Trouble (Dogwood Lane 3)

Avery shakes her hand. “I’m Avery, as you know. It’s nice to finally meet you.”

“Trevor said he met you the other day. Said you’re really talented.”

“Thanks.” Avery looks at the table. “I’ve been wanting to stop in and see your store. It’s so pretty from the outside.”

“Oh, do. Come by. Or we can meet up here one morning and have our own girls’ brunch without the boys. We can ask Claire when they’ll have their caramel-topped doughnuts. They’re the best.”

“Sounds good. Count me in,” Avery says with a laugh.

I sit back in my chair, coffee in hand and knee resting against Avery’s, and watch her interact with my friends. It’s effortless. Besides the introduction part, no one watching would even think she’s just meeting them.

Dane catches my eye. There’s something pensive, maybe even proud, about the way he’s watching me. It reminds me of how their dad looks at him or Matt when they’re building something and aren’t paying attention.

I shrug. Dane smiles. And for whatever reason, I needed that.

Every time I start to feel comfortable, my nerves kick in. This is all really different, something I’ve never done before, and my propensity to mess it all up is pretty high.

I have to get out of my head.

“What’s everyone doing today?” I ask.

Mia makes an exaggerated, wide-eyed face at me. “I’m getting ready for Dogwood Day this weekend. It’s only my third—fourth favorite day of the year,” she says. “After Christmas, my birthday, and the Summer Show, Dogwood Day is the best.”

Matt leans against the table. “It is the best. Who doesn’t like cotton candy and bouncy houses and games that cost ten dollars to win a fifty-cent prize?”

“Right?” Mia misses the point. “Will you get your face painted with me, Penn?”

“What do I want my face painted for?”

“Because it would be awesome. I will get a butterfly and you can get . . .”

“A princess,” Dane teases.

I fire him a glare.

“No,” Mia hisses. “What about a giraffe?”

“I do have a long—ouch,” I say as Avery elbows me in the side. “Memory. A long memory.”

Mia shrugs and goes back to coloring with these expensive markers that Dane buys online like the sucker he is. I mean, I’d probably buy them for her, too, but still.

Claire comes back and sets our food in front of us. “Do you two lovebirds want anything else?”

My stomach drops as my head whips to Avery. She places her hands in her lap and steadies her gaze on Claire.

“We’re fine. Thanks,” she says slowly.

“Lovebirds?” Mia looks at me like she does when she knows I have a candy bar in my truck. “Are you two in love like my dad and Neely?”

“No,” I say much too quickly. “We’re . . .”

I look at Avery. She’s watching me with wide eyes. I don’t know what to say, especially to a ten-year-old.

“We’re friends,” I say finally. “Avery and I are really good friends.”

Dane leans forward and grabs Mia’s glass. His gaze pins me to my seat. “Mia, finish your milk before it spills.”

My friends start talking, jabbering about Dogwood Day and where Neely’s purple bag disappeared to. I tune them all out.

I watch Avery chat with Claire, her head falling back in laughter, and wonder why this is so tricky.

Maybe getting off six times in the last fourteen hours is making me weak.

Or maybe it is because Avery fits so easily into my life without complicating it too much.

There’s one last possibility, one I don’t want to really consider. Is this feeling I’m experiencing the same one Dane feels about Neely, and I’m too scared to admit it?

Nah, I think. It can’t be that. You haven’t gone more than a week without sex for a long time. That’s what this is. Sexual satisfaction. Exhaustion. That’s all.

I bet my aura is a pale orange this morning.

Avery looks at me, and I wonder what color her aura would be today. Just as I’m about to ask her opinion, she grins.

“How are you, good friend?” she asks.

“Um, fine. You?”

She takes a piece of bacon off my plate. “Just pondering what it would take to be classified as a great friend.”

I shift in my seat. Leaning in, I whisper in her ear. “You’ll never get there if you keep stealing bacon off my plate.”

She turns her head. Her lips brush against my cheek as she finds my ear. “Maybe I don’t want to be your great friend.” She snatches another piece of bacon. “Maybe good friend is my limit.”

I scan the table. No one is paying any attention to us because they’re too immersed in Dane’s story about a sand dollar.

Dropping my hand under the table, I squeeze the inside of Avery’s thigh. There are too many things happening that I can’t control, too many ideas bouncing around my head that I can’t make sense of. So I focus on the one I know.