Page 7

“Is it time for the makeover montage?” Avery asked as she settled herself into the car. “New clothes and hair and makeup so I can attract women to my side like bees to honey?”

Taylor looked her slowly up and down before she finally met her eyes. Avery blushed at the look on Taylor’s face.

“Avery. My smoking hot friend over here. You don’t need a makeover. You look fantastic. You might need a confidenceimplant, but your clothes and hair and makeup are all just fine. More importantly,youare fine as hell.”

Avery blushed again and looked out the window.

“Um. That’s very nice of you to say.”

Taylor laughed as she started the car.

“I can see this is going to be a process. I really need to teach you how to take a compliment. But first, and this is important.” She waited until Avery turned to face her. “That was a genuine compliment. I’m not bullshitting you. And that leads to the bigger thing: I’m in this to win it. I want you to turn into a fantastic flirt, I know you’ve got it in you. But this isn’t going to work if you don’t trust me. I wouldn’t tell you I thought you were hot if I didn’t think so, and I’m not going to tell you that you did a great job flirting with someone if I don’t think that. I’m going to be honest with you, okay? And I want you to be able to be honest with me about how you’re feeling, or what you don’t want to do, or anything else. Okay?”

Avery dropped her eyes.

“Um, okay.”

Taylor nodded and pulled out into the street.

“In the interest of honesty,” Avery said, “I want you to know it’s killing me that I don’t know where we’re going and what we’re doing tonight.”

Taylor laughed. It was more of an evil cackle, actually.

“Oh, I know,” she said.

That didn’t help.

“Okay, but, I don’t even know what the structure of this is going to be.”

That made Taylor actually giggle.

“The structure of this? Oh, Avery, you’re a delight. What kind of structure do you mean?”

What Avery really wanted was a syllabus, lesson plans, readings, but she supposed Taylor wasn’t going to give her any of that.

“I mean, are you going to give me an assignment for tonight or something? Or are you just going to throw me into a scary situation, like speed dating or ax throwing or a candy-making party, and I’ll have to go through it by myself while you watch me?”

Taylor turned to her again.

“First of all, I would never. And you know that. You wouldn’t have gotten into a car with me if you thought I’d do that.”

Well. That was true.

“Second, you don’t have to do this, you know. When you were trying to talk me out of this on Sunday, I got the impression you actually wanted to do it, so I wasn’t going to let you off the hook. But if you really don’t want to, just say the word, and I’ll take you home.”

Avery sighed. She was anxious about this. The whole prospect was scary. The thought of attempting to flirt with people freaked her out. She already knew she was bad at it, she was sure she’d do something stupid and humiliating in front of Taylor, who made flirting with people look so effortless. Avery had seen her do it over and over again throughout the party. And she had no idea what Taylor was going to make her do.

But…she was also kind of excited. To do something different, to change things up about her life, and to hang out with Taylor, who was fun and hot and relaxed and confident, a whole bunch of things that Avery was not. Taylor was probably never uncertain about anything and probably never worried about what other people thought.

She gestured at the road in front of them.

“Fine. I’m in. Take me wherever you want to go.”

Taylor smiled that slightly smug smile of hers and drove on.

“And third of all,” she continued, “ ‘a candy-making party’? What the hell is a candy-making party? ‘Ax throwing’? Like, actually throwing axes around? Who do you think I am?”

“Look, I was brainstorming, okay?” Avery said. “I obviously don’t know what I’m doing here!”