Page 57 of Betting on You

“I don’t think I do,” I quipped, trying to gauge the situation.

“She was going to destroy you, so I took one for the team andwalked all the way down to World of Water, just to save your ass.” He shook his head and added, “I’ll accept a crisp twenty-dollar bill or a Snickers bar from the machine; either-or works for me.”

“Yeah, I actually think you earned a big bag of squat or a box of air,” I said, going around him to fill the other stapler. “Either-or works for me.”

I heard him laugh, and then everything reset in normal mode.

I convinced myself that the entire episode was a product of low blood sugar because I’d forgotten to eat before work.

All in the imagination.

Right?

That night, after I got home from work, my mom and Scott were sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for me. They were all happy smiley, super excited, which immediately made my stomach fill with dread.

“Hey, guys—what’s up?” I dropped my bag in the entryway, slid out of my shoes, and went over to the fridge. “Just finish a rousing game of Chutes and Ladders or something?”

They both laughed, way too excitedly, and then my mom said, “Scott has a surprise for us.”

I opened the refrigerator door and looked inside, seeing nothing as I waited for the surprise that I just knew I was going to hate. “Yeah?”

“Fall break is next week,” she said, “and since you’re already going to be out of school, Scott thought—”

“Whaddya say we go to Breckenridge?” Scott interrupted, beaming as if he’d just announced they’d won the lottery.

“What?” I closed the door to the fridge, and my chest got tight as they looked at me expectantly.

I’d never skied, and my mother had never skied, so I wasn’t sure what exactly their plan was. Scott’s daughter (who wasn’t Kristy—yayyyyy) would also be out of school; were they trying to get us all to go on a triptogether?

Because no—that wasn’t happening.

I felt dizzy as nervousness and dread came at me fast, fear of their intentions hitting me like a punch. Were they trying to start the Brady Bunch transition with this? Was this “trip” the beginning of something?

Everyone I knew had been to Breck, and it sounded amazing. Charming mountain village, picturesque cabins—I’d always wanted to go there, to be honest. But I wasn’t about to let Scott think he could take us all on some family vacation like we were a family.

God, I was getting that suffocated feeling again just looking at the two of them, smiling at me. Because my mom looked so fucking happy. What was I supposed to do with that? Iwantedher happy; I wanted her to be happier than she’d ever been in her life.

But at what cost?

Scott posed a threat to the comfort in my life. Not comfort as in something that pampers, like nice sheets or soft slippers, but comfort as in the part of your life that provides healing. The part of your life that you can relax and take some kind of comfort from when the rest of the world is on fire.

The part of your life that you can burrow into.

Our life—the one we’d carved out post-dad and pre-Scott—was the comfort.

Which made Scott the anti-comfort.

The potential agent of change in a place that desperately wanted to remain unchanged.

Shit.

“Scott rented a condo that is right on the main street, with a balcony that comes out on the roof of a restaurant,” my mom said, her voice rising as if nothing had ever sounded this fun before. She ran a hand through her long blond hair, and it occurred to me as I looked at her that I hadn’t even noticed that she was wearing it down.

What the hell was with that?

She was all ponytail, all the time.

Now she was wearing her hair down? Was this forhim?

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