I laugh, because that’s honestly what I pictured in my head when he invited me back to his place. I also felt like I would walk into a frat-style house, complete with a home gym set up in his living room and a lot of mirrors in his bedroom. “Going home with him would’ve definitely been a bad and very regrettable choice.”
“Can I ask you something?” Harley’s voice takes on her quiet pensiveness that sometimes makes me nervous.
“Sure.”
She chuckles, probably because my tone belies my uncertainty. “Apart from Brock the Rock being athletic and hot, what made you want to go out with him?”
“Uh…” I tap the steering wheel. “I don’t know. The attractiveness and sports were the selling feature, I guess.”
“So you based it solely on athleticism and attractiveness?”
“That makes me sound vain and shallow.”
“That’s not what I’m trying to say; we know you’re neither of those things. But don’t you have to put your interests in your profile? Didn’t you chat online before you went out?” Harley presses.
“Well, yeah, of course we chatted, but it was mostly about the things we have in common.” Which was sports. I can see where she’s going with this. “Maybe I am shallow, because obviously I was blinded by the pretty.”
“Or maybe you’re intentionally choosing people who you aren’t going to get attached to,” Harley says softly.
“You haven’t really been in a serious relationship since things ended with Sam,” London adds.
“One bad date doesn’t mean I’m still hung up on Sam.” Awesome, and now I’m defensive about it. Sam and I were together from the middle of my sophomore year all the way through to the start of my senior year. It was the longest relationship I’ve ever had.
“That’s not what either of us is saying, Avery. But you two were together for a long time, and since then, any relationship you have been in hasn’t had much depth or lasted more than a few months.”
“I haven’t found anyone I click with.” It’s partly true. But I know what she isn’t saying: that I’m purposely avoiding getting attached to someone else because I’m too afraid to put my heart on the line.
“We know how tough that breakup was for you,” Harley replies. “I’m sorry, now probably isn’t the best time to bring that up with you heading to Boulder.”
“It’s okay. Maybe I’m not in the right headspace to date.”
To say I was devastated when Sam and I broke up would be an understatement. I was so in love with Sam. I thought he was going to be my forever. After college, he moved to Aspen to work for the parks and recreation program. Things fell apart after that. He had a career, I was still in college. I wanted it to work, and we’d tried the long-distance thing for a while. The whole thing imploded during midterms my senior year when I found out he’d been cheating on me for months. And he would have kept doing it if Declan hadn’t told me.
It was not pretty. I threw myself into sports and studying, hung out with the guys, and didn’t date for the rest of my senior year. He’d been Declan’s best friend since high school, but after the breakup, Declan cut him off. I needed his loyalty more than I wanted to admit. And I took Sam’s place as Declan’s best friend.
But Harley might be right that I’m not quite over how bad the breakup was, and I may very well be avoiding a serious relationship because I don’t want to get hurt like that again.
Beyond that, I’d been heavily dependent on Sam, something I didn’t realize until he moved to Aspen. I’d always lived with someone, whether in dorms or with family. I’d never been on my own before, and I hadn’t known how to handle it.
Declan, Jerome, and Mark had all been there for me, solid friends I could count on, but that dependency weighed on me, and I never wanted to feel that kind of loss again. It felt like an echo of my parents’ deaths, and the holes in my heart were too big, too raw, and too painful to deal with.
It had been a dark time in my life. I worked myself into the ground, avoided being at home where all I felt was the vast emptiness that threatened to swallow me whole. My entire senior year was a struggle, one I don’t ever want to repeat.
“One of the hobbyhorse guys was asking about you this morning,” London says, breaking my train of thought.
I bark out a laugh. “Was it one of the jousters?” I’m glad for the topic shift. I don’t want to get sucked back into the sadness of the past, especially since I’m heading back to the scene of that particular crime. Boulder holds almost as many great memories as it does sad ones. Which was another reason having Declan with me mattered so much.
“Why yes! It was! He called you feisty and wondered if you’d be around today. Unfortunately, I had to tell him you weren’t going to be in, but his name is Darby and he passed along his IG handle if you’re interested in checking out his feed.” London snickers.
“I think I’ll pass, but thanks.” The rain has picked up again, and it’s accompanied by the red glow of brake lights up ahead. “I’m gonna let you girls go, but I’ll message once I get there.”
“Okay. Sounds good. Drive safe. It looks messy out there today.”
“Will do, love you!”
“Love you back!”
They end the call, which is great, because I really don’t want to take my hands off the wheel. Staying in the slow lane is smart, even if it means it’s going to take me half an hour longer than usual to make the drive. I’d prefer to be early, but with traffic, I’ll barely make it on time.
We slow right down, crawling along at fifteen miles an hour. I have to assume there must be some kind of fender bender up ahead. It makes my palms damp and my mouth dry, but I’m too nervous to take my hands off the wheel for even a second. Ten minutes and two miles later, the source of the slowdown appears. A sports car is nose-down in the ditch, two tow trucks already at the scene.
The traffic picks back up, but people are being cautious. Well, most people. There’s a jerk in a white pickup who’s clearly impatient because he or she is weaving their way through traffic behind me. I keep my eyes on the car in front of me, leaving space because of my tires.
I’m in the middle of mentally chewing out Declan for screwing me over this morning because he was screwing a random when my phone rings. “Speak of the manwhore.” I’m pretty salty about the turn of events this morning and I’m not inclined to let it go right away, but I also don’t love the way I walked out.
I give the voice command to answer the call as the white pickup slides between me and the car behind me. I lift my foot off the gas, slowing down to create extra space in front of me, and to hopefully inspire him to switch lanes.
Seems like dicks are everywhere this morning.
6
IT’S ALL MY FAULT
DECLAN
I feel like a giant bag of shit, and not just because I drank way too much last night.
Although that is definitely one reason. Of many. The second reason just left the condo. Mindy was a fun time, until she wasn’t anymore. She didn’t seem to understand that once Avery left—angrily—that we weren’t going to finish what we started.