“Avery was totally in love with you,” she says, a half-whisper. She says a few other things after, about how Avery used to write my name on her notebook and shit, but all I keep hearing—over and over—is that Avery Abbot loved me. Avery Abbot…loved me? Where the f**k was I?

“Wait…wait. What? Avery can’t stand my ass! And in high school, she barely talked to me. Even when I stayed at her house, she’d always run away, hide in her room. That’s why I called her Birdie, because she was so chirpy and mousy all the time,” I say. I’m pretty sure Claire is full of shit on this one.

“True. And she never liked it when you called her that. In fact, the first time you did, she came over to my house after school and cried her f**king eyes out,” Claire says, instantly sticking a knife through my gut.

“Damn, I never knew that. I thought she always liked it when we called her that. She never said anything…” I say, looking down, a little embarrassed that I now have ASSHOLE stamped across my forehead.

Claire laughs lightly and nudges me to get my attention. “Don’t beat yourself up over that. She had pretty low self-esteem back then. Not the same girl that will tell you where to stick it today,” she says, with a wink.

She’s right, too—my first few days with Avery since I’ve been back in town have been nothing but her telling me exactly what she thinks of me, no matter how harsh, which is precisely why I can’t believe Avery ever loved me.

“Alright, I get it. I teased her. And you say she loved me, which…whatever, I’m not buying that. But why the hell is she so anti-Mason now?” I ask. I want to get to the heart of Avery’s beef with me—if for nothing else to make the next couple weeks a little more bearable.

“You are unbelievable!” Claire says, letting out a piercing laugh just to punctuate how stupid she thinks I am. I just stare at her blankly—I’ve got nothin’. “Mason, don’t you remember Nikki Thomas’ party our sophomore year?”

Yeah, I remember that party. That’s the night I slept with Nikki Thomas, pretty much the hottest piece of ass in our high school. And that was the night I realized exactly all of the doors being a musician could open. It was the night I decided that the second I had enough money I was leaving Cave Creek and heading straight to LA. But something tells me those aren’t the things Claire—and more importantly, Avery—remembers about that night. So I just nod slowly and wait, hoping she’ll fill me in.

“Everyone was playing that drinking game, and you and Avery got dared to be locked in the closet for 30 minutes. You remember that?” she asks, and I have a vague imprint somewhere in the back of my mind. I’m pretty sure I wasn’t sober that night—always one of my regrets about sleeping with Nikki Thomas; I only remember bits and pieces about sex with her.

“Sort of,” I say, scratching at the back of my neck. This isn’t going to be good—I can tell.

Claire just sighs and shakes her head. “Jesus, Mason. You sat in that closet with her for 30 minutes. That was like…her dream come true. And you just sat in there, with your feet crossed out in front of you, like you were taking a nap. You didn’t even talk to her! You practically lived at her house, and you just ignored her so you could endure some goddamned bet you lost!”

Fuck!

“When they opened up the door, you walked out and told everyone she kissed like a bird, too. You said she just pecked at you, and you had to push her off of you. Then you said she begged you to go all the way,” Claire is even ashamed saying this shit out loud. The worst part is I can’t deny any of it. I don’t really remember it—actually, I kind of do, just not clearly. But I can picture it—it’s exactly something I would do. And I haven’t changed a goddamned bit.

The bar is starting to fill up, so Claire kicks back from the bar and scoots in her stool, patting her hands on the counter a few times before speaking. “I gotta get back to work. But whatever you’re trying to figure out while you’re here, Mason? Make sure you don’t have to tear Avery down just to get there, okay?”

I nod at her, my breath pretty much knocked out of my lungs. I thought Ray held up a pretty brutal mirror when he showed me those articles the other day. But Claire just trumped that. Avery might have loved me—once. But I pissed all over that, just like I do everything that’s good in my life.

“Hey, Claire?” I catch her before she heads into the kitchen.

“Yeah?” she asks, pausing halfway through the door.