Page 64 of Betting on the Best Friend
“He changed it Saturday.”
“Makes sense.” I head to turn on the nearest computers, seething.Nowwho’s supposed to say, “Good morning, Ruby Tuesday”?
A text comes in.
Good morning, Ruby Tuesday.
I growl.NotCharlie.
My own irrationality upsets me even more. If Charlie had both better sayandbetter not say Ruby Tuesday, how will we ever fix this?
I respond the meanest way I know how.
IT’S MONDAY
It doesn’t make me feel better.
I make it through the day, doing my work and staying courteous with patrons, but it’s hard because Charlie’s absence makes the library feel flat. It always feels like that when I work on his day off, but this is worse. This will be days and days. And more days.
The last thing I want to do is go home and require more babysitting from my roommates. They had to do too much of that after I broke up with Niles. When I clock out, I don’t drivehome to the condo. Instead, I head the opposite direction, to the people who were put on this earth to babysit me and fix me.
Thirty minutes and one barely averted fender bender later, I park in my parents’ driveway.
“George! Melody!” I call, walking in through the back door into the kitchen without knocking. “Come take care of me!”
My mom comes in from the living room, her petite frame barreling toward me with her arms already out, and I fall into her hug.
“Your dad’s at the lumber store. What’s going on?”
“Boys are dumb,” I whine.
“Ah, so an emergency,” she says. “More Niles trouble?”
I’d told my parents about his engagement at dinner a few days after it happened. They were thrilled he was engaged, seeing it as one more piece of evidence he’d never be coming around again. Not big fans either.
I slip out of her hug and head toward the fridge. “No.”
She moves me out of the way of the fridge and starts gathering up turkey sandwich fixings. “One of your new dates?”
I’d told them about the bet too, of course. “No. I mean, yes. But not the current problem. You don’t have to guess. You can’t, honestly. It’s—”
“Charlie?” she asks.
I pause, startled. “Who told you?”
“No one had to.” She pops two pieces of bread into the toaster. “Seemed destined.”
“For us to fight?”
She pauses. “Sure.”
“You expected us to fight?”
“Don’t all good friends?” She slices a tomato to perfect thickness and picks up the lettuce.
I settle myself onto a barstool on the opposite side of the counter to watch, chin propped on my fist. “I guess.”
“What did you fight about?”
