The road trip home was the same as the way there—fun, relaxed—only it had the added bonus of Charlie’s adorable cat, Puffball. A name I earned the right to give by winning the what-will-they-order-for-breakfast challenge before we’d hit the road. Charlie wanted to talk to his mom before bringing the cat home, so my mom had suggested we bring it to our apartment and he could come get it once he had permission. It was disgusting, how protective Charlie was of the cat, and I was utterly obsessed with this soft side of him.
After we brought the cat back to the condo, Scott ran to the market and came home with a disposable litter pan, food, and a cat toy, and the three of them—Scott, my mom, and Charlie—gushed over the fluffy feline all evening.
The damn cat had ruined everything.
Because now, in addition to being emotionally distracted by the beautiful way Charlie was a total sap for that cat, I could no longer avoid the obvious as I watched them love all over the kitten.
Scott was a decent guy.
He was sweet and thoughtful, even giving Charlie a chance in spite of all the things Charlie had done to antagonize him.
So how could I keep trying to mess things up? Especially when my mom seemed to really like him?
It was giving me stress, but when I thought about him being in our lives forever, that stress accelerated to the nth degree.
So much for the whole laid-back shit-happens vibe.
But as we flew over the interstate, I felt better than I had the night before because I now had a solid plan.
After lying wide awake for hours on that pullout sofa, thinking about my feelings for Charlie and obsessing about why they were terrible, the answer came to me.
It didn’t matter.
It didn’t. Who cared if I had a few new-and-confusing feelings for Charlie?
I’d gotten all tied up in the feelings themselves—What do they mean? Are they real? How can we be friends when I am suddenly crushing on him so hard?—before realizing that it wasn’t about the feelings themselves.
It was about what I did with them.
And I wasn’t going to do anything with them.
Because I knew Charlie didn’t feel the same way about me that I felt about him. I knew he liked me, I was pretty sure he had fun hanging out with me, and I was absolutely certain he enjoyed kissing me.
Gawwwwwwwd, the way he kissed.
But I’d never seen his face change when he looked at me the way it’d changed when he saw Becca at that party. And after the rejection I’d felt when Zack moved on after our breakup, I wasn’t willing to settle for “pretty sure” and “liked.”
I wasn’t willing to settle at all.
So I was going to take what I’d learned from my parents—the fact that feelings eventually faded, especially when new feelings were introduced—and ensure a change of heart.
“So I have an idea,” I said when we entered Lancaster County and I knew we’d be home in an hour.
“Uh-oh,” Charlie said, popping a few orange TUMS into his mouth.
“No uh-oh,” I argued. “No uh-oh at all. I was just thinking that now that the trip is over, it might be a good time for each of us to actually date in real life.”
When I said the words, I realized that—holy shit—I meant it. Not just as a Charlie-Bailey diffuser, but maybe it was time for me to try to move on from Zack.
“What?” he said, his voice tight as he glanced over at me, a wrinkle between his eyebrows.
“Not each other,” I quickly added, noting the look of horror on his face. “But… people.”
He rolled his eyes and looked back at the road. “Really, Glasses?”
“You said Eli wanted to ask me out, and I have a friend—Dana—who is gorgeous and smart and funny.” I tried sounding nonchalant as I said, “We should double-date it up.”
“First of all, please never say things like ‘double-date it up,’ ” he said, chewing his antacid.
“Agreed. I regretted it the second it exited my mouth.”
“Second of all, what the fuck?”
Charlie looked irritated, which felt kind of good. Is he hurt by the thought of me going out with someone else? Was he mad that I was suggesting it after the weekend we’d just shared? I aimed for super chill when I casually asked, “What the fuck what?”
“What the fuck what? You have a gorgeous, smart, funny friend, and this is the first time you’re mentioning her?” His eyes stayed on the road, but he looked amused as he said, “You’ve been holding out on me.”
Heat flooded my face—hell, my entire body—and I was embarrassed by how quickly I’d fallen into wishful thinking. I ignored the unwelcome feeling in the pit of my stomach and said, “I guess I didn’t know you were looking.”
He did look at me then, but his expression was unreadable. “I guess I didn’t either.”
God, how was it possible that I missed my fake boyfriend already?
“So let’s set it up, then,” I said, remembering that forcing this was the best way to put our friendship back on solid ground, without any weird emotional tie-ups.
“Let’s,” he said. “We should do something stupid, like bowling.”
“Bowling’s not stupid,” I muttered. “I was in a Saturday-morning bowling league in elementary school, and it was the funnest.”
“A nerd says what?”
“Whatever,” I said, looking out the window. “I was on the Saturday Strikers, and we ruled.”
“I can’t hear through all the static of your lameness. Are we bowling or what?”
I shook my head and said, “We’re bowling.”
He glanced over and raised an eyebrow. “Now, you know you can’t kiss me when we’re on dates, right?”
I coughed out a laugh. “I am aware, yes.”
“I’m sure it’ll be tempting, now that you’ve tasted the Charlie Special, but—”
“Ewwwww—the Charlie Special sounds like a tongue sandwich on toasted bread,” I interrupted.
“Tasty,” he muttered.
“And you are the one who needs the kissing reminder, since you couldn’t keep your mouth off me over the weekend,” I teased, reaching into my bag for the SweeTarts.
“I really couldn’t,” he agreed, which made me look up from my bag in shock. His eyes were on the road, crinkled at the corners, when he grinned and admitted, “I fucking loved the kissing portion of our game.”
“Same,” I said, surprised by the honest admission from both of us.
He gave a nod. “Too bad you passed on the intensive training.”
“I think we had ample practice.”
He was quiet for a minute, then said, “Yeah, anything more intense probably would’ve killed me.”
I liked his face when he said that. It was soft and funny, like he was being candid about his own weakness. I didn’t know what to say to that, so I turned around and looked over the seat at the cat carrier. “Awww… Puffball’s asleep.”
“He had a rough weekend,” Charlie said with a little smile. “He needs his rest.”
When he finally pulled in front of our building, my mom and Scott were there, unloading their car. It was good, because I didn’t know how to not be awkward with the goodbye after everything.
But when Scott grabbed my stuff, my mom grabbed the cat, and we waved goodbye to Charlie as he drove away, I was instantly homesick for him as I watched his car disappear.
I wasn’t ready for our trip to be over.
When we got into the apartment, I ditched them as quickly as possible. Puffball and I took our things, went into my room, and closed the door, happy to be alone with our thoughts. Mr. Squishy kept meowing at my door—he knew something was up—but I ignored the old cat because I knew my mom would shower him with attention. I flopped onto my bed and pulled out my phone while the kitten walked around on top of my pillows.
I had a lot to tell Nekesa.
But before I’d even finished my first message, Charlie was calling.
I rolled onto my back as I answered, “Are you even home yet?”
“Yeah,” he said, and I could hear voices in the background. “I’m home, but I didn’t know the boyfriend was bringing his kids over. So I need to talk to you and my cat before I lose my shit.”
“Freaking boyfriend,” I said through gritted teeth, hating that that was what Charlie returned home to. After all of our talks in Colorado, I felt like I knew him better than I had before. Now I knew this bothered him—a lot—instead of assuming he didn’t care because he was a sarcastic dick about it. “Want to come over?”
“I think I owe Scott a few hours without me,” Charlie said. “He could’ve been a huge asshole to me during the trip, and he actually wasn’t.”
“God, I hate when you say things like that,” I said, mostly because I was feeling the same way about Scott.
“I know, I’m sorry.” I heard a door close, and now it was quieter. He said, “Let me talk to my cat.”
I reached a hand across the bed, grabbed the fluffball, and set him on my chest. “Say hello, Puffer.”
The cat raised his little face to the phone as I held it out, then rubbed his chin against it.
“Sorry—I don’t think he wants to talk right now,” I said, scratching the little guy’s head as he walked in circles on my chest.
“Put the phone to his ear,” Charlie said.
“Okay,” I said, and held up the phone. Charlie started talking, and even though I couldn’t hear what he was saying, I could tell he was using that voice. And—seriously—the kitten started meowing, looking agitated and excited and like all he wanted was for Charlie to appear.
I took the phone back, laughing as the kitten started ramming his face into the space between my ear and the phone. “Oh my God, this guy loves you so much, it’s disgusting.”
“Will you FaceTime me? I miss him.”
That made my mouth fall open and I gasped. Loudly. “Charlie Sampson, you are absolutely a gooey, soft cinnamon bun for this puffball.”
“Yeah, I know.”
“I just never imagined you being so… sweet.”
“I’m sweet, like, all the time.”
“Never, actually, but okay.”
“Show me my cat.”
“Fine.”
I hit the button, and a second later he was popping up on my phone.
“Hang on,” he said, and I felt like gasping all over again when I saw him standing in his bedroom in just a pair of shorts and no shirt. I’d always thought he looked like he might be shredded under his clothes, but hooooooly crap, the boy obviously took working out very seriously.
He ducked out of the frame for a second, and then he was back, pulling a shirt over his head. “Where’s my boy?”
I scooped up the cat and held him directly in front of the phone.
“Hey, little buddy,” Charlie said, and my heart pinched as I watched him grin at the kitten. Seeing Charlie’s face look like that felt like a reward or something. He kept talking to Puffball—cooing, really—and then he said, “Okay—put Glasses on the phone.”
I laughed and set down the cat, so Charlie and I were looking at each other.
“If you ever tell anyone what a pathetic fuck I am for that cat, I will kill you.”
“I won’t tell anyone,” I said. “Just Dana.”
“Oh, yeah.” I watched as he sat down on his bed and said, “Did you set that up yet?”
“Okay—we just got home. But you have to talk to Eli first. If you don’t make that happen, you don’t get Dana.”
He gave me a smart-ass smirk and said, “I’ll text him in a sec.”
“Do you think I’ll like him?” I asked.
“Didn’t you talk to him at the party?”
“Yeah, but you really know him. Do you think he’s my type? Do you think we’ll have things in common?”
He narrowed his eyes, like he was thinking about it, and then he said, “Yeah, I actually do.”
“Sweet.”
“What about your friend?” Charlie raised his eyebrows and said, “I mean yes, we’re both pretty and funny and smart, but do we have other common interests?”
I rolled back over and said, “She’s totally sarcastic, like you, and she’s a volleyball player.”
“How would volleyball apply to me exactly?”
“Obviously you both like doing sporty things.”
He raised an eyebrow and looked amused. “Obviously?”
I rolled my eyes as my cheeks burned. “You have the chest of someone who enjoys sweating, and you know it.”
“Baybay,” he teased, leaning his face closer to the camera, “were you checking me out?”
God, had he always been that sexy? It was FaceTime, for God’s sake, and my breath hitched like he was going to lean in and kiss me. I cleared my throat and said, “I’m telling Dana you’re a conceited asshole. Goodbye.”
He laughed and said, “I’ll text you after I talk to Eli.”
