Page 84 of Betting on You

“Is that a goose?” I heard from behind me.

“Yes,” I said, also whispering for no apparent reason as I watched.

“Oh,” Charlie said calmly, as if this was no big deal. “Wow.”

The goose didnotappreciate Scott and started honking frantically while puffing up, hissing as he stared the man down.

Scott kept waving my boot, almost like he was trying to fan the goose, for God’s sake, and the man looked like an absolute moron.

But then itworked.

The goose took a couple of awkward steps before flapping those wings and flying right out the window.

Where glass had once been.

In an instant, the room seemed incredibly quiet.

And cold.

Scott dropped my boot and slowly walked toward the window.

“No,” my mom said, still talking quietly. “Scott. He could come back.”

That made him stop and look at her over his shoulder. “He’s not trying tokillus, Em.”

Charlie snorted behind me, which made me cough out a laugh.

My mom shuffled farther into the room, creeping toward Scott, who was looking out the window. His hands were on his hips as he surveyed the landscape below, and after a moment Scott said in a loud announcer voice, “The goose has left the building.”

“Listen, you two,” my mom said, her hair sticking up as she stood there in her nightgown. “I need your promise that you’re going to follow the rules.”

I didn’t look at Charlie—I couldn’t—as I stood there in my flannel duckie pajamas, holding my pillow to my chest.

“Of course we will,” I said, suddenly exhausted. “Even if we had bad intentions—which we don’t—there is no door to close. Noprivacy. I wouldn’t mack on some guy in the middle of the living room when anyone could walk in.”

“I’m sorry, did you just say ‘mack on’ again?” Charlie asked, a smirk in his voice. “I thought we killed that.”

“Hush,” I growled, just wanting to go back to sleep.

My mom said, “One of you can have the pullout sofa, and the other will have to sleep on the floor. There’s a pile of sheets and blankets over there, on the chair.”

After the goose’s exit, Scott—who was obviously the hero of the night whether I liked it or not—covered the window with cardboard and duct tape. The owner of the condo promised to have someone out to fix the window in the morning, but cold air poured through that hole so I was promptly relocated downstairs.

To the same living room where Charlie was sleeping on the pullout sofa.

Hence the rule paranoia.

“Well, then, good night,” my mom said, turning and heading for the stairs.

“Good night,” Charlie said in his super-nice kiss-ass voice. “Sweet dreams.”

“I want to vomit,” I said, shaking my head. “You are such a suck-up.”

“I like your mom,” he said, still sitting on the pullout bed, where he’d been since the goose incident. “And I want her to like me. Is that so wrong?”

“Nauseating, but not wrong,” I said, finding it a little sweet asI looked over at the blankets. “So which one of us gets the bed?”

His eyebrows went down. “You do. Duh.”

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