She pulls harder, freeing her hand from mine, and hops off the tailgate. “We don’t make sense together.”

I slide off the tailgate and close it. “Probably not.”

Avery turns toward me. “Eventually, we have to go home. And there will be questions to answer.”

“What questions?”

“Questions like, what are we doing?”

“We’ll answer them later.”

She shakes her head. “You’re delaying the inevitable.”

I take the sack from her and walk toward the door to the laundromat. “I’m not.”

Avery follows me. I hold the door open for her as she gives me a narrow-eyed glare while walking into the building. “You are. You’re using me for sex on your summer road trip.”

“I’m having sex with you on my summer road trip. And it’s surprisingly good sex. The questions … well, maybe by the time we get to L.A., we’ll have the answers.”

I don’t really believe that at all. I don’t have a fucking clue what I’m doing. But it doesn’t serve a purpose to let her know that right now.

“Surprisingly good sex? Wow …” She opens the first washer and piles clothes into the rolling basket. “That statement sounds like the preamble to the rest of our trip—no sex.”

I help change the loads to the dryers, keeping my gaze on her and a smirk firmly planted to my face while she tries to ignore me.

“So what do you do in L.A.?”

Avery shuts the dryer door and stops, giving me two raised eyebrows. “I’m a massage therapist. Was a massage therapist.”

I shake my head. “When you’re not working or shopping or going to get your hair and nails done … what do you do?”

She blinks several times. Damn! That’s all she does. I swallow the reality in small doses so I don’t choke on it. Avery is a diva.

“Never mind. I didn’t mean to put you on the spot.” I shoulder past her to put money into the dryers.

“That’s not it,” she murmurs. “You didn’t put me on the spot. It’s just …”

“It’s fine, Ave. That’s a lot, and there’s only twenty-four hours in a day.” I continue to change clothes from the washers to the dryers, moving twice as fast as Avery.

“Don’t be a dick.”

I feed coins into the last dryer and turn around. Avery eases onto a clothes-folding table. Her wrinkled brow cast down with her gaze as her feet dangle in the air.

“I’m being a dick?”

She answers with silence.

“I’m just trying to get to know you.”

More silence.