“Thank you, Avery.”
Although he tried to prevent it, the girls got tipsy. Well, Cadence got tipsy. Avery got drunk. Thankfully there was no puking, but he could have gone without some of the giggling. It’s not that he minded their laughter. It really had to do with the fact that they wouldn’t listen to him when he tried to put them to bed. They giggled instead. He ended up yelling at Avery because she tried to strip in front of him. She couldn’t understand why it was a big deal. She was only changing into her pajamas.
“You’ve seen a bra, Mr. Connelly,” Avery huffed.
“Not yours,” he replied. He grabbed her overnight bag and tossed it in the bathroom. “Go in there.”
She stood with her hands on her hips and grinned at him. “You’re a square.”
He laughed despite his irritation. “Where’d you even learn that? Talk about retro.”
“That’s why I said it to you. You’re all hipster and vintage and shit.” She pointed to his Pink Floyd T-shirt Cadence wore. And then she grabbed his fedora off the bureau and plopped it on her head. She searched the room until she spotted his red Converse All Stars, and slipped her socked feet in them. “Hello, everyone. My name is Mr. Connelly, and I enjoy math, instrumental hip hop, and Cadence’s *.”
“AVERY!” Cadence squealed.
Avery laughed, then did some kind of turn that resembled a Michael Jackson dance move. She clutched the hat on her head while she did it.
“My name is Mr. Connelly,” she went on. “And I enjoy styling my hair all crazy and flirting with teenage girls.”
Cadence rolled off the bed with laughter.
“One teenage girl,” he corrected. “One.”
“He said ‘one’, folks! And I—” She paused and looked straight at him. “—believe him.”
Mark rolled his eyes. “That makes me very happy. Now are you done?”
She continued, undeterred. “My name is Mr. Connelly, and I wear cool sneakers and drink sodas that were hip and trendy before my time.” She attempted the Moon Walk, but his sneakers were too big, and she fell backwards onto her bottom.
He laughed hard. He wondered how many she had in her.
“I’m Mr. Connelly, and I’m gonna teach you math, music, and how to be a trendy hipster philosopher.”
“I’m a philosopher?” he asked.
“That’s what Cadence told me when she first met you. She said you looked like a guy who sits around in independent coffee shops discussing philosophy.”
Avery struggled to stand back up, and Mark reached out his hand to her. He glanced at Cadence who was curled up on the floor, already snoring.
“A philosopher and a square,” Mark said.
“Almost a square,” Avery replied thoughtfully. “You fucked your student, so you’re not completely square.”
Mark’s face blushed a deep crimson. He thought he heard Cadence giggle in her sleep.
“Avery, go change, and then go to bed,” he said.
“Hey, you never thanked me,” Avery griped. She slid off his shoes. “You have really clean shoes, Mr. Connelly,” she noted.
“Thank you for what?”
She looked up. “Huh?”
“I never thanked you for what?” Mark asked patiently.
“Ohhh. Being Cadence’s friend. Without me you wouldn’t have been able to sneak around with her.”
She was right: Though Avery was driven by her own self-serving motives, she did allow Cadence and Mark to be together. She created the lies, spun the web of deceit. And her motives ultimately benefited him in the end. Sure, he and Cadence eventually got tangled in the web, but there were several blissful months before they were found out. Secret months of secret love that blossomed in this small apartment. Memories. Building a life with Cadence. And it was all because of Avery.
He studied her face. She expected a “thank you,” but she was being silly about it. She couldn’t help it. She was drunk.
“Thank you, Avery,” Mark said softly, and he wasn’t being silly about it at all.
***
Mark strolled through the door and made a beeline for Dylan.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked Dylan, who sat in his usual position: feet propped up on the counter.
“What are you talking about?”
“Avery.”
Dylan cracked a smile. “Ah, yes. Avery. What about her?”
“Don’t get any ideas. I know you too well. You date the same girl for about three weeks before moving on to someone new.”
“Relax. I don’t plan to date her.”
Mark sighed relief.
“I plan to marry her.”
“What?!”
Dylan burst out laughing. “That’s my girl, right there. Wanna know why I’ve dated all these years and never settled down? I was waiting for her to come along.”
“Dylan, this is a terrible idea.”
“Why? You’re dating a youngin. I recall little Miss Cadence being seventeen when you two started seeing each other.”
“It’s a completely different thing!” Mark argued.
“How so?” Dylan swung his legs off the counter and stood up.
“It’s weird. What are we? The ‘We Date Way Younger Girls’ club?”
“You can be the president since you started it,” Dylan said.