I tried not to laugh.
“And,” he said, smiling just a little, “since it’s considered rude to shout WHO ASKED YOU TO in someone’s face, I had to keep it all inside my tiny heart.”
I did start laughing then. “Who asked you to—great line.”
“It was either that or Get the hell out of my bowling alley.”
I was cracking up as he started the car and pulled out of the parking lot. “I mean, at least she addressed you. I was pretty much invisible to Eli all night long.”
“I think she spelled him,” Charlie said.
“What?”
“Remember those Descendants movies? Where Mal spelled King Ben and made him fall in love with her?” He pulled his phone out of his pocket and said, “I bet Dana did that to Eli.”
“Because that’s the only logical explanation, right?”
“Exactly.” Charlie clicked into the Bluetooth to play his music and said, “By the way, since no one loves us and we have no prospects, do you want to go to our fall formals together?”
That made me snap my head toward him. “Are you serious right now?”
Was he serious? He wanted to go to both dances together? I’d been working so hard at knocking down my Charlie feelings; could I do the whole formal wear thing with him and not totally lose myself?
He nodded and said, “Sure. It’s senior year, so my mom will have a heart attack if I don’t go. I’m not into anyone, so at least if I go with you and vice versa, we know we’ll have fun, right?”
It sounded reasonable.
Reasonable, and like a recipe for a broken heart. So of course I said, “Sure. Yeah.”
You’re an idiot, Bailey.
“Cool,” he said, the same way he’d respond if I told him I wanted to stop at the gas station to use the restroom.
He turned onto L Street, and I wondered if it’d even entered his mind, the concept that I might be into him. He acted like nothing had changed between us since Colorado; did he truly believe that?
“By the way, I totally loved those movies when I was little,” I said, trying to be normal while visions of tuxedoed Charlie danced in my head.
“Descendants?” He grinned and said, “It’s probably uncool for me to admit, but so did I. The song with Mal and her dad was a banger.”
I was laughing when I said, “Did you really just say ‘banger’？ And mean it in regard to ‘Do What You Gotta Do’？”
He gave a deep laugh and leaned back a little to dig into his pocket. “Baybay knows the name of the song. What a wank.”
“You’re a wank.”
“A wank who knows every word to that banger,” he said, grabbing an antacid tablet as I laughed at him.
That cracked me up, even as I agreed that I did too.
We stopped at Target on the way home, and Charlie made it an altogether different experience than it would’ve been with Dana.
For starters, he bought hot popcorn at the stand in the front of the store, because according to him, shopping was more fun with snacks. I was barely paying attention while he ordered, just people watching, but then I heard him ask for two small popcorns—one buttered, one plain—and then he asked for the bucket that the large came in so he could mix them together.
“I cannot believe you remember that,” I said in a low voice, mostly because the snack attendant looked super pissed about the request.
The smile he gave me, along with those crinkling dark eyes, pinched my heart just a little. “Who could forget about all of Glasses’s little quirks?”
The moment held for a half second, him smiling down at me while I grinned back, and then it changed. It felt like we were having some intimate exchange as we stared into each other’s eyes, and memories of his kisses immediately flooded into my mind.
“I’m out of buckets—is a big bag okay?” asked the attendant.
My head whipped around, and I realized my heart was pounding.
“That’s great, thanks,” Charlie said, and when he turned to me, his face was calm. Like he hadn’t felt what I’d felt.
What the hell? He had to have felt it, right?
God, was I losing all ability to read chemistry?
“What are we here for, anyway?” he asked.
The whole reason I wanted to stop at Target was because there was a dress on clearance I had non-buyer’s remorse about. I told him about it, and as we grabbed a cart so he had something to lean on while we walked, he convinced me to try it on and get his opinion.
I took it into a fitting room, and one second after I closed the door, a piece of popcorn landed on my head. I brushed it off, reached for the button on my jeans, and said, “Knock it off, Sampson.”
“I don’t like being bored,” he said from his spot somewhere outside my door, “and shooting for your little room gives me a challenge.”
Another piece of popcorn fell onto the bench beside me.
I picked it up and tossed it over the wall. “Was I close?”
“That was weak, Mitchell,” he said. “If I were you, I’d stand on that bench and get a visual. That way you’ve got a better shot of hitting me.”
“You’re just trying to get me to look like an idiot, standing on the bench and peeking over like a child,” I said, wondering how Charlie could be so much more fun than everyone else.
As I wondered that, a piece of popcorn landed on my head. Again.
I changed into the dress while popcorn rained down on me, and then I stepped up onto the bench.
And when I looked over the door, he was standing right beside it. Like, actually leaning on it.
“That’s not a challenge.” I laughed, surprised to be looking down at his upturned face. “You’re basically just dropping them into my room because you’re a giant. Lazy.”
“Come out and show me your bargain dress,” he said, grinning up at me.
“Okay,” I said, feeling that familiar something as I hopped down and came out of the fitting room.
“I like the dress,” he said, his eyes all over me, and then he did a motion with his finger, telling me to spin around.
I did, and he nodded in appreciation. “Reminds me of something a little kid would wear to recess. Buy it.”
“I’m not sure that’s the aesthetic I was going for,” I said, looking at it in the mirror.
“Okay, then—it reminds me of something that would assure a principal that a new student was a nice girl.”
“Oh my God,” I said, turning to see the back. “I don’t think I want this dress anymore.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” he said, tilting his head a little and crossing his arms. “I’ve got it. It looks like something the weird best friend would wear in a rom-com.”
“If you’re trying to convince me to buy it, you suck at this,” I said, going back into the fitting room to change.
“I am begging you to buy it,” he said, and my heart nearly stopped at the growly sound of his voice. I stood there, frozen in front of the mirror, overanalyzing his comments as was my new normal.
“Is that what that was?” I asked slowly, trying to sound careless and light.
“You know what it was,” he said, sounding almost… defeated by the words.