Betting on You

The next time I saw Charlie was at a movie theater. I was there with Zack, my boyfriend, and we’d just paid for our tickets when we heard clapping from the lobby area by concessions.

“Want to check it out?” Zack looked at his phone and said, “We’ve still got five minutes before the movie starts.”

“Sure.” I smiled at his handsome face, and he grabbed my hand, leading me toward the fray. I was head over heels for Zack, the cute and oh-so-smart debate captain. He was everything I wasn’t—confident, charming, extroverted—and he technically could’ve led me into fire, and I probably would have followed.

“It’s a promposal.” Zack pointed just to the left of the popcorn stand, where someone had hung a fake movie poster. Instead of a title, it said “PROM?” Across the top there was a picture of a dude with a hilarious questioning expression on his face.

It was charming and clever, and just as I narrowed my eyes and thought, That guy looks really familiar, I saw the couple. They were standing in front of the poster, smiling as a movie theater employee took their picture. The girl was petite, blond, and pretty, and the guy was tall, dark, and kind of jacked.

Oh my God—Mr. Nothing!

The guy from the airport was right there, at my suburban movie theater. What in the actual hell?

“Cool idea,” Zack said about the promposal, and I nodded and came back to myself.

“Supercute,” I muttered, flustered, and at that moment Mr. Nothing’s eyes connected with mine, and my stomach dropped to the floor. We shared total eye contact for a second before I looked away and said way too enthusiastically to Zack, “We’d better go.”

I wasn’t exactly sure why, but I didn’t want to have to share conversation with Mr. Nothing and Zack; it seemed like too much.

Which made no sense. The dude was just a stranger that I’d sat beside on a long flight. There was no reason whatsoever that I should be anxious about running into him.

Still, I was.

I very nearly dragged Zack into the theater, and chose seats that were far away from everyone else. We were seeing a revival of The Good and the Best, my all-time favorite movie, but once it started, I found I just couldn’t get into it.

Seeing Mr. Nothing left me… unsettled.

Maybe it was his tie-in to the shitty time in my life when my parents fell out of love, we moved to a strange place, and my dad stopped caring about me. I still couldn’t listen to the Taylor Swift album that’d been popular at the time, because it made me cry.

Every. Single. Time.

Hell, the day of that flight, just before I’d slid into line behind Mr. Nothing, I’d cried my eyes out in the airport bathroom.

No wonder the sight of him was accompanied by a general sense of dread.

“Are you hungry?” Zack whispered. “I’m going to go get popcorn.”

“No,” I said, glancing at him and thinking he was even hot in the dark. It was still surreal that we were together, if I was being honest. Not that I didn’t believe in my own self-worth, but we were two very different people from two very different leagues.

Most of my friends—except the three who went to my school—were fellow book nerds that I’d never actually met in real life. Aside from the content we created and shared on our social channels, I shared my deepest secrets with them and felt like they knew me better than anyone else in the world.

But our friendships were remote.

Zack, on the other hand, seemingly knew everyone at our school and appeared to enjoy socializing with them. On a daily basis.

Weird, right?

“I’ll do it,” I whispered, “because I don’t want you to miss anything.”

“You sure?” he asked, his eyes on the big screen.

“Definitely—I’ve seen this a hundred times.”

Honestly, I was happy for the escape from the depressing memories that Mr. Nothing had kicked up. I scooted past Zack and exited the theater, and the lobby was quiet except for the concession line, which was three people deep. I took my spot, and was there a mere two minutes before I heard, “Boo.”

No, no, no, no.

I braced myself before turning around and looking at Mr. Nothing. He was definitely taller and more mannish than he’d been on the flight, but that I know everything about you look in his eyes hadn’t changed at all. I felt a weight on my chest as he looked at me, and I knew there was no escaping the reunion.

I tucked my hair behind my ears and plastered a fake smile onto my face. “Hey. How are you?”

He said, “Great,” the exact second I said, “Congrats on the prom yes, by the way.”

We shared the awkward we-both-spoke-at-the-same-time chuckle, and he said, “Thanks. Although to be honest, it was a slam dunk. We’ve been together for over a year.”

I laughed.

He looked at me in confusion.

I stopped laughing and said, “Wait. You’re serious?”

“Yeah.” He did a little shoulder-shrug motion—God, I remembered his propensity for careless shrugging like we’d just been on the plane together—and said, “Our anniversary was last month.”

I laughed again; I couldn’t help it. Was he serious?

“What’s funny?” He looked like he genuinely didn’t understand.

“It’s just… I don’t know… It’s just so hopeful of you,” I explained, remembering his definitive (depressing) opinions on relationships. “On the plane, you told me relationships are pointless and we’ve got a better chance of being struck with Ebola than finding happily ever after.”

The corner of his mouth slid up into a flirtatious smirk, and he gave me a chin nod. “You remembered what I said on the plane, huh?”Ccontent © exclusive by Nô/vel(D)ra/ma.Org.

“I did,” I said, unable to believe that the jerk was taking my remembrance of his idiotic words to be some sort of compliment. “Because it was asinine. Your theories were so stupid that it was impossible for me to forget them.”

“You’ve been thinking of me for all these years?” He looked like he absolutely believed that as he tilted his head and said, “That’s nice, Glasses.”

I gave my head a shake and opened my mouth, but I literally could not think of a response to his arrogance.

And he knew that, because his smirk transformed into a full-on smile of amusement. “And regarding my thoughts on relationships, what can I say? I’ve evolved.”

“Sure you have.”

The line moved forward, and I screamed internally for it to move faster and end my torture.

“What about you?” Mr. Nothing’s eyes ran all over me before returning to my face. “Is Poofy Hair your boyfriend?”

Don’t give him the satisfaction, Bailey. I glanced around before calmly saying, “He does not have poofy hair.”

“I stand corrected,” he said, putting his hands into his pockets. “Is Sweater from Baby Gap your boyfriend?”

I rolled my eyes, which was something I rarely did anymore. My mother called it rude, and she was right, but I couldn’t hold back when in the presence of Mr. Annoying. I said, “Zack, the guy you saw me with whose sweater fits him just right, by the way, is, in fact, my boyfriend.”

“Did you tell him about us?” he asked, his lips turning back into that sarcastic half smile.

“What?” I felt my eyebrows squeeze together in what seemed to be my default response—aside from the eye rolling—to Mr. Nothing. “No. I mean, there is no ‘us’ to even tell him about.”

“You could’ve told him we’re old friends,” he suggested. “I’m the friend you flew across the country with.”

“I thought you said guys and girls couldn’t be friends.” I crossed my arms over my chest and felt a wave of satisfaction surge through me as I threw his words back at him.

“What? When did I say that?”

He looked genuinely confused, and I was more than happy to remind him of his ridiculousness. “You told me that on the flight from Fairbanks.”

“Wonder why I said that.” He barely paused before adding, “Actually, that’s pretty accurate. They totally cannot.”

“Can I help you?”

I stepped up to the counter and looked at the guy who was waiting for me to order. “Yes. Um, could I please have one small plain popcorn and one small buttered?”

“No problem.” He started punching my order into the register.

“Can you please pour them into a large tub?”

“Together…?” The guy looked at me like I was weird, but he was still smiley. “Sure.”

I thought I heard a snort from behind me.

“And can you please not shake them up?” My cheeks were warm as I quietly added, “Thank you.”

“Labor-intensive,” Mr. Nothing muttered, but I refused to look in his direction.

“Can I also get two large Cokes?”

“Of course,” the snack attendant said.

And as soon as he stepped over to the popcorn machine, Mr. Nothing nudged my arm with his and said, “You’re not getting a halfsy Coke?”

“Not today,” I said, even though I really wanted one. I knew he’d think he was right about the whole “labor-intensive” thing if I ordered one, so I had to deny myself.

“I like your hair, by the way,” he said, gesturing to my head.

“Thank you,” I replied, shocked that he would say something complimentary to me.

“Last time I saw you, it was so…” He trailed off, making big eyes while holding his hands out on each side of his head as if to intimate how huge my hair had been.

Of course. There it was.

When I’d met him at the airport, my hair had still been like Mia Thermopolis’s at the beginning of The Princess Diaries : long, black, frizzy, and out of control. High school had happened, thank God, and now I had a shoulder-length bob that I flat-ironed until it was smooth.

But it was so him to remember and mention just how bad it’d been.

“Here you go,” said the concession dude, handing over my snacks while I handed over the money. Finally. I didn’t want to spend another minute talking to Mr. Nothing.

I turned and gave him a smile. “Well, that’s me—until next time, I guess.”

“Sure.”

I walked away, and just as I was about to open the door to the theater with my elbow, I heard, “Hey. Glasses.”

I turned around. “Yeah?”

He had a serious expression on his face, his dark eyes lacking the devious twinkle that’d been there every time I’d ever looked at him. He asked me, “How many solo flights have you taken since we met?”

I swallowed and hated him a tiny bit at that moment for reminding me. Mr. Nothing had totally been right; I’d flown to Fairbanks—alone—four times since the split. I was definitely a member of the custody kids now, a club I’d never wanted to join. “Four.”

He gave a nod, and it felt like something passed between us before he said, “Later, Glasses.”

“Yeah,” I said, clearing my throat before muttering under my breath, “God, I hope not.”