Page 9 of Betting on You

The guy from the airport wasright there, atmysuburban 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 saidway too enthusiasticallyto Zack, “We’d better go.”

I wasn’t exactly sure why, but I didn’t want to have to share conversation with Mr. NothingandZack; 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 ofThe 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 dadstopped 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 toenjoysocializing 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 depressingmemories 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 thatI know everything about youlook 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. Howareyou?”

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?”

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