Page 1 of All Bets Are Off

PROLOGUE

FIFTEEN YEARS AGO

Why did he have to be so cute?

I didn’t get it.

I didn’t like it.

All that dark hair flopping over his forehead? It was ridiculous. My Zac Efron loving heart found the other Zach—Zachary Stone—too much to look at. Sometimes when I stared at him, I could swear I felt my heart get bigger.

Did that mean I was going to die? Not to be dramatic or anything, but I could be theatrical with the best of them. Rachel McAdams had nothing on me. Those tears she cried inThe Notebook? Yeah, I could do them better. I knew every word to that movie, every sigh. Every smile warmed me to the tips of my toes. Sure, as I got older—I was a mature fifteen now after all—I’d started figuring out that threatening to kill himself because he wanted a date with the heroine was not the best way to go for the hero.

They were still swoony. Sadly, my mother thought I spent far too much time being swooned. Wait … is that a word? Can onebe swooned? I know someone can swoon, but I’m not sure on the other part. I’m making it a word, though. I’m swooned.

Zach, my brother’s best friend, was making me swoon.

I, Olivia Carter, was the queen of swoon.

Unfortunately, the object of my affection didn’t seem to realize I was alive.

“Earth to Olivia,” a loud voice blared in my ear, causing my green eyes to swing to my brother Rex. He had an impish look on his face.

“You’re in the way,” Rex said when I didn’t respond to him.

As older brothers went, for the record, he was the absolute worst. Just this morning he woke me up by farting in my face. He thought it was hilarious. Me? Not so much. What seventeen-year-old still did that? I was certain Zach didn’t do that. He was far too mature.

“What did you say?” I asked dumbly, tucking a strand of my dark hair behind my ear as I hoped beyond hope that I didn’t have anything stuck in my braces that might draw Zach’s attention. I was sitting in the corner of the basement writing my innermost thoughts in my journal, minding my own business. The karma gods had to smile on me today. I was being an angel. Fine, I was doodling Zach’s name over and over again. It’s the same thing, though.

“I said that you need to go,” Rex replied, his eyes—so much like my own, were full of annoyance. “Mom said we could have the basement today. That means you need to vamoose.”

It took me a moment to register his words, and when I did, I was annoyed. “You don’t own the basement,” I fired back. “There’s plenty of room for both of us.”

“No.” Rex wasn’t having it as he gestured toward the pool table on the far side of the space. There, Zach was perusing the pool cues—a hodgepodge of sticks that my father had collectedover the years that have seen better days—and he briefly glanced up when he saw I was yet to leave.

“No girls allowed,” Zach teased, his smile spreading across his entire face.

I couldn’t help but smile in return, showing off my ridiculous braces with the bright green rubber bands I’d gotten to match my eyes because Zach once mentioned it was a pretty color. Sure, he was making fun of me—he seemed to like doing that—but he was still smiling. When one person smiles at another, the correct response is to smile back.

“I’m not doing anything,” I said when Rex poked me again. He really was being the king of the tools today. “I’m just … working on a poem.” I don’t know why I said it. I didn’t like reading poetry, let alone writing it, but it seemed like something a mature individual would do. Zach would surely notice me if he thought I was more mature.

“You’re writing a poem?” Rex made a face and reached for my notebook.

I expected the move and slapped his hand away before he could grab it. I would be mortified—like die on the spot embarrassed—if he saw my doodles. What was worse was that he would show them to Zach, and then they would laugh at me in tandem.

Then, of course, I really would be the first person to die of embarrassment even though my mother said that wasn’t possible. It would be such a shock to the world that they’d actually engrave it on my tombstone.

See, Iamdramatic.

“Mind your own business,” I warned him, my eyes narrowing. “You’re already on thin ice.”

“How am I on thin ice?” Rex planted his hands on his hips. “I’m your favorite brother and you know it.”

“You’re my only brother,” I reminded him.

“I stand by what I said.”

“Just … mind your own business.” He was starting to bother me. Worse than that, he was starting to draw too much attention from Zach. I knew from past experience that if Zach and Rex ganged up on me together, I would spend the rest of my day pouting in my room. Then, when my mother checked on me, I would inevitably tell her why I was pouting. She would proceed to punish my brother, he would call me a narc and ice me out of all future hangout sessions with Zach, and the whole cycle would start all over again.

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