Page 63 of The Bet
I set the toolbox down with a deliberate clank and hand the woman a soda. “Where are these shelves, anyway?”
Stella grins, all teeth. “Rescue us from our own incompetence, O savior.”
Kayleigh, stretched out on the couch with her feet up says, “You’re the only dad who ever actually fixes shit. My father just Venmos me and tells me to call the landlord.”
I look at her and shrug. “That’s because I’m a control freak. And I don’t trust landlords.”
The whole time, my gaze keeps sliding back to Andie. She keeps her eyes on the laptop, but I see the way her fingers tense around the neck of the bottle, how her shoulders set a fraction straighter when I enter the room.
I can’t help myself. I stare at her—at the curve of her back, at the way the leggings cling to her ass—because just twelve hours ago, I had that ass in my hands, and she was moaning my name, and now I’m supposed to pretend I barely know her, that she’s just another coed, just my daughter’s best friend.
It’s fucking agony.
I force myself to look away. Stella is standing by the window, motioning at the blank stretch of wall above the radiator. “Here,” she says. “I want the big shelf, so we can do plants. Then another over the TV, for the speaker.”
I nod, squint at the space as if it’s a puzzle only I can solve. “Do you have the brackets? Anchors? Did you buy the shelves, or am I supposed to improvise with plywood?”
Simone laughs. “We bought them at IKEA and left them in the car because they were so heavy. Like, all the boxes. We’re hopeless.”
I look to Stella, who shrugs. “I was going to get them after the beer. I have a system.”
I can’t help but smile. “Of course you do.”
While Stella and Mary Kate run down to the car to get the shelves, the rest of us are left in the room, the silence suddenly bigger than before. Kayleigh changes the music on her phone, dialing up something slow and lush—Frank Ocean, maybe?—and the low notes fill up the corners of the room.
Andie is the first to speak, her voice soft but not uncertain. “You don’t have to do this, you know. The mounting and drilling. I’m pretty sure we could bribe the super to come by and help us.”
I meet her eyes, and I let the smile hang there for a second too long. “I like to see things done right.”
She looks away, cheeks pink. “Of course.”
Kayleigh catches this, and for a second, I think she’s going to say something. Instead, she just grabs the beer from the table and hands it to me. “You want a cold one, Thomas?”
“Absolutely,” I say.
Simone gives me a look that’s half-fascinated, half-suspicious. This particular woman I’ve only met once or twice, and I’m cautious around her. I don’t know why because she’s not older. But somehow, she seems more mature, and is the only one I suspect is really watching. But she just nods, then says, “Andie’s a perfectionist too. Everything has to be just so. Remember when she hung pictures in our dorm room, girlfriend? You were insane.”
Andie doesn’t respond, but her knee bounces under the table, heel thumping an irregular beat on the floor.
Stella comes back with the IKEA box, which is half the size of a casket, with Mary Kate right behind her, and together we open the boxes on the living room rug. The girls crowd around, giving advice and making a contest out of who can mispronounce the Swedish product names the most outrageously.
I watch Andie out of the corner of my eye, and every time I catch her looking at me, she glances away, flushing a little. I can tell she’s dying inside. Me too.
I start sorting the screws and brackets, lining them up by type and size. Stella calls me “Rain Man” and starts separating thedowels by color, which makes Kayleigh laugh so hard she snorts beer through her nose.
After a while, the conversation shifts from the shelves to weekend plans, then to relationships, and then—because college girls can’t help themselves—to sex.
Kayleigh is the boldest: “Simone, have you gotten it on with your professor again yet?”
Simone blushes, but she grins. “Maybe.”
Stella claps her hands. “I told you. Liam Thomas is obsessed with her. He writes her love notes and everything.”
Simone shakes her head, but doesn’t deny it. “He’s a really good writer. He’s going to be nominated for poet laureate soon. I can feel it.”
Mary Kate, mouth full of popcorn, says, “Andie’s dating someone, too.”
The room hushes for a beat.
