Betting on You

“Okay—I’m exiting here,” Charlie said.

“Whatever.” I shrugged. “Get gas wherever you want; see if I care.”

“I will,” Charlie said, his mouth twitching into an almost smile. “Just wanted to warn you, in case you need to stretch or something.”

“No, I’m good, but thanks.” I sat straight up, moved my purse, then slid my feet back into my shoes. “Maybe you should stretch.”

“As if, Glasses. Come on.”

We’d been driving for six-ish hours, and we’d created a ridiculous game that was going to get me killed. Every time we stopped, we raced to the bathrooms. Literally. Whoever could sprint to the bathroom, use the facilities, wash their hands, and be the first to get back and touch the car was the big winner.

That person didn’t have to pay for gas or snacks, and they also got to drive and control the radio.

Unfortunately for me, he’d won at each stop.

And last time my foot had gotten stuck in the dangling seat belt I’d yanked off the minute we’d stopped, leaving me with a hole in my leggings and a bloody knee as I’d chased Charlie into the gas station.

It was a little unfair because he had no qualms about yelling “Look out, look out” and basically running over people, whereas I couldn’t bring myself to keep up the sprint when faced with oncoming foot traffic.

This time was going to be it, though. This time I would win.

“Okay—three gas stations up ahead. Which one do you want?”

“Don’t,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Don’t give me the pity choice. Just because I have yet to win doesn’t mean you need to feel sorry for me.”

“Oh, honey,” he cooed, coughing out a laugh as his eyes stayed on the road. “But I do feel sorry for you. That’s a nasty strawberry on your knee.”

“That you poured hand sanitizer on!”

“To keep away infection,” he said, smiling, and I let it go. He’d been kind of sweet after the fall. I could tell he felt really bad. It was a little bit adorable.

“Eddy’s Hot Stop,” I said. “Go, asshole.”

“Atta girl,” he said around a laugh as he hit the blinker.

I don’t know why, but there was something about the way he said “Atta girl” that made me feel warm everywhere.

I stared out the window as he turned into the lot and headed for a gas pump. The rule was that no one could start until the car was put in park.

“You look tense,” he said, slowly cruising toward the covered fuel pumps. “You all right there, buddy?”

“Don’t distract me,” I said, glancing over at him.

Which was a mistake, because he was grinning as if he’d never seen anything more amusing than me, poised and ready to jump from the car. “Wanna know why you’ll never win this game?” he asked.

“Oh, but I will,” I replied, biting the inside of my cheek so I didn’t smile back at him.

“It’s because you lack the killer instinct.”

“I do not,” I said, leaning forward as he started slowing.

“Yes, you do,” he said, and even without looking I could hear the smart-ass grin in his voice. “If you run into the bathroom and there’s one open stall and two of you ladies, are you going to push the other chick out of the way?”

Of course I wouldn’t. But I said, “If it means beating you, then yes.”

“Liar,” he drawled, and the way he said it brought my eyes back to his face again.

There was a challenge in his dark eyes as they met mine, in the wicked smile that turned up his mouth. If it were anyone else, looking at me like that, I would call it wildly flirtatious.

But this was Charlie.

This was just the thrill of competition.

Right?

He jammed the shifter into park, and our doors flew open. We each leaped from the car and full-out sprinted toward the gas station doors, and for once I was a hair ahead of him.

“I’m right at your heels, Glasses,” he said, trying to distract me.

“Shut up.” I pushed the door with both hands, not yielding at all as I ran into the convenience store. The people in line at the counter looked at us as we flew past, but I kept my focus on the bathrooms.

“Coming hot on your left,” Charlie breathed, and the sound of him chasing me was downright predatorial.

“Staying hot on your right,” I panted.

The bathrooms waited for us at the back of the gas station, and we didn’t even slow as we each plowed through our respective door. I flew into a stall, hurried, splashed through the world’s fastest hand washing, and ran back out, ignoring the stares as I sprinted past the Pepsi coolers and blasted out the door.

I had a clear path to his car, and there wasn’t a sprinting Charlie in sight.

I was finally going to control the radio.

I ran all the way up to his car and slapped the hood with both hands—as per the rules—before jumping up and down, even though I was standing by myself next to his car.

Only, after ten more seconds, I wondered what was up.

Where the hell was Charlie?

The couple in the car on the other side of the gas pump was giving me Is she high side-eye, so I gave them a closed-mouth smile and got into the car.

While wondering where the hell he was. Was he okay? Had something happened? Was he in trouble? Just when I was reaching for my bag to find my phone, it started ringing.

“Gah.” I fumbled and fished it out, saw Charlie was calling, and raised it to my ear. “You lost. Come out and accept your shame.”

“I can’t,” he said, and his voice sounded… weird.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Are you sick?”

“No,” he said quietly, then said, “Well, yes, I kind of think I will be soon.”

“What?” My heart sped up at the sound of Charlie sounding… off. “Are you okay? What can I do?”

He sighed and muttered, “I dropped my keys.”

“Um.” What? “So pick them up…?”

He sighed again. “That’s the thing. I can’t.”

“Did they fall down a hole or something?”

Oh God. How were we going to get to the condo before midnight if he’d dropped his keys down a hole?

“Or something. They’re in the urinal.”

“What?” I looked over my shoulder at the gas station. “So… shouldn’t they be easy to grab?”

“I, um.” He cleared his throat, sounding very uncomfortable, and said, “I can’t.”

I sat there for a half second before saying, “Charlie, are you telling me your keys are right there in the urinal, but you can’t grab them?”

It was quiet for a moment before he said, “Yes.”

I didn’t know what this meant, but I knew him well enough to know this was something. I asked, “Is anyone else in the bathroom?”

“No.”

“I’ll be right there.”

I grabbed my purse, got out of the car, and went back inside the convenience store. I felt like an idiot as everyone I’d sprinted past a minute earlier stared at me, but I kept my eyes trained on the bathrooms in the rear of the store.

“Charlie?” I approached the men’s room and opened the door a crack. “Am I good to come in?”

“Yeah,” I heard him say.

I opened the door, and when I got inside, I found Charlie looking miserable. He watched me with one dark eyebrow raised, his hair tousled like he’d been dragging his hand through it. Oh, how I wanted to give him so much shit.

But I didn’t. I couldn’t.

I couldn’t help the lump in my stomach. Seeing Charlie being… un-Charlie was surprisingly unsettling.

I said, “First things first. Did you pee on your keys?”

The corner of his mouth kicked up the tiniest bit. “Of course not.”

“And they’re…” I gestured with my chin to the urinal beside him.

“Yes.” He moved so I could see his keys sitting in the urinal. It looked clean-ish, and I was surprised he hadn’t just grabbed them. Yes, gas station urinals were beyond disgusting, but I’d pictured it much worse. He said, “I moved too fast when I ran in here and missed my pocket entirely.”

“Oof.” I stared at the urinal before shrugging and committing to the task at hand. “I’m going in.”

“Oh God,” he groaned, his strong nose crinkling like a little kid’s when presented with an unwanted vegetable. “So gross.”

And just then I wanted to hug Charlie. I knew nothing about why he was physically incapable of sticking his hand into the dirty urinal, but I knew him well enough to know that he’d rather do just about anything than have someone witness what he surely perceived as a moment of “weakness.”

“Why don’t you go buy our snacks—because I’m the winner,” I said, hoping to make him smile. “And fill up the car. I’ll be out in just a sec.”

His eyes went serious again. “You sure? That’s pretty disgusting.”

I nodded. “It’s no big deal. Get me Twizzlers and a white Rockstar, please.”

“You got it.”

When I came out to the car a few minutes later, after bathing his keys in hot soapy water and then a follow-up hand sanitizer shower, he still looked conflicted. “Listen, Bay, about what happened—”

“I don’t care, Charlie,” I groaned. “Did you get my licorice?”

He got a crinkle between his eyebrows. “It’s in the front seat, in the console.”

“Sweet. And my energy drink?”

“Same place,” he said.

“Excellent.” I crossed my arms and said, “So, I don’t really want to drive; I just want radio control. Cool?”

He gave a nod. “Cool.”

We got into the car and hit the road, and we were quiet for a solid two minutes before Charlie said, “I feel like I need to—”

“You don’t.” I reached out my arm and stuck a Twizzler into his mouth, and watched his jaw as he immediately started chewing without question. “Never happened, unless you want to talk about it, in which case I’m happy to listen. Now, on to more important things: Do you prefer country or pop?”

“Can I say neither?” he asked, taking one hand off the wheel to hold the end of the licorice. He looked away from the road for a second, his eyes sweeping over my face with a thoroughness that made me feel like he was looking for something.

“You can say it, but it won’t change the fact that those are your choices,” I explained, feeling my cheeks get hot.

He groaned before saying, “Pop, I guess.”

“Pop it is.” I took over the radio, searching for the most annoying music I could find, and time flew by as Colorado gave us a lot to look at. The aspens were bright yellow, dotted across the mountains that our highway wove through, and all of a sudden I remembered why people moved away from Nebraska and never came back.

The place was breathtaking.

“Look at that,” I said, pointing to a stream running parallel to the highway. “It’s so gorgeous.”

“That’s twenty-one times,” he said, reaching for the can of Red Bull in the cup holder. “That you’ve said that.”

“I know, but it’s impossible to stop.”

“Obviously,” he said, and I knew he agreed with me. Something about the scenery and the mountain air made us both more relaxed, made us both feel like we were on a full-on vacation.

“I almost don’t want to get there—is that weird?” I asked, biting down on my piece of licorice.

“No,” he replied, taking a drink. I watched his Adam’s apple move while he swallowed, and something about the motion seemed… sexy?

Yeah, that was weird. Not sexy, you idiot.

“You don’t know what’s going to happen when you get there, and you hate that.” He set down the can and said to me, “Here in the car, there is no mystery. It’s just a road trip with your amazing coworker.”

“That’s probably it,” I agreed. “Not the amazing coworker piece, but the rest.”

“The part I’m looking forward to,” he said, reaching out a hand for more licorice without looking away from the road, “is not thinking about anything from home for the entire time. I want to wake up every day and only worry about how I’m going to irritate Glasses.”

I pulled a Twizzler from the bag and held it out in front of his face.

He bit down on it, then turned his head and grinned at me in a way that did things to my stomach.

I cleared my throat and turned my eyes out the window. “What things don’t you want to think about?”

“Bay.” He made a noise of protest, something that sounded like a growl-groan combo. “If I say it, then I’m thinking about it.”

“But we aren’t there yet, so it’s allowed,” I verified.

I thought for sure he would change the subject, but instead he said, “The number one thing I don’t want to think about is Bec and Kyle. The number two thing I don’t want to think about is the fact that my mom is pregnant.”

“What?” I stopped chewing. “When did you find out? Why didn’t you tell me?”

Charlie’s forehead crinkled as he tilted his head to the side. His sunglasses were so dark that I couldn’t see his eyes, but I knew my question had surprised him.

“My mom mentioned it last night,” he said, “but it’s no big deal.”

“I mean, you’re going to have a new sibling,” I said, trying to make him excited. “That’s a really big deal.”

“Yeah,” he said tightly, and I couldn’t read what he meant by that.

“Are you bummed?” I asked quietly, as if the lower volume would make everything better. “I mean, if I found out my dad was having another kid, I think it would freak me out.”

“Really?” he replied, his emotions still unreadable.

“Yeah. I mean, things with him are already weird and distant, so how would a new kid in his life ever help that?”

“Can we not talk about this?” he asked on a sigh, but it wasn’t unkind. He just sounded exhausted about it all. “I’m happy for them and I’m sure it will be great—my sister is fucking over the moon—but I just haven’t wrapped my head around it yet.”

“Sure.” I crossed my arms and propped my feet on his dashboard. “So let’s talk about Bec.”

“You little shit.” Charlie glanced over at me, shaking his head and grinning as he reached out a hand and knocked down my feet. “How about we talk about Zack instead?”

“Ooh, no thank you,” I said, glad he was smiling again. “Hard pass.”

“Any movement with him?” he asked, pulling off his sunglasses and dropping them onto the dash. “Conversations that felt promising, looks exchanged, anything like that…?”

“Actually,” I said, “I don’t really ever see or talk to him.”

“What?” His face got all screwed up. “How are you hung up on him if you never see or talk to him?”

“I’m hung up on the memory of him,” I said, wondering why it felt more comfortable trying to explain it to Charlie than it did to Nekesa. “And the fact that we aren’t done.”

“Yeah, I’m familiar with that last part,” he said, reaching out to flip the radio even though it wasn’t his turn. “But how are you ever going to reconnect if you don’t have any contact?”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m sure we’ll run into each other sometime soon.”

“Do you have the same friends?” he asked. “I see Bec all the time because we have the same friends.”

“No, um,” I said, not wanting to sound like a dork. “We kind of hang in different crowds.”

“He’s not a super reader with a billion online buddies?”

That made me look over at him in surprise, because I’d never told him about my bookstagram account. “Are you on Instagram?”

He grinned but didn’t answer, instead saying, “Why? Do you want to be my friend?”

“I’m already your friend, moron,” I teased, a little shocked that he’d obviously found me on social media.

“Coworker,” he corrected. That made me roll my eyes, which made him chuckle.

Just then my phone buzzed. Nekesa.

My parents are treating me like I killed a man.

“I feel so bad for her,” I said to Charlie, “that she’s not on the trip.”

“But if she were here, you wouldn’t have me,” Charlie said, driving with one hand draped over the wheel.

“True,” I said, texting her back. “At least she’s got Aaron and Theo to text and keep her company.”

Charlie made a noise, and I looked over at him. “What?”

He shrugged and said, “Do you like Theo?”

“I mean, yeah,” I said, even though I found him to be a little annoying. “He’s fine.”

“I don’t really trust that guy,” Charlie said, which surprised me. He and Theo always seemed to get along when we all worked together on the weekends.

“Is this about the bet?” I asked.

“What?” he asked, his voice rising a few octaves. His eyes narrowed as he glanced away from the road and at me. He looked… I don’t know, different when he said, “What are you talking about?”

“THE bet…?” What the hell was that? “Hello?”

“Right, right,” he replied, in a much calmer tone, “but what would my not trusting him have to do with that?”

I shrugged and grabbed my drink. “No idea.”

“So… you should text Zack.”

“What?” That brought my eyes right to his face, but he continued to drive as if he hadn’t just bombshelled the suggestion that I text my in-a-new-relationship ex-boyfriend.

“You should text him right now, while I’m with you, so you don’t lose your nerve. Why wait?”

“Why wait?” I turned my body so I was fully facing him in the front seat of the car, so he’d have no question about the What the hell expression on my face. “Well, for starters, he has a girlfriend.”

“So?” he said with a shrug, looking wholly confident that the girlfriend wasn’t a concern. “You’re not asking him out. You’re just going to reach out to him as a buddy.”

“We aren’t buddies. I’ve never been his buddy.”

“Quit being literal and quit being scared. Text him something chill like Do you know my Netflix password?”

“Why would he know my Netflix password?”

He gave his head a shake, like I was an idiot, and said, “He doesn’t. But he doesn’t know that you don’t think he might.”

“I’m sorry—how is this going to help things?”

“It’s the reconnection,” he said, sighing. “You text him what I said, and he responds that he doesn’t. Then you say Dangit—I didn’t think so but I thought it was worth a shot.”

I still didn’t see how that would help anything.

“He will—of course—give you a Sorry bro, and then you have the chance to say something funny and make him think about you.”

“Think about me how?” It was a pointless plan, an idea without merit, but still.

“That is up to you. Send him the first text,” Charlie said, “and I’ll Cyrano the rest as we go.”

“No,” I squealed, not at all interested in involving Charlie with Zack but for some reason giddily excited about something. “It’ll never work.”

“It will absolutely work for its purpose,” he said, staring out at the road in front of him.

“Which is…?”

“Which is reminding him that you’re funny and interesting.”

“Charlie—”

“Just text Hey, it’s Bay—quick question.”

“I was never Bay to him, for the record.”

“Such a shame,” he said, his brow furrowing like he didn’t understand.

It was a strange response, but even stranger was the fact that I liked it. It felt like he was defending me somehow. I said, “Is it?”

He looked away from the road to give me a pointed glance before saying, “Fine. Text It’s Bailey—quick question.”

I don’t know what got into me, but I pulled up Zack in my contacts. I was squirrely and giggling as I said to myself, “I cannot believe I’m doing this. ‘Hey, it’s Bailey. Quick question.’ ”

“Send,” he said, loudly and with a half smile. “Hit send, you chickenshit.”

I took a deep breath, squealed again, then hit send. “Holy shit, I hit send.”

“Atta girl.” He laughed, which made me squeal again.

“I can’t believe I just sent that,” I said, and then conversation bubbles popped up. “Oh my God, he’s responding!”

“Breathe,” Charlie said, his eyes on the road.

“Easy for you to say,” I mumbled, staring at the phone.

Zack: What’s up?

I muttered “Holy shit” under my breath as I texted: Weird question, but do you know my Netflix password?

“I did it,” I said, looking over at Charlie. “I asked him about the password.”

“Quit acting like you just initiated nuclear war or something,” he replied with amusement in his voice. “This is no big deal.”

Zack: No idea. Am I supposed to?

“What’d he say?” Charlie asked, in response to the noise I made in my throat.

I told him, and he said, “So just say no but add something cute.”

I squinted. “I thought you were going to Cyrano this for me. ‘Add something cute’ is not freaking Cyrano!”

“Calm down, Glasses.” Charlie tilted his head, his eyes still on the road. “Just say, uh, No but we were hoping and add an emoji.”

“That’s not cute,” I said, a little disappointed.

“Your usage of the word ‘we’ will make him assume you and a mysterious someone are hanging out, and the smiley face will make it seem chill and absolutely not like you’re hitting on your ex. Trust me on this.”

I rolled my eyes but typed exactly what he said while he broke the rules and changed the radio station.

Me: No, but we were hoping. I’m somehow getting it wrong. 😉

I wondered what Zack was thinking, getting a text from me, and his face was all I could see as I waited for his response.

Which was almost immediate.

Zack: Do you want mine?

“Whaaat?” I yelled, reading it again and feeling like it had to mean something. “He asked if I want to use his!”

“Duh,” Charlie said, sounding unsurprised. “Now just go with something quick and funny that gives you the last word. Like… Haha no. I think I’ll just act out the entire third season of Breaking Bad instead. Thanks, though.”

“Okay, first of all, I’ve never watched that show. Second—”All text © NôvelD(r)a'ma.Org.

“I know you haven’t,” he interrupted. “Anyone who knows you knows you haven’t.”

“I don’t get it,” I said, wondering why I was even taking advice from him. “So why—”

“Silly child,” he said, glancing over at me as he interrupted yet again. “That tiny joking reference tells him you’re likely with someone who does watch that show.”

“A dude,” I said, my mouth falling open at his genius. “I’m making him think I’m with a dude.”

“Bingo,” he said, looking pleased with himself as he gave me a smug smile. “Saying without saying.”

I started typing his exact words, in awe of Coach Charlie. As soon as I hit send, I said, “You are quite the manipulator, Mr. Sampson.”

“We all have our gifts, Miss Mitchell.”

A second later another message came in.

Zack: I’d pay money to see that.

“Ohmygod,” I squealed, freaking out that it worked. That we’d actually reconnected. I read the response to Charlie, begging, “Tell me what to say now, you diabolical genius.”

“Nothing,” he said, slowing as our exit approached. “Send him a smiling emoji but nothing more.”

“Won’t that be a waste of this entire conversation?”

“Hell no.” Charlie sounded deep in thought when he said, “If there’s one thing that I know, it’s the power of stringing someone along.”