Page 19 of Betting on the Brainiac

Well, I’ve done my best friend duty. I’m about to disappear into the kitchen when Ruby emerges from the hallway, looking like the luckiest break Niles ever had in his life. Except he doesn’t see it.

“You look nice. Ready to go?” he asks.

She beams at him and nods.

Nice. The servers in Spenser’s with their immaculate suits look nice. Ruby looksdivine.

“Bye-bye, kids,” I say. “Have fun storming the castle.” Niles gives me a weird look. “The Princess Bride? Miracle Max?”

He shrugs.

Right. Charlie is the movie buff.

I keep my smile in place until the door closes behind them. “Sami?” I call, already racing toward the stairs. “I need Josh to advise me on all the legal ramifications of my five hundred plans to get rid of Niles.” I walk through her open bedroom door. “I’m going to need to borrow your balcony.”

Josh’s balcony is next to hers, and sitting out there on chilly winter nights and talking made them fall in love.

She pats the bed beside her. “Here, bestie. Sit down and we’ll figure this out.”

I dive into the spot and curl up against her side. “He doesn’t deserve her.”

“I need to practice not puking when she texts the picture of her ring and his smug face.”

“No kidding. Let the plotting commence.”

Two hours later, therehas been no text from Ruby, but Ava has joined us on Sami’s other side. Joey is stretched across the end of the bed, and Josh leans against the doorframe, listening to Sami and Joey argue about whether the Oliver/Gatsby’s situation is one of Ruby’s tricks.

“No way,” Joey is insisting. “That guy is a simp. Madison would chew him up and spit him out. Ruby wouldn’t try to set them up.”

“A simp?” Ava asks.

“A guy who goes overboard for a girl he likes, buying her stuff because he’s desperate,” Sami explains.

Ava’s eyes narrow at Joey. “You and I both had a first date on the same day. Oliver took me to the botanical gardens to listen to a plant lecture, and we got ice cream after. You drove your date an hour out to Fredericksburg for dinner at an expensive vineyard. ButOliveris the simp?”

Joey’s face gets very stubborn, but Josh heads off the rest of the argument.

“Neither of them are simps,” Josh says. “Joey is flashy and Oliver is thoughtful but neither of them is desperate.”

“Y’all are losing the plot,” I say. “It’s not a setup. Ruby told me Oliver isn’t my type, and she’s right.”

“Disagree,” Sami says. “It’s the whole princess situation.”

“The what?” Josh asks.

Joey grins. “You gotta hear this. Don’t you know you live next to royalty?”

I roll my eyes. “At best, I’m the daughter of pageant royalty. But apparently, for my parents, that counts.”

“Honey, you might want to sit for this,” Sami says. “I forgot you don’t know this story.”

Josh looks at me. “Sit down as in I’m going to be shocked?”

Ava shakes her head. “No, sit down as in Madison tells a long story.”

“It’s true,” I tell Josh. “I do love a spotlight. If I think a story will be too short, I’ll put three more stories in the middle of it so I can keep the mic.”

Josh plops down on the carpet beside the open door.

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