“Bailey Glasses Mitchell, are you telling me,” I asked, smirking and using my index finger to poke the tip of her nose, “that you don’t even know the meaning of the word ‘charming’？”
She said around a breathy laugh, “I just know that you are not it.”
We were both grinning, and for some reason, I felt an invisible string pulling me closer to her as she smiled up at me.
“For someone who I recall having unflinchingly rigid rules about line cutting,” I said, not moving as the crinkle of her nose did something to my stomach, “your reaction was surprisingly lax.”
“Yeah, um,” she said, her voice suddenly a breath away from a whisper, “I think the airport situation had more to do with the cutter than the cutting.”
“Did it, now?” I said, fighting the urge to lean closer. But, fuck. I wanted to lean closer.
Only… this was Bailey.
We were at work.
There was definitely an undercurrent of electricity in the very small space that existed between the two of us—shit, shit, shit—which is what made me take a step back and say, “Time for me to go kick some whippersnapper ass.”
“Yes,” she said, blinking fast and clearing her throat as she turned back to the computer. “Go kill some whippersnapper ass.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE Bailey
Kill whippersnapper ass???
Dear God, I was a bumbling idiot.
I went to the back room to get another ream of printer paper while Charlie headed toward World of Water, and every cell in my body was misfiring as I tried remaining calm. My cheeks were hot and my stomach was wild with butterflies as I crouched to reach the bottom shelf.
Charlie had been flirting with me.
Charlie Sampson had been flirting with me, and I’d been flirting back.
Holy shit.
I had liked flirting with Charlie.
Holy shit, holy shit!
What did it mean?
The tiny exchange kept replaying in my head as I loaded the printer. The smirk, the gravelly sound of his voice when he’d said Did it, now?, the way I’d been leaning closer to him as he touched my nose.
What in the actual fuck??
I wanted to text Nekesa, but she was suddenly the last person whose opinion I wanted about workplace flirtations. I was in a lather as I threw myself into busywork, wondering what Charlie wanted and what I wanted and what about Zack and what about Becca and dear God it was Charlie! I took a deep breath, happy to be distracted as Nekesa and Theo returned. But a second later Charlie reappeared, looking absolutely casual and normal as he popped a pink TUM into his mouth and said, “Problem solved.”
I cracked open the stapler and started filling it, forcing my eyes to stay on that task. “What’d you do?”
He came around the desk and said, “Kicked a little tail.”
I snorted and focused on the staples. “Meaning you said ‘Stop it’？”
He clicked into reservations on his computer, not even looking in my direction. “Meaning I pretended to talk to the kid while the rich lady watched me from the other side of the pool. I didn’t actually say a word.”
“Wow—such a powerful man,” I said, closing the stapler.
“Right?” he replied.
I did glance up then, and Charlie was looking at me. I couldn’t read his expression, but I somehow felt marginally better when he teased in the usual Charlie way, “You owe me for taking care of it, Glasses.”
“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 and walked 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 trip together?
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? I wanted her 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 for him?
She continued trying to sell me with, “We thought it’d be nice to see in October, when the leaves are starting to turn. Just a little three-day getaway. What do you think?”