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“You’re not just saying that?” she asked.

Avery shook her head. She wasn’t smiling anymore; her expression was completely serious.

“Of course not. I wouldn’t do that to you. I think it’s a great idea, and I think you can do it. It’ll be a lot of hard work, and it’ll probably be really scary, and you’ll have to learn a lot of new things, but you’re not afraid of hard work. You can do all of that.”

Avery was right about how hard it would be. Was she right that Taylor could do it?

“Back to the thing about bad habits, I’ve been trying to get better at money stuff, to understand it a little more, so I’m not just nodding and smiling along when people talk about taxes and stocks like they’re speaking Latin. But wow, is it hard for me.” She didn’t look at Avery when she said that; she didn’t want to see the pity on her face.

“You know, there are good classes you can take,” Avery said. “About that kind of stuff, but also other things about how to run a business. That’s what I did.”

Taylor sat up straight and looked at her.

“You did?”

Avery nodded.

“Yeah, I had no idea how to do any of this stuff, either. Sure, Ihave an orderly brain, but it’s not like my parents knew any of that, neither of them owned a business. I still feel like I barely know what I’m doing.”

Incredible that someone like Avery could think that.

“I’ve thought about taking classes, just about how to run a business, or a bar,” Taylor said. “So many bars and restaurants close within the first year, it’s such a risky thing to try to do; I would want to know what I was getting myself into. But I don’t even know where to start.”

“But you have lots of friends in that business who you could ask, don’t you?” Avery asked.

That had occurred to her, of course it had. But…

“But if you asked them, you’d have to tell them that you’re thinking about doing this,” Avery said.

Avery knew her better than she thought. Taylor nodded.

“I get that,” Avery said. “I’d worry about that, too. Well, I can share the research that I did, this was a few years ago, but it should still help. Oh!” She put her hand on Taylor’s. “You know who the perfect person to talk to about this is? Margot! She’ll know exactly what you should do, she knows everybody. And she’ll totally be in your corner.”

Margot. Of course. Why hadn’t she thought of that?

“She’s the perfect person, you’re right,” she said. “If I work up the nerve, she’s definitely the first person I’ll talk to.”

Avery slid her fingers through Taylor’s and squeezed tight.

“You should,” she said. “And thank you for telling me about this. I’m glad you felt like you could talk to me about something so important to you.” She smiled at Taylor. “See, there’s both of us working on our bad habits.”

Taylor kissed her on the cheek.

“I’m proud of us,” she said.

“Me, too,” Avery said.

Taylor cupped Avery’s cheek, and then kissed her lips.

“Do you know what it’s time for?” She let her hand move slowly down Avery’s body. Avery’s eyes fluttered shut.

“What?” she asked.

“It’s time for me to take these clothes off you.”

Taylor started slowly, leisurely. The other times they’d had sex, she’d felt almost frantic about it, like she’d better do it fast before one of them came to their senses. But tonight, she knew this wasn’t their last time, so it felt like she could take a deep breath and enjoy all of this. After Avery had planned a hilarious night of ax throwing, the least she could do was to make sure she had a fantastic time here, too.

She reached for Avery’s delightfully apropos plaid shirt, and slid first one button undone, then another. She was surprised that Avery even had a plaid shirt, but maybe she kept it around when she had to play dress-up, just like Taylor had a ladylike cardigan somewhere in her dresser. Avery had tucked the front of her shirt into her jeans, because of course she had. Taylor grinned as she unbuttoned Avery’s shirt to reveal a hot pink bra.