Page 5

“Thanks, I appreciate that.” She sighed. “No, you’re right, I don’t hate that I’m like this, it’s just…I wish this wasn’t all that I was.”

Taylor raised an eyebrow again.

“What do you mean?”

Avery opened her mouth to answer her but took another sip of wine instead.

“Forget I said anything, you’re busy, you’re working, it’s nothing.”

Taylor gestured to the empty space in front of them.

“We’re in a lull, we might as well make use of it. There’s going to be another rush soon; this is the universe giving you an opportunity to tell me what you mean.” When Avery hesitated, Taylor smiled at her. “Also, you don’t have to tell me anything. Just call me a nosy bitch who you barely even know, and you can take your wine and leave. Or you can stay here, and you can tell me all about being an event planner. I bet you have the best stories.”

Avery smiled at her. Something in Taylor’s eyes made the tension drain from her body.

“I do have some good stories, yeah,” she said. She took another sip of wine. Oh, the hell with it. “It’s just that I ran into one of my old high school teachers—that’s the problem with living in the town where you grew up. And she’s great, I like her a lot, but she kept talking about how reliable I am, how I was such a well-behaved teenager, and grew up into such a dependable and upstanding adult, and I’m so sick of being well behaved and dependable andboring.”

The passion in her own voice surprised her, and she almost stopped. But then she saw Taylor’s eyes light up with interest. She went on.

“I broke up with my terrible boyfriend a few months ago, which was the best thing I’ve done for myself in years, and also themost out-of-character thing, and I’ve been so happy about it, really, I have been. I have so much space in my life now to have fun, be wild, get some hobbies, make new friends, flirt with, like, dozens of people at parties like this, all those things that people are supposed to do in their twenties, but I never did. I’m going to turn thirty at the end of the year. Does that mean that I’m stuck being the same boring person I’ve been forever?”

Avery took another sip of wine, or at least tried to, but somehow her glass was already empty. Oh no. It had taken only three glasses of wine before she’d shouted a diatribe about her life to Taylor Cameron. Now Taylor would do one of two things: call Luke over so he could take his drunk and uncharacteristically chatty friend home, or call over some of her coworkers to gently escort Avery to get some more food to help sober her up.

“Of course you’re not stuck being the same person you’ve been forever, and you’re not boring.” Taylor paused. “What’s stopping you from doing all those things? The hobbies, the friends, the flirting, all of that?”

Avery looked up, surprised again.

“Oh, I thought you would…I’m sorry for saying all of that, you don’t have to—”

Taylor waved that away.

“Answer the question: What’s stopping you?”

Avery sighed.

“I don’t know how to do any of that, that’s what’s stopping me! As you’ve seen, I’m not good at relaxing! I’m also not good at hobbies! I had hobbies in high school, but they were all things to put on my college applications and then I stopped when I got to college. And I don’t know how to flirt with people, I’ve never known how to do that! Plus, I don’t know how a person who works forherself and isn’t in school goes about doing things like making new friends. All the friends I’ve ever made I either worked with or went to school with. I don’t have time to go around doing needlepoint or making pottery or whatever, I’m trying to run a business, the one thing I seem to sort of know how to do!”

Taylor reached over and took the wineglass out of her hand. Avery felt outraged for a moment, and then she realized she’d been gesturing wildly while holding the glass. Good thing it was empty.

“You don’t know how to flirt?” Taylor asked. “We can work on that. Some of those other things, too, actually—I’m an expert at relaxation, I’m sure I can teach you a few things there as well. Relationships, now, if what you wanted to learn was how to be good at relationships, that I couldn’t help you with, but flirting? That I can do. Do you want to be able to flirt with men or women?”

Oh. Avery should have expected that question.

“Um. Either? Both?” she answered. “But, I guess, especially the latter?”

“Have you dated women before?” Taylor asked casually.

Avery shook her head without exactly meeting Taylor’s eyes.

“If I knew how to flirt with women, I might have dated one by now, but I don’t, so…”

Taylor tossed an arm around her shoulders.

“Avery, my friend, you came to the right place. I’m going to teach you how to flirt.”

Two

Avery paced around her apartment.What the hell should she wear for her first flirting class with Taylor? How the hell had she gotten herself into this?