Page 76 of Betting on You

When we finally pulled into Breckenridge, the town all lit up with twinkling lights in the darkness, we devised a plan. I was going to go into the condo and tell my mom that Charlie was with me, not Nekesa, and he was going to wait in the car for five minutes. Hopefully my mother could lessen the initial blow to Scott, and we could get on with the weekend.

Shit, shit, shit.How on earth was I going to tell her? It occurred to me at that moment that we’d all been idiotic teenagers to think this was a good idea. They were going tofreakthat I’d brought a boy, and they were going todouble-freakthat the boy was Charlie.

What in God’s name had I been thinking?

And I was a dick. I was a total dick for tricking my mom. Because messing with Scott’s happiness was whatever, but messing with my mom’s was something else entirely. We were a team, just she and I, and we’d never snuck around and lied to each other.

Shit, shit, shit, what the hell have I done?

“Relax,” Charlie said as he looked for a parking spot. “I can almosthearyour internal freak-out.”

“Because this was a terrible idea,” I said loudly. “What the hell was I thinking?”

“Breathe,” he said, and when I glanced over at him, something about the reassuring look on his face made me calm down just a little. “It’s going to be fine.”

“I doubt it,” I said, nodding, “but I’m going to go with that.”

As he drove in the direction of the condo, I realized thatCharlie—Charlie Sampson, Mr. Nothing—had made me feel calm. Yes, we were becoming better friends, but certain moments felt bigger somehow.

He found a parking spot across the street from the condo, and after ten minutes of panicked breathing, I unbuckled and got out of the car.

“Wish me luck,” I said, my hands shaking.

“Good luck,” he sang in a silly voice. “Don’t fuck it up, Glasses.”

“Shut up,” I sang right back.

After I walked around to the back of the building, I found their door—unlocked—so I pushed it open and stepped inside. “Hello? Mom?”

I walked through what appeared to be the laundry room and into the kitchen, which was all unfinished rustic wood, and I couldn’t believe my eyes.

The condo was incredible.

The living room had high ceilings with big wood beams, andone entire wall was a stone fireplace that happened to have a fire burning inside of it that very minute. The furniture was brown leather, and the place felt like a ski chalet.

I loved it.

“Bay?” I heard my mother yell from upstairs. “Is that you?”

“Yep,” I yelled back, my momentary distraction giving way to the nervous fear that’d been there first. “We just got here.”

“That was fast,” she said, and I heard her feet coming down the stairs. “I can’t believe you’re here already.”

She hopped off the last step and grabbed me in a hug, and I could almostfeelhow relaxed she was. Guilt washed over me like a wave as I realized I was about to ruin that, and I rambled, “We actually left earlier than planned because we didn’t want to do the mountain roads in the dark.”

“Good idea.” She glanced behind me and asked, “Where’s Nekesa?”

“Yeah, um,” I said, grabbing her elbow and pulling her closer so we could talk quietly. “About that. There was a slight change of plan.”

“What happened?” she asked, looking worried.

God, I was such a piece of shit, because my mother looked super concerned about the welfare of everyone when I was about to spring an unwelcome surprise on her. I looked at her raised eyebrows and big blue eyes and hated what I was about to tell her.

“Well, um, Nekesa got grounded last night and couldn’t come. I didn’t want to drive here all alone,” I said, so nervous that every word was hard to say, “so I brought adifferentfriend.”

“Oh?” She still looked happy and chill. “Who?”

Clearly she was waiting for me to say someone who was a girl and also not her boyfriend’s least favorite teenager.

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