007: Stranger from last night

Avery's POV

I couldn't move.

I just stood there on the front step staring at him like an absolute idiot, and he stared back at me with no recognition whatsoever on his face, which made sense, because the last time he saw me I had a full face of stage makeup, a black wig down to my shoulders and a red satin mask covering half my face.

Right now I was standing in a hoodie with yesterday's mascara faintly under my eyes and my real hair pulled into a messy bun.

To him I was nobody.

To me he was the guy I had spent last night with and given my virginity to. No wonder the car was familiar. I went in it last night with him to the motel.

"Hey." He leaned one arm against the door frame, easy and relaxed. "Can I help you?"

His voice. The same voice. Low and warm and completely unbothered.

I opened my mouth and absolutely nothing came out.

"She's with me!"

Jade appeared from somewhere behind him, grabbed him by the shoulder and physically moved him out of the doorway like he was a piece of furniture.

"Avery, oh my God, get in here." She seized my wrist and pulled me inside before I had even fully processed that my legs were working again. "I have been waiting all morning. Why didn't you text me back sooner? Never mind, come upstairs, we need to talk."

She dragged me past the hallway, past the kitchen where I caught the sound of unfamiliar voices and the smell of coffee, and up the stairs to her bedroom without stopping once.

The door clicked shut behind us.

I sat down on the edge of her bed.

She sat cross-legged on her chair and looked at me with the expression of someone who had been holding something in for too long and was about to let all of it out at once.

"Before you say anything," I said, keeping my voice completely casual. "Who was that?"

"At the door?"

"Yes."

Jade made a face that covered a lot of ground in a short amount of time. "That," she said, "is my new stepbrother."

I kept my expression perfectly still. "Oh."

"My mum's new husband moved in yesterday." She pulled her knees up to her chest. "That's what I was trying to tell you. That's why I called. I didn't want to ruin your birthday dinner but I also couldn't just sit here with this on my own, and then you didn't pick up and I didn't hear from you until this morning, and by then the son had already showed up."

"When did he get here?"

"About ten minutes before you rang the doorbell." She glanced toward the door like she could see through it. "He came in with two bags and barely said a word to anyone. Just nodded at his dad and looked around the house like he was calculating how much he hated it."

"Maybe he's just tired," I said. "Moving is stressful."

"Maybe." Jade didn't sound convinced. "He hates being here. I could tell the moment I saw him. Which honestly is the first thing we have in common, because I hate them being here too."

"Jade."

"I know, I know." She pressed her palms against her eyes. "I'm trying. I really am trying. But Avery, you should see the way Carter walks around this house like he already owns it. He rearranged the mugs in the kitchen cabinet. Who does that on their second day?"

"Someone who's trying to settle in."

"Someone who's taking over," Jade corrected. "He's marrying her for the money. I know he is. My mum has the house and my dad's life insurance and Carter walked in here with his nice shoes and his nice car and his nice smile and now everything is his."

I thought about Dean pocketing my envelope less than twenty minutes ago without blinking. The way he had smiled while he did it.

"Men like that exist," I said. "I'm not going to tell you they don't."

"Exactly." Jade pointed at me. "Exactly. He's going to be exactly like what's-his-face across the road. Your mum's boyfriend."

"Dean."

"Dean." She said the name like it tasted bad. "He's going to suck us dry and leave nothing behind and by the time my mum figures it out it'll be too late."

"Or," I said carefully, because I genuinely didn't know which way this was going to go, "he might be completely different and you might be wrong."

Jade gave me the look she reserved for statements she found deeply unhelpful.

"You're supposed to be on my side," she said.

"I am on your side. That's why I'm not letting you decide you hate someone you met twelve hours ago." I paused. "How's your mum?"

Jade's expression softened, just slightly. "Happy," she said, and it came out complicated. "She's really happy, Avery. Which is the worst part of all of it."

I reached over and squeezed her knee and she let out a long breath.

"Okay," she said. "Enough about my disaster. Tell me about dinner. Tell me everything. I want to hear every detail about the most perfect birthday dinner and I want to be jealous about it."

I looked at her.

I had been practising how to say this in the cab on the way home. I had tried three different versions and none of them were good.

"There was no dinner," I said.

Jade's face went very still. "What?"

"I went to surprise Colton before he picked me up." I said it the way you pull off a plaster. Fast and flat. "I used the key he gave me and I opened the door. What a surprise it was to see that he wasn't alone."

The silence that followed was the specific kind that happens when your best friend is trying very hard not to react before she has the full picture.

"Who?" she said.

"Brianna."

Jade's mouth fell open.

"Brianna Holloway," I said. "In his bed. She looked right at me and smiled, Jade. She actually smiled."

"I will kill her." Jade said it quietly and completely calmly. "I will end her."

"She said—" I stopped and laughed, because even now it was so absurd. "She said we were even. Because I took the captain spot from her, she took my boyfriend from me."

"She said that to your face."

"To my face."

"In his room."

"While sitting in his bed."

Jade stared at me. Then she stood up, sat back down, and stood up again. "I cannot believe—I don't even—Avery, are you okay? How are you okay right now? Why do you look this calm?"

"I'm not calm," I said. "I'm very tired and I've had a very long night and calm is all I have left."

"What did you do after? Where did you go? You didn't go home and just sit with this on your own all night, did you?"

Before I could answer, my phone buzzed in my pocket.

I pulled it out and looked at the screen.

Colton.

Of course.

"Is that him?" Jade asked.

I looked at her. Then I looked at the phone. Then I turned the screen so she could see for herself.

Against my better judgement, I picked up.

"I was wondering when you were going to pick up," he said.