Page 31 of The Bet
We lingerat the little table, the world outside the steamed-up windows slowly fading as dusk moves in. The lamps above us throw golden halos across Andie’s skin, and for the first time in my life, I want to memorize everything about this beautiful woman. I lean in, elbows on the table, hands steepled, and watch her talk.
It’s not the way she looks, although that’s lethal enough. It’s the way her voice cracks a little when she’s earnest, or the way she keeps pushing her hair behind her ears and then gives up, letting it fall wild around her face. She’s nervous, but she’s too stubborn to let it show for long.
I ask about her classes, her major, and she tells me she’s in English, but it’s a mistake. “All the jobs are melting away,” she says, making a sad pout with her lips. “Turns out the world doesn’t need more people who can recite Sylvia Plath at a party.”
“Maybe not,” I say. “But it could use more people who understand it.”
She stares at me, suspicious, then grins. “You’re good. You’re really good.”
I shrug, letting it slide. “What do you want to do? When your time at Century is all over.”
She looks away, thinking. “I want to write. Not stories, not fiction. I want to write things that last. Like, an article so sharp it makes people angry, or a line that gets quoted in a high school yearbook in three decades.”
“That’s possible,” I say. “You’ve got the intelligence for it. The will, too.”
She laughs, almost spits out her coffee. “You got all that from being intimate with me?”
I grin and shake my head. “I got it from watching you walk away afterwards.”
For a moment, she’s silent, and in that silence I feel the charge building again, the kind of static that would set fire to dry grass.
She breaks it. “What about you? What’s your story, Thomas? Or can I call you Tom?”
“Sure, Tom works. But there’s not much to tell,” I say, even though there’s too much. “I run a company. It’s a prediction market—a way for people to bet on the future. I like the odds. They’re clean. Math doesn’t lie to you.”
She rolls her eyes. “You’re a capitalist prophet. How original.”
“Guilty,” I say, and for once I don’t try to hide it. “But I didn’t come here to pitch you.”
“Then why did you come?” Her eyes are steady, and I realize she’s not asking to be polite.
I look at her, really look, and try to say what I mean. “I couldn’t stop thinking about you, Andie.”
Her lips part, but no sound comes out. I want to lean across the table, drag her mouth to mine. Instead, I force myself to sit back, let her make the next move.
She thinks about it, then says, “You scare me a little.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Why?”
“Because I’m not sure if I want you to stop thinking about me. Or if I want you to never think about me again.”
I nod. “The same for me.”
She smiles, slow and sly. “Then we’re even.”
The crowd in the café thins. The redhead packs up her MacBook, the girls in sweatshirts leave with their blonde hair bouncing, and the staff starts wiping down counters, looking at us like we’re the last dogs left in the kennel.
I pay, leaving enough tip to make the barista’s night. We step into the vestibule, and the air outside has the cold bite of late winter trying to stage a comeback.
We stand there, two feet apart, neither of us quite ready to walk away.
I reach for the door, then stop. “Would you want to do this again? The right way, I mean? No more hook-ups in the back row of the theater, or in the library during a black tie event?”
Andie smiles coyly.
“But I loved the theater.”
I chuckle.
