by Megan Green
Contents
Prologue
1. Carter
2. Avery
3. Carter
4. Avery
5. Carter
6. Avery
7. Carter
8. Avery
9. Carter
10. Avery
11. Carter
12. Avery
13. Carter
14. Avery
15. Carter
16. Avery
17. Carter
18. Avery
19. Carter
20. Avery
21. Carter
22. Avery
23. Carter
24. Avery
25. Carter
26. Avery
27. Carter
28. Avery
Epilogue
Also by Megan Green
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Preview of The Cleanup
Copyright © 2018 by Megan Green
All rights reserved.
Visit my website at: www.authormegangreen.com
Cover Designer: Megan Gunter at Mischievous Designs
Editor: Jovana Shirley, Unforeseen Editing, www.unforeseenediting.com
Formatting: Alexandria Bishop at AB Formatting
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
For Dani
You’re amazing.
Prologue
Carter
Twelve Years Earlier
The day I met Avery Grant, I was kicking rocks.
Standing out on the playground of my new school, I focused on the two stones someone had used as hopscotch markers before I got there, the round gray hunks almost blending into the dark blacktop.
The sounds of my classmates filled the air around me, only deepening the loneliness I felt down in the pit of my stomach. My family had moved to Stetson, Wyoming, the week before, and it was my first day of school. When my mother had dropped me off that morning, she’d leaned across the seat, licking her thumb and reaching over to smooth back a strand of my hair that always seemed to have a mind of its own.
“Stand up straight, smile big, and most of all, be friendly. You’ll make friends in no time,” she’d said as I climbed down from the passenger seat of the car.
I’d shrugged and managed to give her a halfhearted smile. My mom had no idea what it was like, being the new kid at school in the third grade. It wasn’t easy like it would’ve been last year. Third graders were tough. There were friendships there that had been developing since kindergarten, maybe even before. They didn’t like newcomers.
Because of this, I’d been dreading recess since the moment the first bell rang. And, now that the dreaded hour had arrived, it was every bit as miserable as I’d feared. While all my classmates laughed and ran around the playground, I had resorted to making friends with rocks.
Using the toe of one of my shoes, I pulled my leg back and kicked the first rock as hard as I could, sending it hurtling toward the sand of the playground. It landed with a loud thump, digging down deep in the yellow sand instead of skipping a few times, like I’d hoped.
You can do better than that, I said to myself, preparing to launch the second rock even farther than the first.
Just as I was winding up, a small voice interrupted. “What are you doing?”
I startled, turning around to find a tiny girl standing behind me, her face twisted in confusion as she looked between my foot and the rock I’d been about to kick.
“Um…” I said, feeling silly now that somebody was watching me. “I was going to kick this rock over there. See if I could make it go farther than the first one I kicked.”
“Why?” the girl asked, her little nose scrunched in disapproval.
I shrugged.
“Is it a game?” she asked, her voice lifting with excitement at the prospect.
I shook my head. “No. I was just kicking them.”
The girl pondered my words for a moment, her lips pursed as she looked me up and down. “What’s your name?” she asked once she was done.
“Carter.” I hated that my voice sounded so nervous, but I wasn’t sure what this girl wanted. If she was just here to tease me about not having any friends, except rocks, then I didn’t want to talk to her.
“I’m Avery,” she announced, poking her thumb into her chest. “Do you want to be my friend?”
My eyes narrowed. “Why?”
She shrugged her shoulders. “It looks like you could use a friend. And I need somebody to be my husband.”
My face must’ve given away my shock at her words because she threw her head back and laughed.
“Don’t worry, Carter,” she said, taking a step forward and grabbing hold of my arm. She started over toward the playground, dragging me behind her. “It’s all pretend.”
“Pretend?”
She nodded as she crossed the sand to a small pavilion on the other side, an old wooden table sitting in the middle. “We’re going to play wedding. I’ll be the bride, and you can be the husband.”
“I don’t know how to play wedding,” I protested, hoping she would drop my arm and let me go back to my rocks.
She waved her hand. “Don’t worry,” she repeated for the second time in as many minutes. “I know all the rules. I’m an expert.”
That was how I found myself as Avery’s pretend husband, a game that we continued to play every day for the entire year. She was always the wife, and I was always the husband. Sometimes, she’d manage to rope in a few of our other classmates, some acting as bridesmaids or groomsmen, one as a priest, and others as our witnesses.
Avery wasn’t kidding when she said she was an expert. Every time we were married, the details were different, hundreds of scenarios playing out there, under the pavilion at Stetson Elementary. Sometimes, she would be a princess, and I would be a prince. Sometimes, we would be college sweethearts, finally ready to settle down and start a family. Sometimes, we would elope in Las Vegas, our families against the idea of us getting married, but our love too powerful to care.
Avery had a big imagination. And an even bigger love for love stories. Movies, books, TV shows. Even at only nine years old, she was a hopeless romantic.
So, like I said, it was there, on that playground, I found myself getting married for the first time at age nine. And it was there—standing with a black top hat made out of construction paper while Avery walked toward me, reams of toilet paper pinned in her hair and streaming out behind her—that I started falling in love with Avery Grant. A love that has only deepened as the years have gone on.
Unfortunately, it was all pretend.
At least for her.
Chapter 1
Carter
Present Day
My fingers still on the stiff parchment, my casual flicking through the stack of letters coming to an abrupt halt when the off-white envelope comes into view.
I don’t have to turn it over to know what it is. I don’t need to see her familiar, scrawling handwriting to know that the day I’ve been dreading for over a year has finally arrived.
The thick lump forming in my throat is the only confirmation I need. That, and the stylized seal on the b
ack of the offending piece of paper, the swirly J practically mocking me in its…J-ness.
This is wrong.
Tossing the rest of the mail on the counter beside me, I take the envelope and stagger over to the couch, my eyes unable to move from where they’re locked on that seal. I collapse into the cushions, my head falling back into the softness as my gaze finally lifts and fixes firmly on the ceiling. My heart hammers in my chest, an overwhelming sense of dread taking root in the pit of my stomach.
You can do this, Carter. You knew this was coming. You can do this.
For her.
Taking a deep breath, I return my focus to my hands and flip the envelope over, the corners of my lips turning up in a smile when I see the embellished C she always makes whenever she writes my name.
Mr. Carter Hughes.
The smile on my face only deepens when I think about the little notebook she carried everywhere when we were kids, her name doodled over and over again with the last name of every single boy in our class.
“I need to make sure my penmanship is perfect for my big day, Carter. Don’t you realize how important invitations are? I can’t send something out that looks like you wrote it.”
She always used to get so defensive whenever I teased her about doodling in that book. But looking at her handwriting now, I realize she was right.
Even the outside of her invites is a work of art.
Slipping my finger under the flap, I inhale slowly as I break the seal, steeling myself for what comes next. The white envelope falls away, and there she is.
My Avery.
Her long chocolate hair is curled to perfection around her shoulders, her creamy skin almost iridescent in the Wyoming sun. Her round, dark eyes seem to sparkle, no doubt from anticipation and love. And the smile on her face is almost blinding in its radiance.
I’ve never seen her look so beautiful.
And looking at her has never hurt so much.
Because she’s not alone in the picture. No, he’s there, smiling at me through the lens of that camera, as if knowing the thoughts that would be going through my mind when I saw this.
I won, asshole. She’s mine now. Forever.
Of all the men in the world, why does it have to be him?
I flip the photo over and slam it onto the couch, not able to look at his face for a second longer. Instead, I focus on the other card that was inside the envelope.
Together with their families
Avery Lynn Grant
And
Miles Joseph Johnson
Request the honor of your presence at their marriage on Saturday, the tenth of November, two thousand and eighteen, at four o’clock in the afternoon.
And there it is. I don’t know why I thought reading the words might be easier than seeing their faces.
Avery Grant and Miles Johnson.
Miles fucking Johnson.
A shiver shoots down my spine as the thought sinks in. Avery is marrying Miles fucking Johnson.
How did I let this happen?
I toss the card stock onto the coffee table before me, climbing up off the couch and heading back into the kitchen.
I’m going to need alcohol for this. Lots and lots of alcohol.
Popping the top off a beer, I forgo the couch this time, not wanting to see the offending evidence there, in my living room. Instead, I stomp down the hallway to my bedroom. I kick my boots off before falling back onto the bed, propping my head up with two of the ninety-seven billion pillows my interior designer bought for this place.
It’s still a little surreal to me that those words are even part of my vocabulary these days. I was adamantly against the idea of forking over God knows how much money for some stranger to come in and decorate this ridiculous apartment. But my mother had insisted.
“You worked hard for this, Carter. Enjoy it.”
Whatever. This isn’t me. Frilly pillows and stupidly large beds with comforters that probably cost more than my first truck only further remind me of how different my life has become.
And how much further I am away from Avery.
I look around the room, trying to picture the look on her face if she could see this place. Her freckled nose would scrunch up, her eyebrows screwing together as her eyes flicked from one overpriced piece of furniture to the next.
Well, at least there’s no diamond-encrusted toilet. Or wait…Carter, is there? Carter, please tell me there’s not a diamond toilet on the other side of that door.
I can almost hear the words as if she were standing here, in front of me, can almost see the wide grin spreading across her face as she tries to make a mad dash for the master bathroom for dramatic effect. Avery hasn’t been out to my Seattle apartment yet, wedding plans keeping her far too busy since the moment I got called up from the minors. But I know she’d give me shit for how over the top this place is.
Or maybe not. After all, Miles got drafted, too. And, if the rumors are true, he’s making even more than I am. Maybe Avery has grown accustomed to the life of luxury. Maybe she’s traded in her cutoff jean shorts and knotted plaid button-downs for designer clothes and overpriced blowouts. Miles sure has seemed to have adjusted to this new lifestyle fairly easily. Maybe he’s taking my Avery right along with him.
You’ve got to stop calling her that, man. She’s not your Avery anymore. She never really was.
But, as quickly as the thought arises, I shut it down. Because it’s not true. She is my Avery. She will always be my Avery. Miles fucking Johnson be damned.
He might have won her heart, but there’s one thing I still have that he never will.
Years.
Years of skinned knees and monkey-bar races. Years of whispered secrets through walkie-talkies after we were supposed to be in bed. Years of sneaking out and climbing the water tower, watching the sunrise as we sipped on stolen beers before we could even drive.
And, most of all, years of memories and growing up together, watching as she struggled and failed, only to pick herself back up and start over again, and having her do the same for me.
Years and years of friendship.
Throughout it all, I loved her.
And she loved me, too. Just never in the way I wanted. The way I needed.
But, even as the words sear through my brain, I know I have nobody to blame for that but myself. I’ve never once told her how I feel. Like an idiot, I thought my time would come. I thought, if I just held out long enough, she would realize everything she’d ever wanted was standing right in front of her.
And, now, I have a sheet of card stock and a photo sitting on my coffee table, driving home the final nail in the coffin that is my life.
Avery Grant, my best friend and the love of my life, is marrying somebody else.
And I’m too late.
Chapter 2
Avery
“Oh. My. God,” Sammy squeals.
I step out from behind the curtain, my hands shaking as I smooth down the white fabric at my hips. My heart thunders in my chest, and it’s all I can do to keep my breathing even and not burst into tears.
Because, as soon as I slid into this dress, I knew.
This is it.
This is the dress I’m getting married in.
And, if the looks on Sammy’s and my mother’s faces are any indication, I’m not wrong.
Mom raises her hands, closing them over her mouth and nose as she attempts to fight back her tears. But seeing her shiny eyes is all it takes to do me in.
A sputtering sob slips out past my lips, and it’s the only thing my mother needs before she’s bounding off the white sofa and pulling me into her arms.
“Oh, honey, you look so stunning. You are the most beautiful bride I’ve ever seen.”
I chuckle through my tears, bringing my hands up to wipe my face before any of the salty stragglers fall down onto the gorgeous dress on my body. “You might be a little biased,” I tell her but circle my arms around her all the same.
“Nonsense. I can
’t help it if my baby girl just happens to be the most gorgeous woman in the world. And seeing you in this dress…Avie, you are a vision. Absolute perfection.”
“She’s not wrong,” Sammy says from behind her, moving in and joining our little impromptu group hug. “You look amazing, girl.”
I give her a strong squeeze, grateful she was able to be here with me today. Sammy has been one of my closest friends for as long as I can remember. And, since my best friend, Carter, is hundreds of miles away in Seattle, it means the world that at least she could be here to help me pick out my dress.
Besides just the thought of Carter in this store causes a flutter of laughter in my chest.
“What’s so funny?” she asks, pulling away and taking my mother with her.
They both watch as I step up onto the little platform so that I can spin around and view the dress from all angles.
“Just trying to imagine what Carter would have said if I’d asked him to be here today. Could you just picture him surrounded by all this white?”
Sammy throws her head back in laughter. “Oh, God. That would have been priceless. I don’t think that boy has ever been fully clean in his life. He’s always got some form of dirt on him, either from the baseball field or the farm. He’d be like a bull in a china shop in here. Afraid to move the tiniest inch, for fear of sullying all the pristine decor.”
I wipe at my eyes, the tears forming there now from laughter instead of overwhelming emotion. “Poor Carter. He tries so hard. But he’s just never going to be posh. You can take the farm boy out of the country…”