Page 18 of She Used to Be Nice
Avery’s heart skipped. So she was a stranger to Pete, too. “Is that right?”
“You’re not easy to forget, Avery.”
Avery leaned in closer, encouraged by this. She was glad she’d taken the risk to talk to him again.
“Well, I’m glad we met now,” she said. “So we can have a fresh start.”
Pete held her gaze. Avery’s cheeks flushed warm and pink. His eyes really were so blue.
“A fresh start.” He mulled this over. “I like the sound of that.”
Avery smiled. She couldn’t believe how fast her heart was beating. How badly she wanted this conversation to keep going.
Pete took a sip of his beer, then set it back down on the bar. “I was actually so excited to graduate for that exact reason. I wanted to finally start my real life, as a real adult. We can all be whoever we want now.”
Avery loved the way Pete’s mind worked. She felt like she’d never be able to break free from the death grip that night senioryear had on her identity, but she longed to remember who she once was. Maybe with Pete, she could.
“For sure,” she said. “I’m also thrilled to no longer have to do homework.”
Pete nodded vigorously. “The fact that we no longer have homework is insane! I had homework for eighteen years of my life. And now I get to spend my free time doing anything I want?” He pressed his fingers to his temples and made amind blowngesture, which made Avery laugh.
“I know, right? And now we have some money, too. Which is also insane.”
“Don’t even get me started on that. Sometimes when I put on my tie every day, I feel like a kid playing dress-up in his dad’s closet. And then I get a paycheck, and I’m like: okay, never mind, Iama legit adult.”
Avery laughed again. Pete returned the grin, and their eyes stayed locked on each other for a few beats, until he broke away to take another sip of his beer. She was feeling some déjàvu from the night they met, except now she was sober and had her wits fully intact. Maybe now she could close the deal with him, the way she’d failed to the other week.
She rested her hand on his thigh. “Well, again, I really appreciate you being there for me after the pub. You saved my life.”
Pete’s eyes followed Avery’s thumb as she rubbed it back and forth on top of his jeans. He seemed a little unsure, though not enough to pull away.
“Nah, that’s not true,” he said, his voice low and somewhat bashful. “I mean, someone else would’ve found you.”
He glanced at her mouth. She could feel him coming around to her flirtatiousness, slowly wrapping around her finger.
“But I’m glad it was you,” Avery said, and when Pete glanced at her mouth again, she knew that was her moment to lean in. When their lips touched, she was surprised by how different it felt right away. Even with her eyes closed, unable to see him, she was excited that it was Pete she was kissing, and for some reason thiswas the detail she focused on the most: not just on the feel of a pair of lips pressing against her own, but on the fact that it wasPete’slips. It was an awareness she hadn’t felt during a hookup in a long time.
She dug her hand into Pete’s hair and sighed into his touch, prying open his lips with her tongue and exploring his mouth. When he pulled away a few moments later, his cheeks were red. Her face slowly zipped open into a smile.
“Well—uh.…” Pete coughed to clear his throat, then exhaled a quick laugh. Yes, those teeth.Avery remembered now how flawless they were, like a row of white Tic-Tacs. “Sorry. That was just, um, unexpected.”
Avery hovered her lips close to his. “Good or bad?”
“Good!” he said quickly, reassuringly. “Definitely good. Sorry. Just surprising. Since you didn’t give me your number and all.”
Pete ran his hands through his thick shiny hair and fluffed out the strands, his movements emitting delicious whiffs of pomade, at the same time that Avery realized she needed to sleep with him. More specifically, she needed to fuck him. She needed to fuck away his memories of their night at the hospital, of the girl who drank so much that she passed out and woke up attached to an IV drip. Because when Pete thought of her, he wasnotgoing to think of someone like that, someone so weak and helpless. She wasn’t either of those things. She wasn’t like that when Noah pinned her wrists down senior year, and she certainly wasn’t like that now. She was strong. Powerful. In control. She just needed to prove it.
“I’m telling you, it was the alcohol poisoning.” She didn’t want to talk about it. She just wanted to get this done, show him who she really was, excavate his existing memories of her like old bones from an archaeological site. “How would you feel about going somewhere else?”
“Yes. Let’s do it.” Pete took out his credit card to pay for his drink. “Do you live close? I can grab a cab.”
Avery shook her head. “I can’t do my place. My roommate’s hosting a potluck dinner for her club soccer team.” That was a lie.Celeste didn’t play sports. But inviting a man over to her apartment was too intimate. She much preferred their place. It was easier to escape afterward, leaving no trace of herself except the version they’d gotten in their bed. That’s what they always wanted anyway: something that existed for their pleasure and nothing else. Except now she’d lead with it on her terms, not theirs. Never again theirs.
“I was thinking maybe yours?” she asked.
Pete slipped his signed bill to the bartender. “Well, we could, but …” His voice trailed off.
“But?”
