Betting on You

Why did Charlie have to wear that T-shirt?

I sat there at the scorer’s table beside Eli, clueless as to what to say to the guy because we literally had nothing in common and struggled to get past one-word answers. But every time Charlie bowled and stretched out upon release, a tiny strip of skin between the top of his jeans and the bottom of his shirt was exposed. It was nothing risqué—at all—but it reminded me of how shredded he was, of how hot he’d looked, shirtless, when we’d FaceTimed so he could talk to his cat.

It reminds me of how it felt being close to him.

Charlie got a strike, then turned and walked toward our little seating area.

“Looks like he’s forging a comeback,” I said to Eli, watching Charlie walk off the lane.

“Yeah,” he replied, also staring out at the lane.

“You’re up,” Charlie said to Dana, giving her a teasing smile. “But maybe try to knock the pins down this time.”

“Haha,” she said, smiling back as him as she stood and walked toward the ball return. “Cocky words coming from the man who currently has a sixty-seven.”

Why was her flirting so irritating? I wanted her to like Charlie, but did she have to be so… so… giggly?

It was giving me a stomachache.

“I’m holding back to make you look good,” he announced. “You’re welcome, Dana.”

She giggled at that, and I needed one of Charlie’s TUMS.

“And you’re welcome to polish my ball when I’m done,” she retorted, lifting her chin and giving him a smile that made my fingers clench.

God, could the date get any more annoying?

Twenty minutes later, I realized the answer to that question was HELL YES.

“I cannot believe you were at that show,” Eli said, smiling and showing his very perfect teeth. “What a small world.”

“Right?” Dana said, laughing as she picked up her soda. She was almost as tall as Eli as she stood beside him and said, “There were only like fifty people in the place, tops. What are the odds we were both there?”

“You’re up, E,” Charlie said, sitting at the scorer’s spot beside me. He muttered under his breath, “More bowl, less talk.”This content provided by N(o)velDrama].[Org.

I watched my date, my tall and handsome date, pick up a ball and get ready to approach the lane.

“Don’t trip again,” Dana teased, which made him turn around and give her an adorable fake glare.

He bowled a strike, and when he came back, Charlie said, “Take my spot.”

Eli sat down beside me to take over scoring, and Charlie said, “Hey, Eli—did I tell you that Bailey used to live in Alaska, too?”

Eli looked at me. “You did? Where are you from?”

“Fairbanks,” I said.

“Ah—I lived on Eielson Air Force Base,” he said, pointing to himself. “Practically neighbors.”

“Cool,” I replied, nodding.

And then we both smiled and looked at the lanes in front of us.

Think, you idiot—think of something interesting to say. Eli seemed cool, and I needed to get my shit together so I could forget about the way Charlie made me feel.

Charlie knocked down eight pins, and I asked Eli, “Do you ever go back?”

“No,” he said, and then he looked over his shoulder and said, “You’re next, Dana—better start getting pumped.”

“To kick your ass?” She smiled and said, “Yeah, I’m already on it.”

Dammit. Since the minute Dana and Eli had teamed up to mock Charlie when he dropped his ball, there had been a super-flirty vibe between those two. It seemed like no matter what I said, or whatever hilarious thing Charlie did, those two only had attention for each other.

I wanted to scream, Look at ME, Eli!

Charlie went again and hit two pins, but when he turned around, I was the only one watching. Eli was gesturing for Dana to go, and she did some sort of adorably dramatic bow that made him laugh loudly.

“Your friend is totally falling for me,” Charlie murmured dryly as he walked by and went over to his drink.

I got up and followed him, since Eli was so into trash-talking with Dana.

I made sure neither of them was looking before I said, “Eli has zero interest in me, by the way.”

“Yeah, I noticed,” he said. “I wouldn’t take it personally, though; your little buddy didn’t even laugh when I told her about the butter.”

“What?” He’d dropped butter on the floor that morning, and then stepped on it, slipped and fell, and somehow ended up with butter in his eye. I’d cried actual tears when he’d told me the hilarious story. “I think these two are wanks for not being into us.”

“Same.”

“Still try, though,” I said, watching Dana throw her head back and laugh at Eli. “She’s really great, and I think you’d hit it off. Y’know… if Eli weren’t here.”

He looked at me like I was deranged, but said, “I’ll try. And E loves the Chicago Cubs. Maybe talk about that and lure him in.”

“You think I need baseball to get a guy?”

He just gave me a look.

“That’s insulting,” I whined, elbowing him in the ribs ever so lightly. “Maybe I should give him a taste of the Bailey Special.”

That made his eyes smile, even though his mouth didn’t move. “Cow tongue on toasted bread?”

I lowered my voice, leaned a little closer, and said, “No. It’s Moldova but with my hands on his chest.”

I expected him to laugh.

Instead, he leaned even closer—or maybe I imagined it—and his eyes were on my mouth when he said, “Don’t you fucking dare.”

My heart fluttered in my chest at the intensity of his gaze as he towered over me.

“You don’t want me to kiss him?” I asked in a near whisper, my breath stuck in my lungs.

“Your call on that.” His jaw clenched—flex, unflex—and then he said, “But Moldova is mine.”

“You’re up, Charlie,” Eli yelled.

I blinked fast as we stepped apart and the sounds of the bowling alley returned to my ears.

What the hell was that?

Charlie’s face changed then, the intensity sliding into a measured smirk, and he said, “Time to go bowl some strikes and strike out at love.”

He walked over to the ball return, leaving me and my entire body thrumming with energy.

After the game, the four of us went into the snack bar for dinner. Charlie and Eli were laughing about some guy they knew as we waited for our baskets of bowling alley food when Dana pulled me aside.

“So… do you like Eli?” She looked toward the guys, then back at me. “He is so funny and cute—you’re lucky Charlie set you up with him.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I honestly haven’t really talked to him much so far.”

She nodded and glanced—yet again—at Eli and Charlie.

“So what do you think of Charlie?” I asked. “Cute, right?”

“Yeah,” she said, shrugging. “I mean, he’s cool, but I don’t really feel like there’s a spark.”

I looked over at Charlie and remembered his face when he’d been gazing at Becca at that party, the sad smile, and I didn’t want him to get rejected his first time back out there. Especially when his friends acted like he’d been a hermit since getting dumped.

“He’s so hilarious when you get to know him—give him a chance.”

“I don’t want to let him think there’s a chance when there isn’t.”

“No, I know.” I sighed, realizing that would be worse. “Sorry. He’s just my friend, and I wanted to find someone for him.”

“I think it’s cool how close you are,” Dana said. “I’d love to have a guy friend.”

I gave Charlie another glance, and as he smiled his smart-ass grin, looking cute in his jeans and long-sleeve tee, I wondered if he’d been right all along. Was it possible to just be friends? Because as I watched him, it was definitely more than friendship I was feeling.

Dammit.

We went back to the table, and the rest of the night pretty much went like bowling. Charlie and I tried showcasing each other, but our dates seemed to be equally disinterested in each of us.

I mentioned the Chicago Cubs, but when Eli said Are you a Cubs fan? and I said no, it dissolved into just another awkward attempt at lame small talk.

At the end of the night, as we put on our jackets and gave back the bowling shoes, Dana said to me, “I have to go pick up my car tonight from the shop on Blondo where it got new tires, and I totally don’t feel like it.”

“I live on Blondo,” Eli volunteered, his eyes lighting up like her freshly tired car was the greatest news he’d ever heard. “I can drop you on my way home, if you want.”

Dana’s face brightened. “Seriously?”

“But you said you’d go with me to Target after bowling,” I whined.

“I’m sure Charlie will,” Eli said, giving me the metaphorical boot. “Right, Charlie?”

Talk about feeling like an unattractive loser.

“Sure,” he said, his eyes on me like he was trying to figure out how I felt about the brush-off. “I want to go see my cat anyway; now I can bring him a toy.”

Dana and Eli looked beside themselves with joy as they said goodbye and headed for his car. Charlie and I, on the other hand, walked to his car in silence, each of us lost in our own thoughts. When we got to the vehicle, he said, “Did we seriously both get ditched by our dates?”

I stopped as he hit unlock. “Looks that way.”

Charlie said, “Did Dana tell you what she said when I asked her about college?”

“No.”

“I asked if she was going away or staying local. You know, just to show an interest in her life, right?”

I nodded. “Right…?”

He gave me a funny eye roll. “She said, and I quote, I’m not looking for a relationship right now.”

“Shut up!” I opened the passenger door and climbed inside the car. “That seems so arrogant, to assume that you are, with her.”

“And it didn’t even answer the question. I still have no idea if she’s going to MCC, Harvard, or Clown U, for fuck’s sake.”

I tried not to laugh.

“And,” he said, smiling just a little, “since it’s considered rude to shout WHO ASKED YOU TO in someone’s face, I had to keep it all inside my tiny heart.”

I did start laughing then. “Who asked you to—great line.”

“It was either that or Get the hell out of my bowling alley.”

I was cracking up as he started the car and pulled out of the parking lot. “I mean, at least she addressed you. I was pretty much invisible to Eli all night long.”

“I think she spelled him,” Charlie said.

“What?”

“Remember those Descendants movies? Where Mal spelled King Ben and made him fall in love with her?” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and said, “I bet Dana did that to Eli.”

“Because that’s the only logical explanation, right?”

“Exactly.” Charlie clicked into the Bluetooth to play his music and said, “By the way, since no one loves us and we have no prospects, do you want to go to our fall formals together?”

That made me snap my head toward him. “Are you serious right now?”

Was he serious? He wanted to go to both dances together? I’d been working so hard at knocking down my Charlie feelings; could I do the whole formal wear thing with him and not totally lose myself?

He nodded and said, “Sure. It’s senior year, so my mom will have a heart attack if I don’t go. I’m not into anyone, so at least if I go with you and vice versa, we know we’ll have fun, right?”

It sounded reasonable.

Reasonable, and like a recipe for a broken heart. So of course I said, “Sure. Yeah.”

You’re an idiot, Bailey.

“Cool,” he said, the same way he’d respond if I told him I wanted to stop at the gas station to use the restroom.

He turned onto L Street, and I wondered if it’d even entered his mind, the concept that I might be into him. He acted like nothing had changed between us since Colorado; did he truly believe that?

“By the way, I totally loved those movies when I was little,” I said, trying to be normal while visions of tuxedoed Charlie danced in my head.

“Descendants?” He grinned and said, “It’s probably uncool for me to admit, but so did I. The song with Mal and her dad was a banger.”

I was laughing when I said, “Did you really just say ‘banger’? And mean it in regard to ‘Do What You Gotta Do’?”

He gave a deep laugh and leaned back a little to dig into his pocket. “Baybay knows the name of the song. What a wank.”

“You’re a wank.”

“A wank who knows every word to that banger,” he said, grabbing an antacid tablet as I laughed at him.

That cracked me up, even as I agreed that I did too.

We stopped at Target on the way home, and Charlie made it an altogether different experience than it would’ve been with Dana.

For starters, he bought hot popcorn at the stand in the front of the store, because according to him, shopping was more fun with snacks. I was barely paying attention while he ordered, just people watching, but then I heard him ask for two small popcorns—one buttered, one plain—and then he asked for the bucket that the large came in so he could mix them together.

“I cannot believe you remember that,” I said in a low voice, mostly because the snack attendant looked super pissed about the request.

The smile he gave me, along with those crinkling dark eyes, pinched my heart just a little. “Who could forget about all of Glasses’s little quirks?”

The moment held for a half second, him smiling down at me while I grinned back, and then it changed. It felt like we were having some intimate exchange as we stared into each other’s eyes, and memories of his kisses immediately flooded into my mind.

“I’m out of buckets—is a big bag okay?” asked the attendant.

My head whipped around, and I realized my heart was pounding.

“That’s great, thanks,” Charlie said, and when he turned to me, his face was calm. Like he hadn’t felt what I’d felt.

What the hell? He had to have felt it, right?

God, was I losing all ability to read chemistry?

“What are we here for, anyway?” he asked.

The whole reason I wanted to stop at Target was because there was a dress on clearance I had non-buyer’s remorse about. I told him about it, and as we grabbed a cart so he had something to lean on while we walked, he convinced me to try it on and get his opinion.

I took it into a fitting room, and one second after I closed the door, a piece of popcorn landed on my head. I brushed it off, reached for the button on my jeans, and said, “Knock it off, Sampson.”

“I don’t like being bored,” he said from his spot somewhere outside my door, “and shooting for your little room gives me a challenge.”

Another piece of popcorn fell onto the bench beside me.

I picked it up and tossed it over the wall. “Was I close?”

“That was weak, Mitchell,” he said. “If I were you, I’d stand on that bench and get a visual. That way you’ve got a better shot of hitting me.”

“You’re just trying to get me to look like an idiot, standing on the bench and peeking over like a child,” I said, wondering how Charlie could be so much more fun than everyone else.

As I wondered that, a piece of popcorn landed on my head. Again.

I changed into the dress while popcorn rained down on me, and then I stepped up onto the bench.

And when I looked over the door, he was standing right beside it. Like, actually leaning on it.

“That’s not a challenge.” I laughed, surprised to be looking down at his upturned face. “You’re basically just dropping them into my room because you’re a giant. Lazy.”

“Come out and show me your bargain dress,” he said, grinning up at me.

“Okay,” I said, feeling that familiar something as I hopped down and came out of the fitting room.

“I like the dress,” he said, his eyes all over me, and then he did a motion with his finger, telling me to spin around.

I did, and he nodded in appreciation. “Reminds me of something a little kid would wear to recess. Buy it.”

“I’m not sure that’s the aesthetic I was going for,” I said, looking at it in the mirror.

“Okay, then—it reminds me of something that would assure a principal that a new student was a nice girl.”

“Oh my God,” I said, turning to see the back. “I don’t think I want this dress anymore.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” he said, tilting his head a little and crossing his arms. “I’ve got it. It looks like something the weird best friend would wear in a rom-com.”

“If you’re trying to convince me to buy it, you suck at this,” I said, going back into the fitting room to change.

“I am begging you to buy it,” he said, and my heart nearly stopped at the growly sound of his voice. I stood there, frozen in front of the mirror, overanalyzing his comments as was my new normal.

“Is that what that was?” I asked slowly, trying to sound careless and light.

“You know what it was,” he said, sounding almost… defeated by the words.

What did that mean? Did he like me in the dress and not want to? Because he didn’t want to lead me on, or because he didn’t want to feel things?

“I’m going to go get the cat toy.”

“Um.” I blinked at the jarring subject change before pulling the dress over my head. “Okay.”

“I’ll go to the pet aisle and you can meet me there.”

“Sounds good,” I said, feeling like he was literally putting distance between us on purpose.

Just as I was opening the fitting room door, my phone buzzed. I fished it out of my bag, fully expecting a message from Charlie about cat toys.

But it was from Zack.

Zack: I have to know. Did you act out Breaking Bad or did you reset your password?