Page 15 of Betting on the Best Friend
“I will reevaluate if presented with other Eds, Madame Science,” I tell her.
“So he was vanilla.” Madison sounds extremely pleased with this verdict and curls into Oliver’s side on the sofa.
“Good quality vanilla,” I say. There’s nothing wrong with Ed. He just wasn’t right.
“Still vanilla.”
“Yes.”
“Verdict on the double date?” Ava asks.
I consider this. “Overall, fine? But it also felt like Sami was grading everything in her head, trying to figure out howshewas doing in y’all’s bet. That was weird.”
“Observer effect,” Ava muses. “We’ll have to see how much being watched changed your behavior.”
“Can’t be measured,” I object. “There’s no way to say how it might have gone if Sami and Josh weren’t there.”
“I don’t like relying on anecdotal evidence,” Ava concedes, “but it’s all we’ve got. I’ll ask Sami how it looked to her as the observer and that will give me more information. But mostly I’ll have to rely on your self-reported experience tomorrow.”
“Why tomorrow?” I ask, suspecting I know the answer.
“That’s your next date,” she says. “I’ve picked my first candidate from the app, and I like my chances.”
Joey makes a rude noise. “Pick your own dudes and succeed or fail on your own like anyone else.”
“No.” I manage not to stick my tongue out at him.
Ava waves a hand toward me like,See?
“If you don’t want to date, why even bother going on the ones they’re picking?” he argues.
“Do you want your sister to be alone forever?” Madison demands.
“Is the alternative Niles? Then yes,” he says.
“Why is everyone else more hung up on him than I am?” I ask. “He’s in the rearview mirror. And since I picked him, I’m fine with someone else picking this time.”
Joey sits back against the sofa and sighs.
Ava takes it as a sign he’s done objecting. “Tomorrow, you go out with Colton. You’ll like him.”
“Why do you say that like youknowit?” Madison asks. “You don’t know.”
“I do know,” Ava says. “I’m science-ing the sh—”
“We get it,” I cut her off, knowing she’s going to finish her favorite Mark Watney quote fromThe Martian. We’ve all heard it enough in the last six months since Joey made us watch it for a movie night because he couldn’t believe Ava hadn’t seen it. She’d held out on account of fake science driving her crazy, but now that she’s seen it, she’s obsessed in her Ava-like way. She says she’s going to make us all go on a road trip so we can listen to the author’s other space book before the movie comes out. As if a librarian—even one who loves films—would ever see the movie before reading the book.
“How have you scienced this?” I ask. “I’m assuming you posted my picture in the app. Which app? And why that app? And is this guy going to be confused when I don’t know anything about him?”
Madison drops a kiss on Oliver’s cheek before standing and coming over to take me by the hand. “First, have a seat. You had a hard night of going out for a good meal that you didn’t have to pay for with good friends you adore.”
“Thank you.” I sniff. “You get me.”
She guides me to the oversized armchair. “You need to be comfortable before Ava drops all that science on you. I’ll get you some water.”
“You are the best Madison in this whole condo,” I tell her.
She pats me on the head as I settle in. “I really am.”
