Page 80 of Betting on You

“Do you want spaghetti or fettuccini?”

I heard him mutter something to my mom—they were in the living room—before he said with a smile in his voice, “Spaghetti, please.”

“Told you,” Charlie said, grabbing a box of pasta from the cupboard.

“I really would’ve pegged him as a fettuccini man.”

“When he’s alone,” he said in a quiet voice, “I bet he’s all about the elbows.”

“That sicko,” I said, sticking a spoon into Charlie’s sauce to slurp off another sample before dropping it into the sink beside my other four sampling spoons.

When we’d gotten back to the condo, Scott and my momgreeted us at the door with a list of ground rules. He didn’t look mad, though, which really took me by surprise. Of course, when he saidOnce it’s lights-out, you’re not allowed to leave your roomand Charlie snorted, that made him glare, but he still seemed pretty stuck in the “happy vacationer” role.

Which I didn’t want for the sake of our plan, but for my mom’s sake, it was probably good for the first night.

After the listing of the rules, they gave us a tour of the place, and everyone got in a surprisingly good mood.

Charlie shocked the hell out of me by volunteering us to make dinner.

“If you two want to relax, Bailey and I can make dinner. It takes no time for me to whip up a batch of my mom’s quick spaghetti sauce—you’ve got the ingredients in the pantry—and I’m sure Bay can handle boiling a pot of water.”

Scott and my mom looked at us like we’d offered them millions, and I looked at Charlie like he’d lost his mind.

So we were off to a good start.

“This is really good,” I said, a little shocked that Charlie could make a spaghetti sauce from scratch.

“I’m pretty sure my Italian grandmother taught me to sauce when I was a toddler,” he said, pulling a roll of TUMS out of his pocket and popping one into his mouth.

“Prodigy.” I grabbed the pasta from Charlie, opened the box, and dropped it into the boiling water. “Do you still see her a lot?”

He gave me a look as he chewed. “Now is not the time.”

“To talk about grandmothers?”

“To remind me of shitty things.” He opened the utensil drawer, pulled out a big fork, and handed it to me. “Also, this is for stirring, not stabbing.”

“Thank you.” I took it from him and said, “Why are you always popping TUMS, by the way?”

Something crossed his face as he said, “What?”

He looked guilty or surprised or… I don’t know… something.

“You’re always eating antacids, Sampson.”

“Oh, that.” He shrugged and said, “I get heartburn sometimes.”

“It’s just heartburn sometimes?” I asked, not wanting to pry but alsoreallywanting to know more about him. “Then why did you look all weird when I mentioned TUMS?”

“Can you shut up about my afflictions, weirdo?” He gave me a patented Charlie smirk and said, “Now please hand me the garlic salt, Nosy.”

“Are you sick?” I asked, hating the thought of that.

“Of your line of questioning?” He stirred the pot and said, “Absolutely. But physically? No.”

I gave him the garlic salt. “You’re a very complex fellow.”

“Don’t I know it,” he said, and then started barking orders like he was the head chef.

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