Page 111 of Betting on You

“Remember thoseDescendantsmovies? Where Mal spelled King Ben and made him fall in love with her?” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and said, “I bet Dana did that to Eli.”

“Because that’s the only logical explanation, right?”

“Exactly.” Charlie clicked into the Bluetooth to play his music and said, “By the way, since no one loves us and we have noprospects, do you want to go to our fall formals together?”

That made me snap my head toward him. “Are you serious right now?”

Was he serious? He wanted to go to both dancestogether? I’d been working so hard at knocking down my Charlie feelings; could I do the whole formal wear thing with him and not totally lose myself?

He nodded and said, “Sure. It’s senior year, so my mom will have a heart attack if I don’t go. I’m not into anyone, so at least if I go with you and vice versa, we know we’ll have fun, right?”

It sounded reasonable.

Reasonable, and like a recipe for a broken heart. So of course I said, “Sure. Yeah.”

You’re an idiot, Bailey.

“Cool,” he said, the same way he’d respond if I told him I wanted to stop at the gas station to use the restroom.

He turned onto L Street, and I wondered if it’d even entered his mind, the concept that I might be into him. He acted like nothing had changed between us since Colorado; did he truly believe that?

“By the way, I totally loved those movies when I was little,” I said, trying to be normal while visions of tuxedoed Charlie danced in my head.

“Descendants?” He grinned and said, “It’s probably uncool for me to admit, but so did I. The song with Mal and her dad was a banger.”

I was laughing when I said, “Did you really just say ‘banger’? And mean it in regard to ‘Do What You Gotta Do’?”

He gave a deep laugh and leaned back a little to dig into his pocket. “Baybay knows the name of the song. What a wank.”

“You’rea wank.”

“A wank who knows every word to that banger,” he said, grabbing an antacid tablet as I laughed at him.

That cracked me up, even as I agreed that I did too.

We stopped at Target on the way home, and Charlie made it an altogether different experience than it would’ve been with Dana.

For starters, he bought hot popcorn at the stand in the front of the store, because according to him, shopping was more fun with snacks. I was barely paying attention while he ordered, just people watching, but then I heard him ask for two small popcorns—one buttered, one plain—and then he asked for the bucket that the large came in so he could mix them together.

“I cannot believe you remember that,” I said in a low voice, mostly because the snack attendant looked super pissed about the request.

The smile he gave me, along with those crinkling dark eyes, pinched my heart just a little. “Who could forget about all of Glasses’s little quirks?”

The moment held for a half second, him smiling down at me while I grinned back, and then it changed. It felt like we were having some intimate exchange as we stared into each other’s eyes, and memories of his kisses immediately flooded into my mind.

“I’m out of buckets—is a big bag okay?” asked the attendant.

My head whipped around, and I realized my heart was pounding.

“That’s great, thanks,” Charlie said, and when he turned to me, his face was calm. Like hehadn’tfelt what I’d felt.

What the hell? Hehadto have felt it, right?

God, was I losing all ability to read chemistry?

“What are we here for, anyway?” he asked.

The whole reason I wanted to stop at Target was because there was a dress on clearance I had non-buyer’s remorse about. I told him about it, and as we grabbed a cart so he had something to lean on while we walked, he convinced me to try it on and get his opinion.

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