Slowly, she sat the phone down with trembling hands. She didn’t look at me, but kept staring at it. “You looked at the text?”

“It’s not like I did it on purpose.” Tense, I leaned forward. “It was right there, sitting on your screen.”

“But you didn’t have to look!” She stood, hands curling at her sides.

Whoa. Hold up. “Avery, I wasn’t sneaking through your stuff. The damn text came through. I looked before I could stop myself. Maybe that was wrong.”

“It was wrong!”

I took a deep breath. “Okay. It was wrong. I’m sorry, but that doesn’t change the fact that I saw that text.”

She stopped in the middle of the room and there was no mistaking the look of panic darkening her eyes.

“Avery,” I said carefully. Her gaze darted to me. “Why would you get a text like that?”

She crossed her arms over her chest. “I don’t know.”

I didn’t believe her.

“I don’t know,” she said again, and then rushed on. “Every so often I get a text like this, but I don’t know why. I think it’s a wrong-number kind of thing.”

I still didn’t believe her. “You don’t know who that’s from?”

“No. It says unknown caller. You saw that.” She continued on before I could speak. “I’m sorry for freaking out on you. It just surprised me. I was asleep and I wake up and I could tell something was wrong. Then I thought . . . I don’t know what I thought, but I’m sorry.”

“Stop apologizing, Avery.” I hated it when she did that. “I don’t need to hear that you’re sorry. I want you to be honest with me, sweetheart. That’s all I want. If you’re getting messages like that, I need to know about that.”

She took a step back. “Why?”

Sometimes I wondered if we spoke the same language. “Because I’m your boyfriend and I care if someone is calling you a whore!”

Avery flinched.

Taking another deep breath, I looked away. “Honestly? It pisses me off, even if it’s an accidental text. No one should be sending you shit like that.” I paused, finding her gaze and holding it. “You know you can tell me anything, right? I’m not going to judge you or get mad.”

The moment those words left my mouth, I realized how absolutely fucking fake I was. Here I was telling Avery she could tell me anything, getting pissed off because I knew she wasn’t, and I was keeping secrets.

“I know,” she whispered, and then louder, “I know.”

My heart kicked in my chest as I stared into her eyes. “And you trust me, right?”

“Yes. Of course I do.”