I’m so glad they had this conversation in front of me. Jesus. And the lustful look he gives Avery is enough for me to want to clock him in the face. But I keep my composure, knowing Avery is risking a lot on me right now, and the last thing I should do is pay her back by punching her boss in the face.

“Thanks, Benny.” She stands, and Benny checks out her ass when she’s not looking.

“Ready to get started?” Avery asks me, scooping up a few pieces of candy from a dish on the desk on her way out.

I nod then say thank you to Benny for the opportunity before following Avery out of the office. She tosses a candy at me while we’re heading down the stairway. I catch it, unwrap it, and pop it into my mouth, watching as she does the same. We don’t say anything until we reach the bottom floor again. Then I snag her arm and stop her before she continues down the hall. Her back presses against my chest and the vanilla scent of her immediately overwhelms me.

“Why did you do that?” I ask, fleetingly shutting my eyes as I bask in the suppleness of her skin beneath my fingers. “Vouch for me like that and risk getting fired?”

She shivers, but then quickly slips her arm from my hold. “I don’t really think Benny is going to fire me—he likes me too much.”

“Yeah, clearly,” I reply dryly as I open my eyelids. “He was practically undressing you the entire time you were in there.”

She shudders, repulsed. “And, also, I know you’re going to do well, so I don’t have to worry.”

I laugh sardonically. “Do you not remember how only a couple of days ago I had a bag of”—I lower my voice as I lean in—“meth in my pocket?”

“Yeah, but you didn’t do it, so I’m not worried. You’re doing awesome.” When she sticks out her hand for a fist bump, I tap my knuckles against hers. “Just like you’re going to do awesome with this job.”

I want to tell her about the neighbor and his threats just to prove how wrong she is about me, but then I realize that, in doing so, I would make myself look bad. I don’t want to look bad to her anymore, not when she just got me a job. So I keep my lips sealed and let my training for my first legal job begin.

***

The training continues for the next three weekdays. Sometimes I’m paired with another waitress, including Charissa, the woman who coaxed Avery into going out back with me the night we kissed. It’s a fairly easy job, and the pay is good enough that I should be able to give my neighbor his hundred bucks with my first paycheck. However, when Friday rolls around, Avery warns me that the easiness of the job is about to get intense.

“Are you sure you’re ready for this? Because I can ask Benny if I can help you,” Avery says as we hike down the dirt driveway toward her Jeep parked on the road with several other vehicles. She’s getting ready to go home, leaving a few hours earlier than when I have to leave. Each day we part, I find myself missing her more even though I get to see her at work.

“I’ll be fine,” I reassure her. “I’m a natural, remember?”

She smiles yet still seems apprehensive. “But it’s going to be a super intense night, and I just don’t want you to feel… I don’t know, overwhelmed.”

“Of course I’ll be fine.” When we reach the Jeep, I open the door for her. “I’ve been doing well the last three days. The job is actually pretty simple.”

“Yeah, but—”

“No buts,” I interject. “But it is super cute that you’re concerned about me.”

“You’re such a dorky flirt.” Strands of her long, brown and purple hair come loose from her ponytail as the wind gusts from behind her. The sight makes me stupidly breathless.

We’re supposed to be friends. Just friends. So stop. She doesn’t want you like that.

“Dorky flirt?” I press my hand to my chest, my dank T-shirt sticking to my skin. “How your words wound me.”

“Oh, whatever. You totally get off on stuff like that.” She combs her fingers through her hair then puts it back into a ponytail. What I wouldn’t give to touch her hair, to be allowed to touch her… for her to want to touch me… the things we could touch… But she doesn’t want you like that.

I shake the dirty images from my head. “That I do. Although, I get off more when you say stuff like that to me.”

She grips the edge of the door and peers up at me through her eyelashes. Whether the move is on purpose or not, I have no idea, but it’s sexy as hell and fills me with the all-consuming urge to jerk her against me and devour her with my mouth.

My dirty mind has been running wild lately and only increases when I’m near Avery, like now. She doesn’t have a drop of makeup on, her skin bare, eyes flawless, lips utterly perfect. God, what I would give to kiss her again, this time without her stopping me. These thoughts make the friend thing complicated because she’s made kissing completely forbidden.

I’m drawn to Avery for so many reasons. The magnetic pull I felt with her in the beginning grows more powerful each time she smiles at me, does something nice for me, or just simply laughs at one of my jokes. I keep telling myself it’s a good thing, though, that she has her rules since the last thing I could ever be is a good boyfriend, no matter how much I wish I could be. It’s not like learning a job. I can’t simply learn to become a guy who loves a woman unconditionally and gives up everything to be with her. That’s not the way it works. Well, except for maybe with Nova and Quinton, but those two are weird.

“Tristan, did you hear what I said?” Avery angles her head to the side, her expression tinged with concern.

I dazedly rip my attention away from her mouth. “Nope, not a clue.”

Her fingers skim across her lips, as if she knows what I was just imagining doing to her. “I asked you if you were doing anything next Sunday.”

“Why? Are you going to ask me out on a date?” I laugh at my joke, the noise getting caught in my throat when she doesn’t join in. “Oh, my God, you were, weren’t you?” I’m struck speechless.

“Not a date,” she hastily says. “Just friends hanging out for my birthday. Well, my birthday’s actually this Saturday, but the only day that would work for everyone to get together is next Sunday. It’ll just be me, Charissa, and a handful of other people who work at the bar. We’re going to the beach. I honestly don’t want to go, because I’m not a fan of some of the people who are attending, but Charissa is insisting I need a break from…” She trails off, her eyes widening like she was about to say something she didn’t mean. “But anyway, I could really use a friend there with me. Someone who is actually my friend and doesn’t know me by association through Charissa and who won’t want to get trashed and… Yeah, it’ll be later that day. I have a few things I have to do in the morning.” She stops rambling and laughs at herself. “Sorry, I don’t know why I’m so nervous asking you this.”

I would die to find out why she’s nervous asking me. I’m not going to push her to tell me, though.

“So, let me get this straight,” I say carefully. “You want me to go to the beach with you for a late birthday party. Hangout with you for a non-work thing, so we’ll be hanging out somewhere else besides work?”

She shrugs then nods. “Yeah, I guess I do.”

“Okay,” I say breezily. “I’ll go.”

“Okay,” she echoes me then sputters, “But just as friends. You know that, right?”

“Yeah, you said that twice already, so I get the picture.” I kind of enjoy this nervous side of her because it makes her easier to read. Usually, I have no idea what the f**k’s going on in her head.

“Okay, then.” She releases her grip on the door and swings her leg up to get in the car. “I’ll see you next Sunday.”

Her nervousness might seriously be the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen. “Well, you’ll see me tonight and almost every other day, too, since we’ll be at work together.”

“Right, yeah, duh.” Her laugh is off-pitch as she hoists herself into the vehicle and plops her ass into the seat. “See you tonight then.”

I close the door for her then scoot back as she revs up the engine. She waves at me before she buckles her seatbelt. Then I watch her as she shakes her head and mutters something under her breath, like she’s giving herself a stern lecture.

I’m smiling like a stupid, high motherfucker by the time I return to work, despite the voice in the back of my head whispering that I’m not good enough for her. The voice can go f**k itself right now because I don’t want to listen to it.

The rest of the day goes by with ease as I continue to think about Avery. It seemed like her nervousness was because she wanted to spend time with me. It’s nice to be wanted and really nice to be wanted by Avery, even if it’s just as friends.

By the time I get back to the motel and get cleaned up for work, I feel content and confused, so much so that I’m pretty sure Nova thinks I’m stoned.

“Are you sure you’re feeling okay?” she asks as I walk out of the bathroom, towel drying my hair.

“Yeah. Why?” I slide my phone out of my pocket then frown at the one missed call and a text message from my mother.

Mom: That Dylan guy came looking for you again. I tried to call you, but apparently you’re too good to answer your phone.

“You just seem… happy,” Nova remarks as I type my mother a text.

Me: Report him to the police for God’s sake. I told you this last time. It’s important that u do.

“Is there something wrong with that?” I ask as I put my phone away. I make a mental note to call my dad tomorrow morning when he’s off work to have a chat with him about reporting Dylan, since my mother’s instability is starting to become more evident.

“No, it’s good.” She slides the handle of her purse over her shoulder. “Actually, it’s really good.” The smallest amount of emotion creeps into her voice, and I swear, if I look close enough, that guilt she carries inside her over me has slightly diminished.

“Yeah, I think so, too,” I agree, oddly relieved that maybe, just maybe, she might not be feeling so guilty anymore.

While we share a moment of understanding, I remember how much I thought I loved her once, to the point that it felt like my entire world would be destroyed if I couldn’t have her. Now, I don’t have her and it feels… well, right.

Nova clears her throat. “But anyway,” she says. “Are you ready to get this show on the road?”

“Yeah, just as long as you’re okay with driving me. It’s been a long day for you.”

She’s giving me a ride to work, then she has to go to work herself, so I feel kind of bad.

Nova beams as she gathers her keys from the table. “Oh, Tristan, don’t be ridiculous. I’m ecstatic to be driving you to your first job for the third day in a row,” she says. “And you look good, by the way.”

I have one of my nicest T-shirts on along with a pair of jeans, and I smell like cologne instead of cigarette smoke. It’s probably the best I’ve looked in a long time because it’s the first time in forever I’ve cared about my appearance.

“Thanks, but it’s not my first job.” I collect my wallet from the top of the television then follow her out the door and into the humid air. “I’ve worked before… Well, I guess this is my first legal job, though.”

Nova throws a glance over her shoulder at me as she steps outside, her blue eyes sparkling in the dwindling pinkish sunlight. “And you should be very proud that you have a real job now.”

I close the door and lock it behind me. “I am, I guess.”

“No guessing.” She sternly points a finger at me. “You are proud.”

“Okay, I am proud.” I tuck my wallet into my back pocket as we start toward the cherry red Chevy Nova in the middle of the gravel parking lot. “Although, I have to give Avery almost all the credit. She got me the job by vouching for me.”

“She’s so nice, although she does seem really stressed out sometimes.” She stops just short of her car and turns to me with her brows dipped. “Do you ever wonder why she needed the home?”

“Yeah, all the time.” I pause. “Why? Do you know something about it?”

She hurriedly shakes her head. “I’d really like to spend some time with her though, and find out, if nothing else, for you.”

“Why would it be for me?”

“Because you have feelings for her. I can tell.”

“That’s absurd. We’re just friends, and I’m kind of okay with that. Happy even. Things feel… good.”

“And I’m glad they feel good, but I don’t believe for one second you two are just friends, no matter how many times you both say it.” She walks backwards, facing me as we continue toward her car. “And even if you are just friends, you kind of remind me of the way Quinton and I were just friends right after he got out of rehab. We’d always just talked—we had the best conversations ever—but the entire time, I kept thinking about how much I wanted more. Eventually, it just happened.”

Just the thought of that occurring between Avery and me causes untamed desire to pulsate through my body. My heart crashes against my chest like I just did a line of meth.

I want Avery. I’ve known that since the day I first met her. But…

“It’s not going to happen. We have a rule so that it won’t.”