Kill whippersnapper ass???
Dear God, I was a bumbling idiot.
I went to the back room to get another ream of printer paper while Charlie headed toward World of Water, and every cell in my body was misfiring as I tried remaining calm. My cheeks were hot and my stomach was wild with butterflies as I crouched to reach the bottom shelf.
Charlie had been flirting with me.
Charlie Sampson had been flirting with me, and I’d been flirting back.
Holy shit.
I had liked flirting with Charlie.
Holy shit, holy shit!
What did it mean?
The tiny exchange kept replaying in my head as I loaded the printer. The smirk, the gravelly sound of his voice when he’d said Did it, now?, the way I’d been leaning closer to him as he touched my nose.
What in the actual fuck??
I wanted to text Nekesa, but she was suddenly the last person whose opinion I wanted about workplace flirtations. I was in a lather as I threw myself into busywork, wondering what Charlie wanted and what I wanted and what about Zack and what about Becca and dear God it was Charlie! I took a deep breath, happy to be distracted as Nekesa and Theo returned. But a second later Charlie reappeared, looking absolutely casual and normal as he popped a pink TUM into his mouth and said, “Problem solved.”
I cracked open the stapler and started filling it, forcing my eyes to stay on that task. “What’d you do?”
He came around the desk and said, “Kicked a little tail.”
I snorted and focused on the staples. “Meaning you said ‘Stop it’?”
He clicked into reservations on his computer, not even looking in my direction. “Meaning I pretended to talk to the kid while the rich lady watched me from the other side of the pool. I didn’t actually say a word.”
“Wow—such a powerful man,” I said, closing the stapler.
“Right?” he replied.
I did glance up then, and Charlie was looking at me. I couldn’t read his expression, but I somehow felt marginally better when he teased in the usual Charlie way, “You owe me for taking care of it, Glasses.”
“I don’t think I do,” I quipped, trying to gauge the situation.
“She was going to destroy you, so I took one for the team and walked all the way down to World of Water, just to save your ass.” He shook his head and added, “I’ll accept a crisp twenty-dollar bill or a Snickers bar from the machine; either-or works for me.”
“Yeah, I actually think you earned a big bag of squat or a box of air,” I said, going around him to fill the other stapler. “Either-or works for me.”
I heard him laugh, and then everything reset in normal mode.
I convinced myself that the entire episode was a product of low blood sugar because I’d forgotten to eat before work.
All in the imagination.
Right?
That night, after I got home from work, my mom and Scott were sitting at the kitchen table, waiting for me. They were all happy smiley, super excited, which immediately made my stomach fill with dread.
“Hey, guys—what’s up?” I dropped my bag in the entryway, slid out of my shoes, and went over to the fridge. “Just finish a rousing game of Chutes and Ladders or something?”
They both laughed, way too excitedly, and then my mom said, “Scott has a surprise for us.”
I opened the refrigerator door and looked inside, seeing nothing as I waited for the surprise that I just knew I was going to hate. “Yeah?”
“Fall break is next week,” she said, “and since you’re already going to be out of school, Scott thought—”
“Whaddya say we go to Breckenridge?” Scott interrupted, beaming as if he’d just announced they’d won the lottery.
“What?” I closed the door to the fridge, and my chest got tight as they looked at me expectantly.
I’d never skied, and my mother had never skied, so I wasn’t sure what exactly their plan was. Scott’s daughter (who wasn’t Kristy—yayyyyy) would also be out of school; were they trying to get us all to go on a trip together?
Because no—that wasn’t happening.
I felt dizzy as nervousness and dread came at me fast, fear of their intentions hitting me like a punch. Were they trying to start the Brady Bunch transition with this? Was this “trip” the beginning of something?
Everyone I knew had been to Breck, and it sounded amazing. Charming mountain village, picturesque cabins—I’d always wanted to go there, to be honest. But I wasn’t about to let Scott think he could take us all on some family vacation like we were a family.
God, I was getting that suffocated feeling again just looking at the two of them, smiling at me. Because my mom looked so fucking happy. What was I supposed to do with that? I wanted her happy; I wanted her to be happier than she’d ever been in her life.
But at what cost?
Scott posed a threat to the comfort in my life. Not comfort as in something that pampers, like nice sheets or soft slippers, but comfort as in the part of your life that provides healing. The part of your life that you can relax and take some kind of comfort from when the rest of the world is on fire.
The part of your life that you can burrow into.
Our life—the one we’d carved out post-dad and pre-Scott—was the comfort.
Which made Scott the anti-comfort.
The potential agent of change in a place that desperately wanted to remain unchanged.
Shit.
“Scott rented a condo that is right on the main street, with a balcony that comes out on the roof of a restaurant,” my mom said, her voice rising as if nothing had ever sounded this fun before. She ran a hand through her long blond hair, and it occurred to me as I looked at her that I hadn’t even noticed that she was wearing it down.
What the hell was with that?
She was all ponytail, all the time.
Now she was wearing her hair down? Was this for him?
She continued trying to sell me with, “We thought it’d be nice to see in October, when the leaves are starting to turn. Just a little three-day getaway. What do you think?”
I think I might bawl like a toddler, right here and right now.
I’d known this was all possible, Scott’s dropping anchor in our lives, but suddenly everything was happening too fast.
Out of nowhere, another awful thought came at me. If Scott put down roots, would that serve to further oust my father from my life? Would he see it as a reason to become even more absentee than he already was?
“Um.” I tried for a smile and nodded. Like, a lot. Nodded as if my head might fall off my neck because it was so untethered. “I mean, it sounds amazing, but I think I have to work. You guys should totally go, though.”
I saw my mom’s face fall. It’d always just been an expression—“her face fell”—until that moment. Her wide smile dropped into a weak horizonal line, and the squint of her eyes went away, leaving her wide-eyed with disappointed surprise. Her voice was thick when she said, “Surely you can get someone to work for you.”
“They’re actually kind of short-staffed,” I lied, hating myself but hating Scott more. “But I can check.”
“I’d love to teach you to ski,” Scott said, smiling. “If you want to learn, that is.”
I looked at my mom. She knew I’d wanted to learn when I was little, and it felt like a betrayal that she’d obviously told him. I curled my fingers into balls and said, “Yeah, um, I’d love to, but I don’t think it’s probably going to work this time.”
“Come on, Bay,” he said, tilting his head and talking to me like we were buddies. “It’ll be epic, I promise. Just blow off work—you’ll never hear me say that again—and come with us.”
Us. I was getting so damn sick of him referring to himself and my mother as the us, when my mother and I were the us and he was just the dude who wouldn’t go away. I breathed in through my nose and said, “Maybe next time.”
My mom said, “Bailey, I don’t think—”
“I don’t want to go, okay?” I hadn’t meant to, but I snapped at her. I didn’t know where it came from, but I also didn’t want to take it back, either. I pressed my lips together before saying, “I have to go study.”
I went into my room and closed my door, feeling like garbage. For yelling at my mom, for disappointing them about the trip, and mostly for the inescapable fact that things were definitely progressing with Scott and pretty soon his presence in our life would be constant.
I could feel it now.
I blinked back tears—stupid, immature tears—and wondered when life would stop changing up on me.
I flopped down onto my bed and turned on the TV with the remote.
“Bailey.” My mom knocked on my door like I knew she would, because we weren’t the kind of people who could just let it lie. “Can I come in?”
“Sure.” She came in, and I knew she was going to make me. I just knew she was going to make me vacation with Scott, and I didn’t know what to do. It surely wasn’t that big a deal—a weekend away—but I remembered what Charlie said the first time we talked on the phone.
He’s only going to advance and take more space.
“Are you okay?” She closed the door behind her, came over, and sat down on the edge of my bed. “It’s not like you to snap like that.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, meaning that part of it. I looked at her face—the blue eyes, the pale eyebrows, the mouth that had said everything I’d ever needed to hear for the whole of my life—and I felt desperate. It was so babyish, but I felt a desperation to hold tight to our us.
“I don’t get it, Bay,” she said, reaching out to run a hand over my hair. “He was so excited when he got the idea because he wants to get to know you better. He thought it could be a relaxed way to just have some fun together.”
“I know,” I said, trying to come up with words that didn’t make things worse between her and me. “But I just don’t feel ready to go on a vacation with him yet.”
“It’s not like that,” my mom said, crossing her arms. She was wearing her I’m the problem T-shirt, the one she’d bought the day after Midnights came out. “It’s just a casual, fun weekend where we get out of town. No bigs.”
“Just the three of us?” I asked, bracing myself for the mention of a daughter.
“Well,” she said, pursing her lips. “I suppose if you wanted to take Nekesa, that would be okay.”
“Really?” She’d obviously misunderstood what I was asking, but God, if I could take Nekesa, that might make it okay. She and I could ditch them and have fun in Colorado, and even when we were all together, it wouldn’t feel as much like a forced family event. “I could?”
She shrugged, and I felt a little guilty that she was having to make concessions. “I don’t see why not. The condo has two bedrooms and a pullout sofa in the living room, so as long as she doesn’t mind the couch, I think it’d be fine.”
“Wow.” I pushed my hair out of my face, relief flooding through me. “That will make it so much, um, I mean, a little bit less…”
I had no idea how to put it into words without making her feel bad about Scott.
“I get it, Bay,” she said, and I could tell that she did. Which made me hug her, because as much as I didn’t dig Scott, I also loved my mom and didn’t want to make her unhappy.
It was a fucking terrible tightrope of guilt to walk.
I grabbed my phone and texted Nekesa as soon as my mom left the room.
How would you like to go to Colorado?
I was getting whiplash from my own emotions, but as I waited for her response, I realized that if she was able to go, I was actually a little excited for a Colorado getaway.
Only if she can go.
Yes, Scott would be there, but Nekesa always made everything better, and I knew this would be no exception.
Nekesa: I am packing my plaid shirt and Docs as we speak.
That made me smile as I walked over to my dresser. You think I’m kidding but I’m not. Scott is taking me and my mom to Breck for a weekend and they said you can come.
Nekesa: I thought we hated Scott.
That response made me feel like garbage, and I texted: We don’t hate HIM, we just hate the way he’s weaseling into our lives.
Nekesa: That doesn’t sound very different from what I said.
I texted: So are you coming or not???
Nekesa: Let me ask my mom. BRB.
I held my breath as I dug for mountain-wear, and then I squealed when Nekesa came back with: When do we leave?? 🙂
The next morning, even though the sight of Crew Socks in the kitchen made me as irritated as ever, I thanked him for the trip.
“It’s nice of you to invite us and to let me bring a friend,” I said, genuinely meaning that. My mom was the one who threw out the Nekesa option, not Scott, and he easily could’ve said no or been a dick about it.
Instead, he smiled and said between bites of his everything bagel, “The more the merrier. Only… no more. That’s plenty. The four the merriest and no others…”
“Rolls off the tongue,” I said, which made him laugh.
As he walked out the door, he texted me a link to the condo on Vrbo so Nekesa and I could look at the pictures, which led to an hour-long FaceTime where we discussed outfits, activities, and logistics.
We had to work on Saturday morning—just a half shift, so Scott and my mom were going to leave early in the morning, and we’d drive out when we got off. In my opinion, this was a total best-case scenario, because we wouldn’t even have to spend any time in the car with him.
As long as something insane didn’t happen, like Scott proposing to my mother on the slopes, this could actually be a great trip.
