Page 144 of Betting on You

You have no right,I thought. He had no right to say my name like that, like he’d been hoping to see me. He had no right to look at me with his eyebrows up. He had no right to make me ache for him.

“G’night, Charlie,” I yelled, pushing the door and going outside.

The cool air pricked at my warm face as I looked for my Uber driver in the darkness. The downtown area smelled like spicy food and fire pits, and I tried to calm my racing nerves. So Charlie was there in a gorgeous suit—no big deal, right?

Surely his presence had nothing to do with me.

“Bailey.” The sound of his voice hit me right in the middle of my chest, pinching my heart and filling me with longing for… something.

I turned around and there he was, looking like everything I’d been missing as he stood there in his black jacket, his gaze intense. I didn’t know why he was there, but I wanted it to be for me at the same time I wanted him to disappear. I breathed in through my noise and said, “What?”

He came closer, so close that I could smell the Irish Spring soap I knew he used because he’d left it in the shower at the condo in Breckenridge. His face was unreadable—closed off and serious—as he said, “I need to make things okay with us.”

I shook my head and shrugged, looking over his shoulder because it was too hard to see his face. I had perfect memories of that strong nose, of those chocolate eyes, and remembering it all still destroyed me. “It’s too late, Charlie.”

“Please don’t say that,” he said, looking down at my dress distractedly, like he was gathering his thoughts, and then his eyes came back to mine. He put a hand on the front of his coat and said, “I miss my best friend. I missyou.The whole reason I ignored my feelings for you and what went down in the blanket fort that nightwas because I was scared ofthishappening. How’s that for irony?”

“It’s not irony at all. You made a bet and got caught; that’s called a consequence.” I sighed, wondering when everything with Charlie was going to start hurting less, and I said, “It doesn’t matter.”

“Yes, it does.” He looked intense, like he was trying to convince me, and then he made a groaning sound and put both of his hands over a different spot on his jacket. “I’ve never had a good relationship—ever. They all go to shit in a big way. So when I started falling for you, I forced myself to ignore it, to deny it, because I couldn’t stand the thought of losing you from my life if we got together and then split up.”

“You thoughthurtingme—and ignoring me—would ensure you’d never lose me?” I was pretty sure he was just bullshit spitballing an excuse to get me to forgive him. “You’re smarter than that, Charlie—come on.”

“I know.” He sighed and said, “I thought if I could just avoid you until I had a plan, then I could fix things. But then…”

He trailed off, and I knew we were both thinking the same thing.

“The bet.”

“The bet had nothing to do with anything—ever; swear to God. It was just Theo being Theo.” He flexed and unflexed his jaw while he looked down at me. “You and I, though—we wereus.”

“Us?” I asked breathily, wanting so badly to believe him.

“Magical, comfortable, Colorado us,” he said, his voice a little scratchy. “We were everything together.”

I shoved my hands into the pockets of my dress, confused as I felt a tiny frisson of hope streak through me.

“Do you know how long ago I fell for you?” He looked like he found himself ridiculous as he said, “I think I fell for you that day at Zio’s, when you showed me the proper way to eat pizza.”

“You called it pizza desecration,” I said, not really even registering what my mouth was saying as I looked at his serious gaze and long eyelashes.

He shook his head, like the memory still baffled him. “I remember watching your face as you patiently explained it to me, and I thought,How can someone be so interesting and irritating, all at the same time?”

Was that supposed to be a compliment?

“And then I tried it,” he said, his eyebrows scrunching together like he was looking at an equation that didn’t make sense. “I tried it with the sole intention of mocking you, but then the flavors hit and you were spot-on and I realized just howuniqueyou are.”

“Unique,” I repeated numbly, still unsure of his point.

“Bailey, you are, hands down, the most engaging person I’ve ever known.”

My heartbeat skittered in my chest as he spoke the words like he reallyhadfallen for me. “Engaging?”

“Wholly.” His eyes burned into mine and he said, “When you’re in the room, every single cell in my body—every nerve, every muscle, every breath—is lost in you.”

My knees literally went weak, as in I felt like I was about to collapse.

A car honked, which made Charlie hiss out the word “Christ,”and I looked away from him and saw my Uber. The guy gestured with his hands like he didn’t have all night, so I dizzily—hazily, numbly—said, “That’s my Uber.”

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