Me: True.
Charlie: After that I thought I could just carry you around all day like you’re a baby who doesn’t know how to walk.
That made me start laughing, all by myself in the dark. I texted: Can we be serious for two minutes?
Charlie: Doubt it but I’m listening.
Me: Is there anything I should know about you—or we should know about each other—as fake boyfriend/girlfriend?
Charlie: My favorite thing about you is the way you always bite the inside of your cheek when I tease you.
I made a noise in my throat and texted: what???
Charlie: For real. It’s like you don’t want me to know I got to you. But Glasses—the minute I see your move, it’s like the gauntlet has been thrown and I can’t stop until you’re smiling at me.
Another noise—something like a squeal—emanated from me, unbidden.
Because that was an incredible answer.
I tried to think of a snappy retort, some sarcastically charming something, but I couldn’t come up with anything.
What were words again?
I gasped when my phone buzzed.
Charlie:……？ No response?
I held the phone, but literally had no words.
Charming Charlie had rendered me speechless.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE Charlie
Goddammit.
I stared at the phone, waiting for Bailey to respond and wondering when in the hell I’d lost all common sense. Had I seriously just admitted to the one person in the world that didn’t mindfuck me on a regular basis that I liked making her smile?
I was a moron.
Yes, Charlie, you should absolutely admit that you like making her smile. That is a brilliant way to ensure your coworker exits your life.
The phone lit up in my hands.
Bailey: Well my favorite thing about you is the way your voice gets deep and crackly when you’re tired.
Well, shit. I rolled over, the bar of the pullout sofa totally digging into my back, and I texted: The only thing you like about me is my voice??
Bailey: Not what I said. I said it’s my FAVORITE thing, because you’re relaxed and mellow when your voice gets like that. Your edges soften a little.
My edges.
I wasn’t sure how she knew me so well, how she’d somehow always seen me.
I spent most of my time feeling like everyone in my life didn’t get me, yet there was Glasses, seeing right through me.
Bailey: Should I have a pet name for you?
I smiled in the darkness, wondering how best to irritate her. How about King?
Bailey: Gross
I pictured her eyebrows scrunching up as I texted: Lover?
Bailey: You’re making me queasy. I’ll just stick with Charlie.
I replied: Or Sex God?
Bailey: No one in the history of the world has ever used Sex God as a pet name. Can you even imagine?? Example: Can you pick up milk on the way home, Sex God? DOESN’T WORK.
I chuckled and texted: I would fucking speed to the milk store if you sent me that.
Bailey: The milk store?
I wanted to laugh as I replied: You’re biting your cheek right now, aren’t you?
Bailey: LMAO that is scary.
Me: But true.
Bailey: Sleep tight.
I smiled in the darkness. Good night, Lover.
Bailey: Good night… Sex God.
Oh. Fuck.
What was I doing?
CHAPTER THIRTY Bailey
It was hard to determine what sound—exactly—woke me up at one thirty.
It might’ve been the shattering of the glass, it might’ve been the squawking, or it might’ve been the wild wing flapping, but the goose flying through my window was definitely the culprit.
I jolted awake, sitting straight up, and I could see by the outside light’s illumination that something was in my room, freaking out in the darkness.
Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!
I was afraid to move because I didn’t want whatever it was to see me, but that was a moot point when Scott threw open my door and said, “What the hell was that?”
He flipped on the light, and—holy shit—there was a goose in my room.
There was a huge goose standing in front of the now shattered window, squealing maniacally （if that was possible） and kind of hissing.
“Oh my God,” my mom yelled from behind him as I leaped from the bed and ran toward the doorway. She grabbed me and pushed me behind her, as if to protect me from the bird, as she said, “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I said, staring over her shoulder.
The bird must’ve flown right through the window, and even though it was dark, he didn’t look injured.
Just pissed.
Again—if that was even possible.
I didn’t think I’d ever had an interaction with a goose before, so my goose knowledge was minuscule.
Scott, wearing boxers and his dumb socks, leaned down and picked up one of my tall boots. I watched in disbelief as he crept closer to the goose, like he was trying to sneak up on it, and for a second I wondered if he was going to bludgeon the goose to death with the lefty member of my favorite pair of boots.
But then he started waving it around, waving it in the direction of the bird.
“Scott,” my mom scolded, whispering for some reason, “what are you doing?”
“Is that a goose?” I heard from behind me.
“Yes,” I said, also whispering for no apparent reason as I watched.
“Oh,” Charlie said calmly, as if this was no big deal. “Wow.”
The goose did not appreciate Scott and started honking frantically while puffing up, hissing as he stared the man down.
Scott kept waving my boot, almost like he was trying to fan the goose, for God’s sake, and the man looked like an absolute moron.
But then it worked.
The goose took a couple of awkward steps before flapping those wings and flying right out the window.
Where glass had once been.
In an instant, the room seemed incredibly quiet.
And cold.
Scott dropped my boot and slowly walked toward the window.
“No,” my mom said, still talking quietly. “Scott. He could come back.”
That made him stop and look at her over his shoulder. “He’s not trying to kill us, Em.”
Charlie snorted behind me, which made me cough out a laugh.
My mom shuffled farther into the room, creeping toward Scott, who was looking out the window. His hands were on his hips as he surveyed the landscape below, and after a moment Scott said in a loud announcer voice, “The goose has left the building.”
* * *
“Listen, you two,” my mom said, her hair sticking up as she stood there in her nightgown. “I need your promise that you’re going to follow the rules.”
I didn’t look at Charlie—I couldn’t—as I stood there in my flannel duckie pajamas, holding my pillow to my chest.
“Of course we will,” I said, suddenly exhausted. “Even if we had bad intentions—which we don’t—there is no door to close. No privacy. I wouldn’t mack on some guy in the middle of the living room when anyone could walk in.”
“I’m sorry, did you just say ‘mack on’ again?” Charlie asked, a smirk in his voice. “I thought we killed that.”
“Hush,” I growled, just wanting to go back to sleep.
My mom said, “One of you can have the pullout sofa, and the other will have to sleep on the floor. There’s a pile of sheets and blankets over there, on the chair.”