Page 71 of Betting on You

“Charlie?” I approached the men’s room and opened the door a crack. “Am I good to come in?”

“Yeah,” I heard him say.

I opened the door, and when I got inside, I found Charlie looking miserable. He watched me with one dark eyebrow raised, his hair tousled like he’d been dragging his hand through it. Oh, how I wanted to give him so much shit.

But I didn’t. I couldn’t.

I couldn’t help the lump in my stomach. Seeing Charlie being…un-Charlie was surprisingly unsettling.

I said, “First things first. Did you peeonyour keys?”

The corner of his mouth kicked up the tiniest bit. “Of course not.”

“And they’re…” I gestured with my chin to the urinal beside him.

“Yes.” He moved so I could see his keys sitting in the urinal. It looked clean-ish, and I was surprised he hadn’t just grabbed them. Yes, gas station urinals were beyond disgusting, but I’d pictured it much worse. He said, “I moved too fast when I ran in here and missed my pocket entirely.”

“Oof.” I stared at the urinal before shrugging and committing to the task at hand. “I’m going in.”

“Oh God,” he groaned, his strong nose crinkling like a little kid’s when presented with an unwanted vegetable. “So gross.”

And just then I wanted to hug Charlie. I knew nothing aboutwhyhe was physically incapable of sticking his hand into the dirty urinal, but I knew him well enough to know that he’d rather do just about anything than have someone witness what he surely perceived as a moment of “weakness.”

“Why don’t you go buy our snacks—because I’m the winner,” I said, hoping to make him smile. “And fill up the car. I’ll be out in just a sec.”

His eyes went serious again. “You sure? That’s pretty disgusting.”

I nodded. “It’s no big deal. Get me Twizzlers and a white Rockstar, please.”

“You got it.”

When I came out to the car a few minutes later, after bathing his keys in hot soapy water and then a follow-up hand sanitizer shower, he still looked conflicted. “Listen, Bay, about what happened—”

“I don’t care, Charlie,” I groaned. “Did you get my licorice?”

He got a crinkle between his eyebrows. “It’s in the front seat, in the console.”

“Sweet. And my energy drink?”

“Same place,” he said.

“Excellent.” I crossed my arms and said, “So, I don’t really want to drive; I just want radio control. Cool?”

He gave a nod. “Cool.”

We got into the car and hit the road, and we were quiet for a solid two minutes before Charlie said, “I feel like I need to—”

“You don’t.” I reached out my arm and stuck a Twizzler into his mouth, and watched his jaw as he immediately started chewingwithout question. “Never happened, unless youwantto talk about it, in which case I’m happy to listen. Now, on to more important things: Do you prefer country or pop?”

“Can I say neither?” he asked, taking one hand off the wheel to hold the end of the licorice. He looked away from the road for a second, his eyes sweeping over my face with a thoroughness that made me feel like he was looking for something.

“You can say it, but it won’t change the fact that those are your choices,” I explained, feeling my cheeks get hot.

He groaned before saying, “Pop, I guess.”

“Pop it is.” I took over the radio, searching for the most annoying music I could find, and time flew by as Colorado gave us a lot to look at. The aspens were bright yellow, dotted across the mountains that our highway wove through, and all of a sudden I remembered why people moved away from Nebraska and never came back.

The place was breathtaking.

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