I looked at him, and he gave me an obnoxious eyebrow waggle. “You might want to consider sliding a single into my rhetorical thong on this one, Glasses.”
“I’m queasy now—thanks a lot.”
“Do you have a buck, Bailey?” Clio asked me. “Because he might be right. I know Michael Scott’s got Bubble Wrap, but I can’t remember what else.”
I couldn’t. I couldn’t pay Charlie when he was looking so smug, and when he started chanting “Pay the Chuck, pay the Chuck”—and everyone joined in with him, I had to take a stand.
“We don’t need to pay the Chuck,” I said, looking at Charlie and raising my eyebrows. “Michael Scott’s foot was wrapped with clear plastic Bubble Wrap, and that is all.”
“Judges?” Charlie asked, and I did a double take at his face. He looked very pleased, so I knew I’d made a mistake.
“Bailey is right,” the blond girl with the answer card in her hand said. “It is wrapped in Bubble Wrap.”
“Boom,” I said.
“But,” she added, dropping the card and grinning. “That Bubble Wrap is held in place by clear packing tape.”
“That’s not a wrapping,” I yelled, arguing as the room exploded into laughter and noise. “Tape isn’t part of the wrapping; it’s the adhesive.”
Charlie shook his head, laughing, and said, “Why didn’t you listen to me?”
“Because I’d rather sing on a table than let you be right,” I replied.
“Get up and come on,” Clio said to me, smiling a tipsy grin. “We’re up.”
“I mean, I’m just here with Charlie,” I tried as she grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet. “As a guest. I shouldn’t be subjected to the same—”
“Come on,” she said, pulling me toward the dining room.
“Charlie,” I said, looking back at him. “Shouldn’t you save me?”
“I tried,” he said, smiling, “but you didn’t want to dip into the proverbial G-string.”
“What song?” Clio asked, using a remote to turn on the karaoke machine after we climbed on top of the dining room table.
Everyone started yelling out suggestions, and then Charlie said, “？‘All Too Well.’ The ten-minute version.”
CHAPTER NINETEEN Charlie
Everyone cheered, and Bailey looked at me like she wanted to stab me in the face. Her eyes narrowed and her brows went down, and it occurred to me that I was 100 percent comfortable with her glaring at me.
I kind of liked it, to be honest.
Getting under her skin was my new favorite hobby.
What she didn’t get this time, however, was that I was doing her a favor by choosing that song.
The music started, and again—everyone cheered.
But then—as I’d suspected—the entire house started singing along with Clio and Bailey. It was like a Taylor yell-along that everyone was totally into.
You almost ran the red ’cause you were looking over at me.
Bailey was smiling and laughing, sharing the microphone with Clio, and I was a little impressed by the way she was rolling with it. I would’ve expected Miss Hall Monitor to be intensely nervous, but she actually looked relaxed.
“I thought you said she was a dork,” Eli said, grabbing the spot on the couch beside me. “She’s hot.”
I glanced at Eli, and he was watching her, smiling, and something about it felt wrong.
“I never said she was a dork.” I went back to watching the entertainment, and Bailey was kind of yelling now, her nose scrunched up. “Fuck the patriarchy” / Key chain on the ground. “I said she was uptight and a little nerdy.”
“Well, it works for her,” he said, and I didn’t like the way he said it. As if her looks were the most important thing about her.
What the hell was wrong with me?
Chill the fuck out. I needed to chill the fuck out. The only reason Eli’s attitude was hitting wrong was because I felt protective of Bay.
That was it.
Eli was fine.
“Yeah,” I agreed. She might’ve been hella irritating, but she did look really fucking cute, dancing around on top of the table.
It was a little disconcerting, to be honest.
Just as I was thinking that, she looked at me. Her eyes got squinty as she grinned and sang, which made me smile back, and then she screwed up the words. She sang the wrong word—never lovely jewel—loud as fuck into the microphone, and I don’t know what my face did, but it made her start laughing.
And something about it got to me.
Which was why I was laughing and singing along like a fucking chump when I shot a quick glance over my shoulder and caught the amused smiles being exchanged between Becca and Kyle as they entered the party.
Fuck me.
CHAPTER TWENTY Bailey
I was in the middle of laughing my ass off—while singing—when I saw it happen.
One minute Charlie was giving me a funny grin and singing along to “All Too Well,” and the next his face completely changed.
His smile disappeared like a door slamming shut, and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed. I looked back at the couple who’d just walked in behind him, and—holy crap—it was her. The gorgeous girl from the movie theater.
Charlie’s ex-girlfriend.
Just as fast as his face had changed, it changed back. Charlie turned his attention back to me and smirked, but it didn’t touch his eyes. I was glad the song was ending, because I didn’t want to sing it anymore.
It felt like the worst possible accompaniment to seeing your ex with her new boyfriend.
“Thank you very much, Omaha,” Clio said into the microphone, grinning at me as she added, “And I pray to God we won’t be back up here again this evening.”
She dropped the microphone, and we jumped down from the table to a smattering of applause.
“That was awful,” Eli said, slow-clapping and smiling from his spot next to Charlie on the sofa. “But ten out of ten, would recommend.”
“Gee, thanks,” I replied, but my eyes were on Charlie as he looked uncomfortable. He was all cool with his ankles crossed and his arm resting over the back of the couch and lips turned up into a smile, but his discomfort showed in the tightness of his jaw and the dullness of his stare.
Just as I sat down beside him, Becca and her boyfriend walked up.
Shit.
The guy grinned down at Charlie and said, “Sampson—how’s it going?”
The guy—like the rest of the world—seemed genuinely happy to see Charlie.
Charlie’s ex-girlfriend did too. She smiled. Warmly. Like he was an old friend. It was a happy, kind, entirely unaffected smile, and I imagined that smile, coupled with her fingers linked between her boyfriend’s, had to feel very super shitty. I couldn’t help but feel bad for Charlie.
“Your mom knows,” Charlie said, a smirk on his face that told everyone he was kidding and they were buddies and ha-ha-ha it’s a “your mom” joke. “Ask her.”
The guy started cracking up and Charlie’s ex smiled, and I was surprised that I seemed to be the only one who could see his words for what they were. Everyone thought Charlie was hilarious, but he used humor and snark as a total defense mechanism.