“Thank you for the ride, Charlie,” I said, wanting to add AND FOR BEING THE KIND OF GUY TO INSIST ON GIVING CLIO A RIDE HOME but knowing that wouldn’t help the situation.
After he left, I went to bed, livid that Scott (a) thought he had any business worrying about my life, (b) was a jerk to Charlie, and (c) was obviously sleeping over every night indefinitely. I was so mad, and also so sad, because it felt like I had zero control. I felt like everything was changing—yet again—and there was nothing I could do.
But then I heard it.
I was lying in my bed, buried in the worn old quilt I’d had since Alaska, when I heard them. Scott and my mother were arguing about me, and Scotty didn’t sound happy.
Holy shit, is it actually working?
“If you don’t put your foot down, she’s going to start walking all over you.”
Oh, no, I’m not. I snuggled deeper into my pillow and thought, But it isn’t your business if I do.
“No, she’s not,” my mom said, sounding irritated and tired. I felt bad for the last part, for having a hand in making her tired. She was my favorite human in the universe, and I didn’t want her to be anything but wide awake and happy.
“I know it seems like she won’t, but look at Kristy. She’s an out-of-control snot, but she wasn’t always.”
Holy shit, he talked about his daughter that way?
“Bailey is not like Kristy,” my mother snapped, sounding insulted. “They couldn’t be more different.”
So my mom knew Kristy…?
“I know, Em,” Scott said, sounding apologetic, “but trust me—she was a sweetheart until she hit middle school, when Neal and Laura totally lost control and let her run wild.”
“But your brother’s a slacker, come on,” my mom said. “Not the same thing.”
Wait. What?
“True. But I’m telling you, guys like that Charlie—”
“Will not turn Bailey into your bratty niece,” she interrupted.
His niece? Kristy was his niece? Relief washed over me as I lay there, smiling in the dark and wanting to screech like a happy… well, animal who screeched when they were happy.
Kristy wasn’t his daughter—holy shit!
Yes, I was screaming into my pillow and kicking my feet.
“He’s a good kid,” I heard my mom say, and I felt lucky that she was the nonjudgmental person that she was. “You just got a bad first impression. You’ll see.”
Strangely enough, she’d hit it right on the head. Charlie was actually a decent person.
You just had to get through a hell of a lot of bullshit to see it.
Yes, I’d been wholly convinced that Mr. Nothing was an irredeemable ass. I would’ve bet money on the fact that he was trouble with a capital T, yet the more time I spent with him, the more I realized that he wasn’t.
At all.
I still wasn’t sure what exactly he was, but I was definitely starting to see what he wasn’t.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO Charlie
“Who’s going to go get us a pitcher of Coke?” Nekesa asked.
Planet Funnn’s front desk crews were allowed a complimentary pitcher of soda every shift, which led to a complimentary argument during every shift.
Nekesa looked at Bailey, knowing she’d cave because Bailey always caved.
“Not me,” Theo said from his spot on the floor, where he was crouched and trying to unjam the printer for the third time that day. Theo was an idiot with the tech skills of a senior citizen, but I wasn’t about to help him.
“Fixing” the printer kept him marginally less talkative than usual.
“Not me,” I muttered, “because I got it last time.”
“That doesn’t count because you were working alone.” Bailey rolled her eyes at me, looking at my propped-up feet and the book in my hand as if they disgusted her.
I said, “You know you’re going to do it.”
“Yeah,” Theo said. “Just go, Bailey.”
“Ugh—I’ll go, you bag of dicks,” Nekesa said, splitting a glare between Theo and me. “I’m allowed to walk all over Bay because of our history, but you cannot.”
I actually felt like I was allowed to walk all over Bay because she’d push back—hard—if she didn’t like it.
Theo stopped fucking with the printer. “I’ll go with you, because there’s no way you can carry it without spilling.”
He was terrible at flirting, yet Nekesa seemed to be all about it.
“I can too.” Nekesa laughed, grinning at Theo.
Bailey was watching them intently, a tiny crinkle in her forehead, and I swear to God I could hear the chaos pinging around in her brain. She knew her friend was flirting, could see the chemistry between Theo and Nekesa, and she was desperately trying to find a way to intervene.
Trust me, Bay, I thought as she tucked her long hair behind her ears, coworkers cannot be platonic friends.
“I don’t think so,” Theo said in a nauseating singsong voice, and then the two of them were off, wandering down the hall that led toward the Funstaurants.
Yeah—it was only a matter of time for those two.
Bailey pulled her phone out of the pocket of her flight suit, and I said, “Don’t do it.”
“Do what?” she said, looking startled by the fact that I was onto her.
“Don’t get involved.” I set down my book and dropped my feet to the floor. “Nekesa is a big girl.”
“I don’t care about your bet,” she said, biting the inside of her cheek as she put away the phone and logged into reservations to check for cancellations.
“Really.”
“As much as you do,” she corrected. A long-suffering sigh was followed by a throat-clearing and then, “Anyway, Nekesa is a big girl, a big boyfriend-loving girl.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Stop that,” she said through gritted teeth, swinging her gaze to mine. “She is.”
“Sure she is,” I said, stretching out the words just to irritate her. “You just keep thinking that, Bay.”
“I will…,” she murmured, trailing off in that pouty way that made it hard not to smile. “Why don’t you go back to your Murakami and leave me alone?”
I was super into the latest Murakami—as in, I couldn’t put it down in spite of the things I hated about it—and when I mentioned it to her yesterday, she told me she’d never heard of the author until Joe Goldberg mentioned him.
Which led to me admitting I’d never heard of Joe Goldberg, which led to her spending thirty minutes telling me about the You books by Caroline Kepnes.
She offered to loan them to me, which I politely declined.
I offered to loan her my other Murakamis, which she politely declined.
“You can keep your highbrow lit,” she’d said, raising her chin in that defending-my-stance way she had. “I prefer lighter reading.”
And by “prefer lighter reading,” she meant that she read five or six romance novels.
A week.
How did I know that?
Because I’d crept on her social media, of course.
Bailey the Introvert had thousands of followers on her bookish account, a place where she posted pictures and reviews of books she’d read. Her posts were smart and funny and engaging as hell, and even though I knew that side of her, it was wild to see her being bold when she was so… controlled and concerned in real life.
She was a fascinating contradiction.