As she walks me to the door and we say our goodbyes, Tabitha calls after me. “Hey, Cora. Can you give Dean a message for me?”
I turn to face her on the snowy pathway. “Sure. What is it?”
“Tell him I say thank you for pulverizing that evil son-of-a-bitch.”
We lock eyes, and I can’t help but smile.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Avoidance has become my new favorite word.
Parents want to see me?
Avoid.
Lily wants to go out for drinks?
Avoid.
Mandy posts ambiguous memes about broken trust and betrayal all over Facebook?
Avoid.
Dean wants to talk?
Well…
Nope. Utterly avoid.
It’s Friday night and there’s a knock at my front door. I’m wondering which one of my avoidances has had enough of my shit and is coming over to smack me. The dogs follow me to the door as I peer out through the small, square window to see Lily with her heart hands pressed up against the glass. She blows into her palms, leaving behind a fog-shaped heart.
I pull the door open, planning to look irritated, but my smile betrays me. “I thought you were going to a party tonight.”
“I am.” Lily reaches for the bag resting near her feet and holds it up proudly. “You’re the party, Cora. I’ve got cheap Aldi wine that will give you such a bad headache, everything else in your life will seem like a magical fairytale, consisting of Henry Cavill riding on a unicorn naked through fields of endless cookie dough ice cream and orgasmic bliss.”
I blink. “The unicorn is naked? That’s awkward.”
“No, dumbass.”
“Okay, well, you should have worded it like, ‘a naked Henry Cavill riding a unicorn’.”
Lily swings her head back and forth as she pushes through the entryway with her migraine bag. “Dude. Don’t English teacher me.”
“I mean, that whole mental image sounds very unsettling if I’m being honest…”
She smacks me with the bag, slipping off her boots. “I also brought microwavable popcorn and a box of Kleenex for when we inevitably give into our wine emotions.”
I watch as Lily traipses through my living room to the kitchen, setting the bag down on the table and pulling out wine bottles. I can’t help but soften at the gesture, secretly grateful for the company. Avoidance has the unpleasant side effect of extreme loneliness. Shocking.
After three glasses of wine and two episodes of Dead to Me, Lily turns to me on the couch and gives me her gossip eyes. I glance at her, then quickly avert my attention back to the television, tossing a handful of popcorn into my mouth. “Stop looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you’re ripping secrets right out of my soul.”
Lily pulls her feet up onto the couch, still staring at me. “So, you’re saying you have secrets.”
“No.”
“Liar. Tell me what’s going on with Dean.”
I shovel more popcorn into my mouth.
Avoid.
I try to distract myself with the show, but James Marsden kind of resembles Dean with the hair and the gorgeous blue eyes, and dammit, Lily is still staring at me. “No. Go away.”
“Fine. But I’m taking the wine with me.”
“Fine.”
She groans in protest, nudging my knee with her toes. “I’m not taking the wine. I wouldn’t do that to you. And I’m too invested in the show to leave right now, but still—tell me.”
Avoid.
“Cora, I swear to God…”
“Okay, whatever, fine.” My cheeks start to warm as thoughts of Dean poke through my armor. “What do you want to know?”
“Um, did you land feet first in the boneyard?”
I spit out my wine. “I have no idea what that means, but it sounds depraved.”
“Are you doing the mattress mambo?”
“Just stop.”
“Is he throwing the hotdog down?”
“I literally hate you.”
Lily breaks out into a fit of wine giggles, tipping over, her head colliding with my shoulder. “Don’t be such a prude,” she teases, smacking me with her free hand.
I let a grin slide across my face, my eyes drifting to my friend. “I wouldn’t say I’m a prude…”
“Okay, now we’re getting somewhere.” Lily sits up expectantly, fully facing me. “You are, aren’t you? Holy shit, Cora. You and Dean? Holy shit.”
“You said that twice.”
“I’ll say it again: holy shit.” She bounces up and down like we’re two teenagers swapping our first kiss experiences. “You know I need all the gory details, starting with penis size. Go.”
I just can’t with her.
I shake my head through a sigh, riddled with giddy nerves. “It’s a mess, Lily.” I duck my head, stretching a smile. “A hot mess.”
“Lord, it’s probably fire. All that built up sexual tension with life and death situations thrown into the mix?” She releases a slow breath, fanning herself dramatically. “So, are you guys together? Like, official?”
Cue the ice water. “No. No. Of course not… it’s just sex.”
“How can it just be sex after all you went through together? There’s no feelings?”
Oh, there’s feelings. A crap ton of feelings. In fact, those feelings are climbing up my chest right now, lodging in my throat. “It’s… really complicated. There’s definitely feelings, but there’s nothing I can do about them. I’m sort of keeping him at arm’s length.”
Lily squints her eyes at me, as if she’s trying to read between the lines. “So, you just bang and bolt?”
“Your vocabulary concerns me,” I joke, avoiding the question.
Avoid, avoid, avoid.
But it’s kind of hard to avoid someone sitting a foot away, staring you down in Taylor Swift socks. “I guess that’s one way to put it,” I relent. “I basically show up on his doorstep a few times a week and we have crazy, amazing, rough sex. Then I skip out before sunrise and avoid him until the next time. In the beginning, he would try talking about it, but I think he’s just accepting our fate at this point.”
I worry my lip between my teeth, sounding like a giant hooker when I word it like that. I’m far from slutty—not that there would be anything wrong with that, really. I enjoy sex, but I’ve only been with three guys prior to Dean. Two of them were serious relationships with men who cheated on me, and then there was Troy Adilman, who was just kind of a drunken, weird, virginity-losing one-night stand. And Dean… well, he’s in his own category.
Lily’s eyes are getting extra squinty, which means she’s still trying to read me and trying to conjure up some kind of best friend advice that will probably be terrible. “That sounds equally hot and depressing,” she says after a few minutes of consideration. “Does Mandy know?”
My stomach pitches at the sound of Mandy’s name, sending waves of nausea right through me. “She knows we had sex, but not that we’re still having sex. I haven’t even spoken to her since the hospital. I… don’t really know what to say.”