Wrong Quarterback | ✓

4 | of fiction and city guides

          "Thank you," 

Avery takes the cup of iced chai from the barista before crisscrossing through the crowd in the air conditioned coffee shop, swinging the door open and stepping out into the rather cloudy, but still warm, day. 

She adjusts her grasp of her phone, again getting annoyed at herself for forgetting her earphones. "Sorry, you were saying?"

"Oh I was just complaining about Caia and Benjamin ditching me," Luke says, referring to his siblings. "And don't get me started on how they left me alone with my cousins. They're cute but they doesn't want to do anything other than play every second of every day. There are too many people in this house."

Avery's lips pull into a small smile – knowing how the Colorado house is on the brink of being overcrowded when she and her mother join the Adams family every year for Christmas she can only imagine how it feels to share it between two families made up of five and seven members each.

"Maybe you should've thought about that before leaving me here," She says, taking a turn off of Main Street onto a small alleyway path to one of the city circle's pedestrian streets, steering her steps towards the two story bookstore. She has some time to spare before meeting up with her mother, who's spent the day at the New York offices, when she arrives from the airport in a few hours. In the meantime she might as well wander some stores and it's only sane to start with her favorite one. "Think of all the fun we could've had."

"What are you up to right now?"

Avery stops, drawing in a deep breath as the corners of her mouth twist up. "Just entered paradise."

"You're buying books aren't you?"

"No one said anything about buying," She points out, walking up the stairs to start from the top and work her way down. "But yes, probably."

She rolls her eyes at the sound of Luke yawning. "Boring."

"Says the person spending his days playing hide and seek," Avery pauses by a shelf, balancing the cup of iced chai in the crook of her elbow to free her hand and lets her fingers graze against the spines. She pulls a paperback out, turning it over in her hand with a small smile on her lips – she's already read it but it doesn't hurt to say hello. Putting it back in its place, she sips the iced chai and continues down the aisle. "Have you heard anything from Nic lately?"

"Only that his reception sucks and he barely has any time to use his phone anyways."

Avery nods to herself. "Same."

It's about the gist of her own FaceTime call with their friend a mere week before – Nic had been propped up against a wall of pillows in the top bunk of a bed, the screen freezing every five seconds as they spoke. They'd grazed the subject of their respective summer jobs – him as a camp counselor, hers the internship at T.H Publishing – before losing themselves in a conversation of nothings spanning on over an hour or two.

"I was thinking the other day...," Luke begins and Avery smiles to herself as she mindlessly lets her fingers dance over the spines of the books on a shelf.

"Well that's a first."

"Ha ha. Very funny," Luke drawls. "Anyways, I realized this is the first time we've all properly been away from each other for an entire summer."

"Uh, yeah. I'm very much aware thank you."

"You should come here for a while!"

Avery changes hands – one of them too cold from the iced drink and the other cramping from having to hold the phone. "Didn't you just say the house is too crowded?"