Page 26 of The Backup Plan

“Momentum,” she whispered. “Like it’s just the beginning of something, and you might just fall in.”

He snapped his fingers. “That’s the word. When I saw you with Fields the other night, it clicked. Two things did. One, obviously, if you’re my buddy’s girlfriend, you’re not one of the soul-suckers. Two, I need to fix how judgmental I’ve become. That was so unfair to you. I bet you weren’t the only person I’ve been rude to. I didn’t realize I was treating anyone so badly.”

Avery’s mind reeled as his words hit her like a rapid-fire checklist of things he planned to say. Isaac’s girlfriend? Did he say girlfriend or friend?

“But Isaac and I?—”

“I’m really sorry. Thanks for hearing me out. Fields is a great guy. He’s like the opposite of my energy. He’s the team puppy.”

“That’s funny you?—”

“Except he can probably crush people’s bones with his bare hands. But he wouldn’t.”

Cam’s smile changed his entire face. It crinkled his right eye more than his left and rounded his cheeks so his glasses moved up with his brows.

She had a moment, finally. A chance. She had to keep him smiling.

“Justin said you’re an art major. What’s the plan?”

“B.F.A. for sculpture. You?”

“I’m going to pick your brain every time I see you. I’m garbage at 3D. My concentration is in drawing.”

“I’m shit at 2D. We can swap brains.”

“Sold.”

Fifteen minutes of class schedule notes and project sketches later, she left the lounge with a warmth in her chest and flushed cheeks, and realized she hadn’t finished correcting him about Isaac.

NINE

In Denial

CAMERON

Cam’s heart sank when he saw the empty spot on the gallery wall the Monday after the party. The need to apologize swamped him, and for the two days she didn’t show up in the lounge at their usual time, he feared she’d taken the sketch and found a new place to stare at it.

When she showed up on Wednesday, he put his words in the correct order in an artless verbal dump, and left the lounge with her promise to see him tomorrow pealing in his ears.

He mentally patted himself on the back as he headed to the athletic complex mid-afternoon. Apology, check. Common ground to talk about, check. Agreement to do more than sit in awkward silence for forty minutes a day, check.

Stellar guy who was not him at her side, check.

They’d break up. They had to. How long had they known each other? She only moved in three weeks ago. Everyone broke up eventually, and when they did, Cam would not be the grumbly asshole who pretended not to know French. He’d be more than just the guy who could throw a ball pretty far and pretty accurately. He’d be the guy who made her laugh and made her comfortable the way she was when they finally talked. He would be someone she trusted, who was not just interested in kissing his way up her thighs.

Not just that.

He knew her art before he knew her. Justin showed off photos of her senior exhibition, a series of watercolors and pencil daubed with metallic edges, historic buildings in a candy-colored haze. Versailles in a tornado of iridescent bubbles. St. Basil’s cathedral on a jagged mountain of rock sugar. When Cam looked at Versailles, he saw death. When he looked at St. Basil’s, oppression. She wrapped them like a gift basket in shimmering, translucent plastic, and asked him to reconsider.

Every piece of her life starved him for more, but Justin couldn’t tell him what was behind the blaze in Avery’s blue eyes when she stared down a charcoal sketch, or why she chose Sense and Sensibility to read aloud in French one day when she presumably got bored of the sound of his breathing. Bored, but not bored enough to walk away from him.

Why didn’t she walk away?

He’d find out himself. And if she was with someone else for a while, he had the perfect opportunity to boost himself out of the crater he dug and show her his best, when she’d only seen his worst. After all, independent sources could confirm that Cameron Porter was clutch when the game was on the line. Cameron Porter could lead a fourth-quarter comeback.

Cameron

It’s an opportunity, really. Positive thinking. Don’t tell Hammy I’m taking his advice.