two in the morning, their surroundings slipping away as conversation took them under, and she’d ride home in a cab with a cheesy grin on her face as she replayed the night in her head, wondering when she’d see him again.
Wondering if this was the beginning of something. Just like Morgan had hoped.
“What were you doing in that bar by yourself, by the way?” Avery asked.
“Woooow,” Pete teased. “ Someone’s judging.”
Avery giggled, unable to resist making the girlish sound. “Not at all! People our age just don’t normally do that. Feels like a divorced dad kind of thing.”
“Well, how do you know I’m not a divorced dad?”
“I guess I wouldn’t.”
Pete smiled with his perfect white teeth. Avery’s stomach did a cartwheel.
“No, I’m kidding,” he said. “I was just hanging out. My buddy left to go deal with his drunk girlfriend, and I was finishing my beer.”
Avery cocked her head. “Was it the same friend from the other night?”
Pete’s eyes widened. “You remember that?”
“Vaguely. They were in a fight? Something like that.”
“I’m impressed! Yeah, same guy. Maybe you didn’t need to go to the hospital after all.”
Avery choked out a laugh. “Tell that to the concrete I planted into face-first.”
She smoked the last bit of her cigarette as they sat in comfortable silence.
There weren’t many people around either, just a group of women carrying shopping bags and a man in a suit rushing by while talking into his AirPods.
It was often more desolate at night in this part of the city, especially on the weekends; most people were heading farther downtown or farther uptown.
Avery didn’t mind. She liked being alone with Pete.
He fixed his eyes on the flicker of orange light at the tip of Avery’s cigarette, then cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck.
“So, what are your plans tonight?” he asked. “Do you wanna hang out? Maybe get a real drink?”
He stared carefully, hopefully, at Avery, his blue eyes round and sparkling. She locked eyes with him, feeling her heart swell.
Was this the beginning of something?
“Sorry, I can’t,” Avery replied quickly. “I’ve got plans with some friends. I should head home to get ready, actually.”
She stood up and threw her cigarette butt in the trash.
She had no plans. She had no friends anymore either, besides Morgan.
She just knew where a drink with Pete could go and was putting a stop to it now.
She didn’t deserve any happiness he could give her.
She didn’t deserve any happiness at all.
She deserved the pain of making all the wrong choices with Noah, deserved the wrath of all her friends thinking she’d cheated on Ryan.
She deserved to suffer, to be lonely and alone.
“Oh.” Pete stood up, too. His eyebrows were furrowed in confusion. “Okay. No worries. Maybe we could do a rain check?” He handed Avery his phone, which was open to a new contact page. “Here.”
Avery clutched Pete’s phone and stared at the screen, feeling his eyes on her as she contemplated what to do.
Pete wasn’t the only guy she’d met who didn’t have her number.
No guys ever got it. The dating apps had their own messaging systems, so there was no need to move platforms just for sex.
And if she met a guy at a bar, they didn’t need a permanent way to contact each other, because she was going home with him that night and he’d be irrelevant by morning.
She didn’t know what it was about Pete, though.
Perhaps it was the earnestness of his continued pursuit of her, the way he didn’t seem to balk even when she gave him every reason to.
Perhaps she simply liked him. Something about him sparked the tiniest flicker of hope, the first since her breakup, and she found herself wanting to let it guide her through the darkness instead of blowing it out before it could combust.
When she finished typing her number, she handed back his phone before she could change her mind.
In the middle of the exchange, her fingers brushed softly against his, sending a jolt through her arm and up to her heart.
It was the most innocent touch they’d shared all night.
And yet, somehow, it was the most invigorating.