Page 120 of Betting on You

Thank you, Charlie.

Once we were inside his apartment, he carried me over to the sofa and dropped me on top of it. Before I could say a word, he looked down at me and said, “This is how tonight’s gonna go. You ready?”

That made me feel like smiling. “Ready.”

“I’m going to make a blanket fort in front of the TV, wherein I will entertain you with a marathon of my favorite terrible movies. We will eat garbage, have ice cream brought to us from DoorDash like we’re fucking kings, and we will not speak of things that shan’t be spoken of. Got it?”

I did smile then, even though his kindness sort of made me want to cry. “Got it.”

At that moment, the tiniest little white dog I’d ever seen hopped up onto the couch. I hadn’t even heard him before that moment, yet—there he was.

“Hey, puppy,” I said, reaching out a hand and petting his small head.

“Bailey, meet the Undertaker.”

I looked up at Charlie. “You’re kidding me. That tiny thing is the Undertaker?”

He just shrugged and walked away.

He went into the hallway to get blankets, and when he was there, he yelled, “Hey, what’s your mom’s number?”

I sighed, letting the dog climb onto my lap as I pictured my mom’s surprised face as I ditched her. “Seems like a creepy question.”

“I just want to text that you’re crashing here so she doesn’t worry,” he said. “And so you don’t have to do it yourself.”

I hadn’t thought far ahead enough to consider crashing at Charlie’s apartment, but I was too depressed to overthink it. I gave him the number and sighed. What was I going to do? I mean, obviously I had no choice regarding my mother’s marital status, but would I actually have tolivewith him and his kid? Would we move into Scott’s house?

Would I have to share a room with his daughter?

I felt the tears coming back as I thought about moving into a strange house with people I barely knew.

“Glasses.” Charlie came back into the living room with an armful of blankets, and he said, “Ditch the shoes and the dog, go get snacks in the kitchen, and when you come back, I’ll be ready for you.”

“Okay.” I took off my coat and shoes and went into the kitchen,impressed by Charlie’s apartment. It waswaynicer than ours, and the pantry was full of good snacks. I grabbed Twizzlers, Vic’s popcorn, a twelve-pack of Diet Pepsi, and a box of Twinkies.

When I came out, Charlie did an elaborate “Ta-da” reveal of his construction work. He’d used kitchen chairs and storage cubes to make a large portion of the living room into a fort. I watched him as he put two fluffy pillows inside, along with two down comforters.

“You made a floor bed?” I asked, blown away by this sweetness.

He crawled out and looked at my very full hands. “Nice selections, Glasses.”

“Thank you,” I said, pushing up my glasses with my wrist.

“You may enter my blanket fort.” Charlie pointed with both hands, gesturing like he was Vanna White with a prize package.

“You’re too kind.”

We climbed into the fort and piled the snacks between us as we stretched out on the blankets. In spite of my tumultuous emotions, I was very aware that I was lying down next to Charlie.

Been there, done that.

“So the first selection is one of my awful favorites.Napoleon Dynamite.”

“Oh my God.”

“I know.” He turned on the movie and immediately launched into hilarious commentary that had me cracking up, even more so than I usually did when I watched that movie (it was one of my awful favorites too). We shared snacks as we watched, and he almost made me forget about everything.

When the doorbell rang, Charlie crawled out of the fort andcollected our ice cream. A quart of vanilla for Charlie, a quart of chocolate for me, and we lay under the blankets and dug into that stash.

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