Chapter Nine Ava #2
Trevor’s voice cut across the table. “So, how did you two meet?”
There it was.
Rule two, standing up with a microphone.
Ava reached for her water.
Nate answered first.
“Lemonade.”
Ava nearly choked.
Soren slowly lowered his sandwich.
Trevor blinked. “Lemonade?”
Nate nodded. “Ava sold me lemonade. My card declined. She judged me. I deserved it.”
Denise laughed. “That sounds like Ava.”
Ava’s face warmed. “I provide excellent customer service.”
“You wrote Probably Annoying on my cup,” Nate said.
Denise looked delighted. “Did you?”
“He was probably annoying.”
“Past tense?” Nate asked.
Ava pointed her fork at him. “Do not fish for compliments in public.”
“So private compliments are on the table?”
The table laughed.
Ava’s face went hotter.
Nate’s smile faltered the second he saw it.
Not because he regretted the joke, maybe.
Because he had noticed her embarrassment and adjusted.
He leaned back and reached for his water, giving her space.
Again.
Ava hated him.
A little.
For making fake feel safer than some real things had.
Trevor did not laugh with the rest of the table. His eyes stayed on her.
“That’s funny,” he said. “Ava always did like making men work for approval.”
The table quieted by one degree.
Not enough for casual listeners.
Enough for Ava.
Enough for Nate.
Enough for Soren, whose expression went even flatter.
Ava smiled. “Only the ones who needed the practice.”
Denise coughed into her napkin.
Nate did not laugh this time.
He looked at Trevor with that calm, dangerous politeness again.
“Then I appreciate the opportunity,” he said.
Ava’s stomach flipped.
Trevor’s eyes narrowed.
Paulson, sensing danger with the panic of prey animals and administrators, launched into a speech about youth scholarships.
For several blessed minutes, everyone listened.
Ava ate half her sandwich, both cookies, and absolutely none of her pride.
Nate stayed beside her without touching. Occasionally, his knee shifted under the table, but never into hers. He answered sponsor questions. He praised Soren’s plaque knowledge with a straight face. He redirected Tyler, who had wandered over once to ask whether their table had extra pickles.
He did not ask about Trevor.
He did not perform boyfriend too hard.
He was annoyingly good at pretending to be decent.
Or maybe he was being decent.
That thought was worse.
After lunch, Denise asked the Team One winners to help carry leftover water to the storage shed.
Ava nearly laughed.
Of course.
Back to the storage shed.
The most emotionally active location at Lake Briar.
Nate immediately picked up two cases.
Ava grabbed one.
He looked at it, then at her.
“Do not,” she said.
“I didn’t.”
“You considered.”
“I considered whether Denise has a hand truck.”
“Acceptable.”
They walked toward the path behind the snack shack with Soren trailing behind them carrying a case under one arm like it weighed nothing.
“Show-off,” Ava said.
Soren glanced at the case. “This?”
“Yes.”
“It’s water.”
“Your humility needs work.”
“I don’t have humility. I’m a goalie.”
Ava smiled despite herself.
Nate saw it.
She knew because he did that annoying almost-smile again.
At the shed, Soren stacked his case and immediately got called back by Paulson.
“Stay visible,” Soren told Nate.
Ava stared. “Did he just give you a rule?”
“Yes.”
“Do you need supervision?”
“According to several people today, yes.”
Soren left.
Ava set her water case on the ground and reached for the shed door.
A hand caught it first.
Not Nate’s.
Trevor stood on the other side of the shed, smiling like he had been waiting there.
Ava’s entire body went cold.
Nate straightened beside her.
Trevor’s eyes moved to him, then back to Ava. “Can we talk for a second?”
“No,” Ava said.
One word.
Clean.
Trevor’s smile tightened. “I think we should.”
Nate did not move.
But the air around him changed.
Ava could feel it.
Trevor lowered his voice. “Aves.”
Ava’s fingers curled around the water case handle.
Nate said, very quietly, “She told you not to call her that.”
Trevor looked at him. “This is between me and her.”
Ava’s pulse hammered once.
There it was.
The old trap.
The private conversation. The reasonable tone. The implication that boundaries were rude if they had witnesses.
She opened her mouth.
For a terrible second, nothing came out.
Then Nate turned his head toward her.
Not Trevor.
Her.
His voice was low enough that only she could hear.
“Lemonade?”
The code word landed like a handrail.
Ava breathed in.
Trevor waited.
Nate waited too, but differently.
Ava looked at Trevor Hale, the boy who had once made her feel chosen, then dramatic, then disposable.
Then she looked at Nate Brennan, the fake boyfriend she had accidentally invented and somehow trusted more than she should.
Her voice came out steady.
“Lemonade,” she said.
Nate nodded once.
Then he picked up the water case in one hand, took one step to stand beside her, and looked at Trevor with a smile that was polite enough for sponsors and cold enough to freeze the lake.
“Great,” Nate said. “Then we’re done here.”
Ava turned with him.
She made it two steps before Trevor spoke behind them.
“You know he’s going to get tired of pretending, right?”
Ava stopped.
Nate stopped too.
Neither of them turned around.
Trevor’s voice stayed soft, meant for damage. “They always do.”
Ava felt the words hit exactly where he meant them to.
Then Nate’s free hand found hers.
Slow.
Careful.
Asking even now.
Ava looked down at it.
Rule five said no touching unless she started it.
But Nate was not taking.
He was offering.
Ava put her hand in his.
Behind them, Trevor went silent.
And Ava realized with sudden, terrifying clarity that the most dangerous part of this fake relationship was not that Trevor might believe it.
It was that she might.