Betting on You

“This is seriously unhealthy.”

“I know,” I said to Nekesa, swishing my straw in my Frappuccino and staring at the Starbucks entrance from our vantage point in the back of the coffee shop. “But I just have to see.”

I wasn’t sure why, but I needed to know.

Zack, my ex, used to pick me up every Saturday morning because he said he liked sharing a coffee with me before the day got started. Every single Saturday, no matter what, he whisked me away for Frappuccino and conversation.

It was kind of our thing. Smiles and caffeine in the early morning light.

Just us.

So now that he and Kelsie Kirchner were “official,” I wondered if he did the same for her. Deep down, I knew the answer was no, because I truly did believe it was exclusive to us as a couple, but something inside me just couldn’t let it go.ConTEent bel0ngs to Nôv(e)lD/rama(.)Org .

Which was why Nekesa and I were camped out at the back table at Starbucks.

“I get it,” Nekesa said, but I knew she didn’t. She was in a perfect relationship with the perfect guy—how could she possibly understand the compulsion to see if one’s ex was déjà-vu-ing with their new girlfriend? “But it’s been a couple months, Bay. And you’re too good for him. Don’t you think you should stop dwelling on what Zack is doing?”

“I’m not dwelling on what he’s doing,” I explained, even though I knew she was probably right. “I’m just curious.”

“I should’ve gotten a sandwich.” Nekesa sighed and said, “I’m starving. Why didn’t I get a sandwich? They have a glass case full of food, and all I got was a tall Flat White. What the hell was I thinking?”

“I don’t know,” I said, opening Instagram on my phone. I’d posted a new edit last night, so naturally I had to check notifications every five minutes.

“I should go get—”

“No,” I interrupted, setting down my phone and grabbing her arm in a panicked whisper. “If he comes in, I don’t want him to see us.”

“Why? It’s not that weird that we’d be at Starbucks,” she said, rolling her eyes and shaking off my hand. “Millions of people go to Starbucks, Bay. Ordering a breakfast sandwich is not remotely suspicious.”

“But it is when you’re my best friend and this is our Starbucks.”

“This is our Starbucks?” she asked, her dark eyebrows scrunching together. God, she had the best eyebrows.

“Not ‘ours’ as in yours and mine,” I said, “but ‘ours’ as in his and mine.”

“Dude.” Her eyes narrowed and she said, “Is there anywhere you think of as yours and mine?”

I kept playing with my straw as I thought about it for a minute. With us, it wasn’t so much if there was a place that was ours but more so which place was the most ours. I looked at her and said, “Definitely the dollar store in Springfield.”

She snorted. “Holy shit, that is so ours. Sour Patch Kids and Cokes.”

“Every day that summer,” I said, grinning as I remembered our obsession with—

“Remember how we’d just binge episodes of Big Time Rush for hours on end?”

“I was just about to say that,” I said, laughing. Technically I’d known Nekesa for only a few years, but we’d been inseparable since that first day together in Mr. Peek’s gym class, aka Toxic Masculinity 101, where she’d spiked a ball right at Cal Hodge’s nose for saying “Looks like Bailey’s boobies came in.”

I still hate Cal Hodge.

“Ah, the simpler times, before we had cars.” Nekesa was chuckling, but then her smile faded away and she said, “Aw shit.”

“Aw shit, what?” I asked, still amused. “What is the shit?”

I followed her gaze to the door, and then I knew what the shit was.

Zack and Kelsie were there. Oh God. They were holding hands, and his head was bent down a little, so he could hear whatever she was saying. She was smiling and he was smiling, and it felt like my heart was constricting in my chest.

They looked so fucking happy.

My stomach hurt as I watched them walk up to the counter. I couldn’t believe it. He really was taking her for Saturday morning coffee. It was such a silly little thing, but my throat was tight because I missed him so much.

I missed us when we were together.

He put his hand on her lower back, and I could almost feel it on my back because that was his go-to gesture whenever we were together.

“Let’s go,” Nekesa said, nudging my arm with her elbow. “I don’t like your face like this.”

That got my attention. I looked away from Zack and said, “What?”

She waved her hand in front of my face and said, “You look like a sad puppy when you see him. I think it’s my job, as your friend, to remove you from any situation that fucks up your face that way.”

I smiled in spite of my heart shattering. “You have no idea how much I love you for that, but can we wait until they go? I’d rather eat curdled milk than have to small-talk with them right now.”

“Eat?” She tilted her head and said, “Wouldn’t you drink curdled milk?”

“You’d drink it if it was mildly curdled, but I was referring to long-forgotten, extra-chunky curds. You’d need a knife and a fork for this shit.”

“Of course.”

We waited until the happy couple left—thank God it was a to-go order—and then we took off. I was walking to her car, trying to shake off the sad and not think about them, when my phone buzzed.

Mom: Was I right?

I rolled my eyes and texted: Maybe.

Mom: Gah, I’m sorry. If it makes you feel any better, I called Jimmy Bob Graham’s prayer hotline and requested they pray for Zack’s bowels to loosen.

I snorted. You did not.

Mom: No, I did not, but now I shall.

I opened the passenger door and got into Nekesa’s car. Texted: What are you doing this morning, besides lying about prayer circles?

Mom: That’s it. My only plans are to lie about prayer circles.

Me: We’re going to Target and Cane’s before work—do you need anything?

Nekesa said as she started the car, “Tell Emily hi.”

I added: Nekesa says hello, Emily.

Mom: Tell her hi and also that the album she recommended was trash.

“My mom says the album you recommended sucks.”

Nekesa scowled at me as she pulled out of the parking lot. “She has terrible taste in music.”

I texted my mom: Nekesa says you suck.

Mom: Nekesa clearly doesn’t know that I used to be the president of the Bobby Vinton fan club.

I buckled my seat belt. Who’s Bobby Vinton?

Mom: Exactly. Hey—can you grab brownie stuff from the store?

Me: Batter party tonight after I get home?

Mom: I forgot you start the new job today. Don’t be afraid to put yourself out there and TALK to other humans. Also, YES DUH ON THE BATTER. You’ve Got Mail and E. coli—what’s better than that?

It would be impossible for me to count just how many weekend nights my mother and I spent watching TV together and jamming food into our faces on that faded beige couch. I hated the divorce for what it did to me and my dad’s relationship, but from the day my mom and I moved into our tiny Omaha apartment, it’d just been her and me and the forty-two-inch Samsung.

The perfect team.

I texted back: Nothing in the world is better than Tom Hanks and salmonella. We’re going to the bookstore after we get off but I won’t be late.

Mom: Tom Hanks and the Salmonellas; band name—called it.

“As employees of Planet Funnn, you will be deployed to the intergalactic front lines of happiness. Your out-of-this-world service will be integral to us winning the war on earthly boredom. So let’s bounce in the day by starting with our pump-up jump-up! Come on, sunshine troops—keep on jumping till the music stops!”

“Are we sure,” Nekesa yelled to me as she bounced, “that we want to work at a place where people say things like that?”

“Not really.” I jumped, springing a little higher with every bounce. The trainer gave me an irritated look from his spot up on the stage platform—yeah, he’d definitely heard us—where he was shouting into a microphone next to the DJ while all one hundred fifty of us trainees jumped across the massive trampoline landscape in our new spacey flight-suit uniforms.

Planet Funnn—sadly, not a misspelling—was a brand-new “mega” hotel that was opening in two weeks. It had a water park, trampoline supercenter, indoor snow dome, ultra-arcade, Tiscotheque (teen disco), movie theater, and karaoke concert hall. There were like twenty other amenities that I’d already forgotten from the job fair Nekesa and I had attended, but basically the place was like a giant landlocked cruise ship.

We’d decided that since we each hated our jobs at the time—she’d been working at Schafer’s Market and I’d been working at Noah’s Ark Daycare—we would go to the massive job fair, and if we both got hired, that would mean it was fate.

Well, we got hired, along with like a billion other people who were all bouncing alongside us at that very moment.

The staff in charge of the planet seemed to be incredibly boisterous for eight a.m. on a Saturday, wildly enthusiastic, as if they’d shotgunned Red Bulls and snorted lines of Fun Dip before welcoming our group into the fold. I was holding my official opinion until bounce time ended and the actual training began, but my unofficial first impression was that Nekesa and I should sneak out of the place as soon as we were allowed to take our first break.

“Oh my God.”

“What?”

“Bay.” I glanced over, and Nekesa had a bizarre look on her face, like she was excited and also trying to communicate without speaking as she bounced. She was just under five feet tall and tiny, so she was getting super good air. “Don’t look now, but there’s a guy on the Jupiter Jumpoline who keeps checking you out.”

“And I can’t look?” I asked, craning my neck to see the aforementioned Jupiter Boy. “Not that I care.”

“Well, I mean, you can look,” she said, “but not like that. Don’t be obvious about it.”

“O-kay.”

“And you should care—he’s cute.”

“He’s probably looking at you,” I said, picturing Zack yet again and feeling the sad return. “Or looking at me and wishing I looked more like Kelsie Kirchner.”

“Will you stop with that?” Nekesa said, shooting me a glare that said she was over my lovesick whining. “Christ.”

And I got it. I’m sure it was super annoying to hang out with someone who couldn’t get over their ex, especially when Nekesa and her boyfriend were madly in love with each other.

Which was why I was so grateful for Eva and Emma; they didn’t mind my whining.

The three of us were so the same when it came to guys.

Last night, each of us posted an aesthetic video about the new Emily Henry book. It was a total coincidence, a coincidence that led to an hours-long group text where we commiserated about how much we’d loved the book and how unfair it was that her heroes didn’t exist in real life.

With Eva and Em, I didn’t feel like I had to get over my feelings. They were the friends who allowed me to wallow while also sending me playlists and F1 memes. They were the friends who shared my need to jump wholeheartedly into fictional romances, simply because escaping into the joy of what I didn’t have was somehow comforting and hopeful.

God, I wished I were in my room right now, rereading that Emily Henry book.

But—ahem—I wasn’t.

I glanced out of the corner of my eye in the direction of Jupiter, trying to be discreet as I looked for the dude Nekesa was referring to, but I couldn’t stop my loud gasp when I saw him.

It was impossible.

Impossible.

I squinted and craned my neck, but there was no denying the truth.

No, no, no, no, noooooo.

It couldn’t be. There was just no. Way.

Mr. Nothing.