Page 57 of Betting on the Best Friend
“So we cannonballed into friendship. But the more I heard about Niles, the more convinced I was that he was wrong for you. When I met him, I was sure. After a while, I’d catch myself thinking, ‘If I were her boyfriend, I wouldn’t do that.’ Honestly, pick any ten things to fill in that blank because so much of how he treated you bugged me.”
I have to smile. “I could name twenty.”
His lips twist like he’s remembering a couple of specifics. “I thought it more and more until it became constant, but you showed no wavering. The day you came in so excited because you guessed he was going to propose that night . . .”
A look of physical pain crosses his face, and I don’t know what to do. I want to hug him, but is that the wrong thing now that he’s telling me he has feelings for me?
He rolls his neck like he’s been holding this memory there, locked in the muscles. “I expected the night of the proposal to be the worst night of my life.”
I wince thinking about how I’d chattered at work about Niles taking me to dinner, and how I thought it might be the night.
Charlie catches my grimace. “Don’t feel bad. I told you, I only want you to understand where my head was and is, that’s all. It felt like watching a wrecking ball swinging straight toward my hopes only to have it miss at the last minute when Ava texted that you broke up with him. I wasn’t happy, because you were hurting. But I did feel like I could breathe.”
I remember sitting across from Niles during his dry proposal, telling me how it was going to be. The sense of drowning, the need to save myself. “It felt like a wrecking ball to me that night too. Only it knocked down a giant blind spot.”
“Still sucked though, yeah?”
“Still sucked,” I agree.
He sighs. “I hated seeing you hurt, but that night made me accept how deep my feelings were, and I promised myself I would use my second chance.”
“I never knew you were looking for a first chance. I would have said and done so many things differently. Been more considerate.” My heart aches knowing I’ve hurt him inadvertently.
“You mean you’d have been more guarded. Less you around me. I’d never want to change that.”
“But how could you have both things? Using your second chance but not changing things between us?” I don’t know how to ask it without it sounding like criticism, but thosearecontradictory.
“I didn’t think anything would change. I figured you’d need to detox from Niles, then it would be a matter of time before you realized we’re meant to be, and we’d be us but more. Better, not different.”
I shift uncomfortably, sending vibrations through the net. “What if I never . . .”
A bird cheeps, so close it startles us both into looking up, but its song dies abruptly.
“Never figured it out?” he asks. “Didn’t cross my mind. It was hard to wait, but you were worth being patient. When you showed me Niles’s engagement post, I wanted to do a backflip. I thought it would be the catalyst. You’d start thinking about moving on, and I gave it about a week before you had an epiphany that you wanted to move on with me. So naturally that’s when your roommates stepped in to ruin things.”
There’s a trace of humor in his tone, but nothing about this is funny. I’m not panicked anymore, but it’s uncomfortable to hear that he’s planned a different role in his story for me than the one I chose.
“The girls are trying to help me,” I say. “Ruin” sounds intentional, even mean, things my besties are not.
“I know, believe me. I thought I was cooked. I didn’t want them pushing you into anything. Told them you’d date when you were ready. When they started sending you on dates anyway, I decided I’d better come up with a plan to make sure you didn’t get too distracted.”
“A plan?” That sounds too detached and technical to apply to anything between me and Charlie. In fact, it sounds like something that would affect our groove. Our easy—and until very recently—perfect groove.
“A Ruby Ramos Special.” A smile plays on his lips.
“Uh oh.” I mean that with every fiber of my being.
“I learned from the best. There was research. A list. Steps. Co-conspirators.”
“Steps.” My mind buzzes through the last three weeks. “The dating app?”
“Inactive profile. Wanted you to think about what made me dateable.”
“Smart.” But I scowl. “Making the very normal supply room into a weird closet situation?”
His cheeks flush. “Cringe attempt to promote flirty touching.”
Not to mention getting me all conflicted with those feathery whispers that made me shiver. Stoking basic biological reactions? Not cool.
