Free The Avery Shaw Experiment by Kelly Oram Page B

scene cheered.
    “Aves!” I said, pouting a little. “Whose date are you anyway? You just won him the game!”
    “Sorry.” Avery looked at her shoes.
    I laughed and pulled her to me. “It’s okay. He was going to win anyway. He’s by far the superior player.”
    “Hey, how’d you know about that?” Owen asked, still smiling from his victory.
    Avery’s face paled, and she stared at the floor again. “Um, I just . . .” She cringed. “It’s all physics.” The irony was not lost on me. “Angles, trajectory, mass, momentum, velocity . . . Newton’s laws are—”
    “Whoa, whoa, whoa, okay.” Owen laughed. “That’s enough geekspeak. I get it. But can you actually play the game, or do you just coach?”
    Avery shrugged. “I’m all right.”
    I saw the gleam in Owen’s eyes and wondered just how good Avery really was. The girl was the most modest person I’d ever met. I was sure she was downplaying her skills. I also knew there was no one more competitive than Owen.
    “You up for a game?” he asked, exactly as I knew he would. “Say we make it interesting with a little friendly wager?”
    Avery looked at the table and bit her bottom lip, contemplating. She wanted to give it a try. She looked back up at Owen and warily asked, “What are your terms?”
    That’s where I stepped in. “Oh, no, hold up! I get to pick the stakes.”
    “What?” Owen argued. “Why? I’m the one playing. It was my bet.”
    “Because,” I said, “she won the last game for you.”
    Owen scoffed.
    “She’s my date,” I continued. “ And she gave me free reign over her social life, so I’m in charge of this bet.”
    Owen crossed his arms over his chest. “Fine. Name it.”
    I thought for a minute. We were gathering a small crowd now, so it had to be good. “Okay. Avery wins and you have to get from this pool table to your car without any clothes.”
    Avery gasped and tried to protest on Owen’s behalf, but Owen doesn’t know how to back down from a challenge. “Done. And if I win?”
    I looked at Avery. It couldn’t be anything too crazy—she was way too fragile, and I didn’t actually know how good she was. I glanced around, looking for inspiration, and noticed the people in the corner. “If you win, Avery has to learn how to dance tonight.”
    Owen was going to argue that the terms weren’t equal until Avery gasped again. The look of terror on her face said it all. Dancing may not have been a big deal to Owen, but for Avery it was going to be every bit as awful as streaking through a crowded party.
    “Deal,” Owen said and racked the balls. “I’ll even let your little ringer break.”
    “Dancing?” Avery hissed in panic as I pushed her up to the table and handed her a cue. “Are you serious? I can’t dance! Especially not in front of all these people! I will die!”
    “Dancing does not kill people.” I laughed. “If you’re really that worried about it, then just beat Owen. Come on, Aves, you have to admit it would be highly entertaining to see him lose.”
    She was lined up in front of the balls now. When she looked at the table, she seemed to come back to herself. Pool was apparently a game Avery knew well and felt confident about. I was surprised by this and briefly wondered if Aiden knew this side of her. The possibility made me startlingly jealous.
    “Okay,” she whispered and lined up her first shot. “I agree to the terms.”
    And then I stood there and watched Little Avery Shaw run the table like a professional pool shark. She sunk ball after ball, analyzing every shot and never losing concentration. I’d never seen anything so hot in my life.
    By the time she sunk the last ball, leaving only the eight left to sink for her win, even Owen was cheering her on. She stepped around the side of the table next to where I was standing. I bent down and kissed her cheek. “For luck.”
    She blushed and gave me a shy smile, then leaned over to line up her cue. It looked like a clear, easy