Betting on the Brainiac: a Sweet Romantic Comedy

37. Chapter Thirty-Seven

I don’t stop at my own house before I get in my car and drive to Gatsby’s. I’ve got my gym bag in the back seat and a wicked need to get all the buzzing and pressure inside of me out. Like an exorcism of a super irritating ghost. Not Casper. Much worse than Casper. More like that green blob thing in Ghostbusters.

I change into my workout clothes in the office, then hit the deejay stage. Kosmik gave me a speaker preset for the peak dance workout experience and showed me how to find it in the spaceship-level console. I select it, considering what to listen to while I stand in the middle of the sound vortex. I have a lot of go-to dance favorites, but they all feel . . . fun. Why don’t I have an angry playlist? I choose a public “Songs for Rage Dancing” playlist, and hit the floor to the chorus of “Toxic,” since that’s what everybody seems to think I am.

I’m not an audiophile like Kosmik, but he told me this speaker preset would make the sound immersive for me in an eight-foot radius in the dead center of the club. “The hi hat comes down from the horn-shaped speaker straight above you, and it’s like standing under one of those rain shower heads on full pressure. When the bass hits you from the sides, that’s like being wrapped in a six-foot-thick roll of luxury bath towels and then shoved back and forth between two sumo wrestlers.”

He might have been high when he explained it all to me, but he’s right. As Britney snarls about being toxic, I scream along, switching it to first person. “Don’t you know that I’m toxic?” I feel the bass in my bones. Literally, like the speakers are vibrating the marrow inside them.

I’ve got endorphins flowing when it goes to Olivia Rodrigo’s “Brutal,” because the last several days have definitely been “brutal out here.”

By the time it rolls into P!nk’s “So What,” I am one thousand percent ready to start the fight she recommends. This is the perfect song to punch and kick the crap out of a focus mitt. But Oliver isn’t here to hold it for me to pour my anger into. Oliver isn’t ever here anymore. Here, or his own house, or anywhere I am. And when he is around, he acts like—

“Aaaargh!” I can’t even hear my scream inside my head over the sound system. I want to be mad at Oliver because he was right. What was wrong with me, climbing on top of him like he’s a magic carpet ride, there to take me away from feeling crappy about the things Kaitlyn said?

“Bad Blood” comes on next, which my girl T-Swift obviously wrote about Kaitlyn and me. Kaitlyn and her Remember when you used to like dance team and not be a shallow party girl? I give it an angry dance fight improv, wishing I had explosives to set off like the song’s video for the sheer satisfaction of the sonic booms.

A woman definitely made this playlist, and whoever she is, she and I should be friends.

I groove through “Truth Hurts”—it does, whether it’s Ruby not telling it to me or Kaitlyn giving me her version. But the super dramatic violin opening to an old Destiny’s Child song gives me life and reminds me that I’m a survivor, but also, I remember the routine we did to this song when I was a sophomore, and I hit it hard.

Six songs before I feel like I don’t want to rip anything apart, blow anything up, or tear anything—or anyone—down. My breath is coming hard, and as Beyoncé and company close out their anthem, I’m ready to take a break and find some mellow EDM. But the next song opens with stunning familiar jittery drum riffs followed by a voice that brightens every note of this emo hit even though it’s an angry song about “never being good enough for people who just aren’t good.”

I stand in shock, then throw my arms in the air and scream “Pixie Luna!” before I run in wild circles, high knees, flailing arms, and cackling.

I collapse in the middle of the floor, spread-eagled, and grin up at the giant speaker. “Sami!” I yell at it. “That is SAMI! Sami is making it onto random playlists!” I can’t wait to go home and tell her.

My breath starts to even out, my heart rate coming down, as I listen to the rest of the song, flat on my back, staring at the ceiling. Good for Sami. I’m proud of her.

Sami isn’t mad at me. Ava isn’t either, even though she and Ruby are the OG best friends. I know they both know Ruby and I aren’t speaking, but I don’t know if Ruby has told them why.

Sami isn’t mad at me. Ava isn’t mad at me. Sami isn’t mad at me. Ava isn’t mad at me.

I’ve never tried a mantra before, but this is a good one. Truthfully, Ruby isn’t mad at me either. She’s waiting for me to not be mad at her.

Am I ready for that, especially after this morning?

I do not enjoy the rational part of my brain, popping up like Ava’s cross-stitch. “Well, actually . . .”

I sit up and hug my knees, thinking. Did this morning between Oliver and me mean Ruby was right? Had I sensed that Oliver is it for me before she said it and got mad because I didn’t want to acknowledge it?

Until this morning, I would have said no. Hard no. Absolutely not.

But I’m in the after of this morning.

Oliver isn’t wrong about turning to him to mute the hurt of Kaitlyn’s words. But I don’t think I turned to him simply because he was there. I just . . .

Wanted Oliver.

Have I been wanting Oliver?

I go to the bar and pour myself a glass of cold water from the soda gun, then climb to the deejay stage to lower the volume. I also change the playlist to Motown. I need to mellow out the rage-dance endorphins.

I pick a booth Oliver and I have never shared and slide in to drink my water and cool down. The new playlist starts with a Stevie Wonder hit, where he teases about his weak Spanish while he plays a Cuban melody.

My gaze wanders up to the third floor. From this booth, I can almost see the alcove where the masked guy kissed me that night.

That night. That kiss. Was that a lifetime ago?

I climb the stairs up to the corner, thinking. It feels more like the memory of a really good book I read, or a movie that sends you out of the theater with a happy buzz and you want to tell all your friends to watch it. A story that happened outside of me, not to me.

I walk to the alcove and close my eyes, trying to bring back that night. The music, the syncopated synth flute, the buzz of the crowd, the dark. The guy with the strong jaw and eyes that glinted in his mask.

I focus, trying to bring back the details through all my senses, but I can’t picture the man from that night. Oliver’s face keeps morphing into the memory, and with an irritated grunt, I give up and open my eyes.

I don’t even know what I thought this field trip upstairs would do. I turn my back on the dim corner and walk over to lean on the balcony railing, staring down at the club, taking it all in as Marvin Gaye comes on asking about what’s going on. I meant to choose sixties Motown with all the bops—the Supremes, Martha and the Vandellas, some Smokey. Instead, I’ve got seventies Motown and all the thinking. If the next song isn’t “Papa Was a Rolling Stone,” I’ll eat my uniform.

I stare at the main ceiling speaker. “Songs with a social conscience? Really? That was not the category I picked.”

Marvin Gaye’s sweet tenor doesn’t give up, asking me the same question over and over again. I consider it as I scan the empty club. “What is going on?”

Was I chasing the high of that kiss in the dark when I slid onto Oliver’s lap like a thirsty girl slides into a stranger’s DMs?

No.

No, and that worries me. No, and I don’t know what to do about it. No, and I am the dumbest dumb girl who ever dumbed.

I tried to kiss Oliver because I wanted to kiss Oliver. Oliver. Oliver who, in fact, looked hot and sleep rumpled, Oliver who made me want to kick Ruby for even suggesting she might date him, Oliver who, even bare chested, doesn’t flinch when a kitten tries to climb him. Oliver who, bare chested, is so far north of sexy that there’s not even a latitude that goes that high.

Oliver who is sweet and adorable and kind and smart and sexy even in his stupid hoodies that tricked me for so long.

I drop my head onto my arms and moan. How did this happen?

Dumbest dumb girl who ever dumbed. EVER.

I straighten and sigh. At least the buzzing is gone. And I can take full breaths again.

I go back down the stairs and turn off the sound system completely. But the silence is loud. It’s so big, filling every part of the club, which doesn’t make sense until I realize it’s not the silence that’s getting to me; it’s the emptiness.

I walk back to the center of the dance floor and look around, clocking every part of the club. The tables I’ve served over the last four years. I picture the faces of my favorite customers—and the faces of the truly heinous ones. I think of all the bartenders and bottle girls I’ve worked with, Heinrich and the other partners.

I glance up to the corner where I talked myself into believing I’d found the one true kiss because it kept me safe from any real risk and over to the stockroom where Oliver and I became cat parents together.

Kaitlyn is wrong about one thing: I’m not in love with those kittens because it’s a short-term situation. They’ve got my heart, and I don’t know how I’m supposed to let anyone else take them.

I face the deejay booth again, a quiet realization settling over me. Even though I’m the only one in this massive space, I’ve . . . outgrown it.

I do it on autopilot. When I’ve recharged over the last few weeks, it wasn’t by coming in and being productive at a job I’ve mastered. It was through looking forward to seeing the cats. And hearing Oliver’s excuses for needing to check on them in my office. And . . . Oliver.

Are Kaitlyn and Oliver right? Am I living a smaller life than I should be? I’d planned to be in a holding pattern until I got my trust, and then I’d make big moves. BIG moves. Moves that . . .

Moves that Oliver said don’t commit to anything into the future. Moves that correct a situation, not a system.

Is Kaitlyn, perfect daughter and Armstrong employee, the one who’s doing the real good here?

Kaitlyn has known me most of my life, but that doesn’t mean she knows me well. And Oliver has only known me for a couple of months. I need an objective opinion on this. An opinion from someone who knows me well and will tell me the truth.

I stop by the office and log into the computer long enough to write Heinrich a letter of resignation, promising him I already have a replacement in mind and that I’ll take as much time as needed to train her.

Then I get into my car and point it toward home.