Betting on the Brainiac: a Sweet Romantic Comedy

1. Chapter One

I stand at the edge of the diving board in my tangerine bikini, ready to launch myself into space. My body goes still one breath from an explosion of action, my muscles coiled, ready to turn the potential energy into kinetic.

“She makes it look simple,” one of my roommates tells her boyfriend, part of the audience sitting on the sides of the pool, dangling their legs in the water. “But that’s how you know she’s super good at it. Do it, girl!”

“Drama, much?” That’s another boyfriend, sounding bored. Ironic that I’m boring him, when Niles is what it would sound like if beige Dockers could talk. Ruby shushes him. It’s practically a reflex for my librarian roommate.

I don’t acknowledge that I’ve heard him. Instead, I lift my arms, bounce twice on the board, and contract my muscles but not too much—perfectly in control of the surface area needed to make the maximum cannonball splash.

I hear a couple of surprised cries as I disappear into the water and emerge to do a sexy hair fling to the sound of laughs. Well, and annoyed splutters from Niles.

My pink-haired lovebug of a roommate, Sami, gives me a wry smile and a headshake. “She can do actual dives,” she tells Josh, our neighbor and now her boyfriend.

He grins. “I wouldn’t doubt Madison for a second.”

“You’re pretty and smart,” I tell him as I swim toward their side of the pool.

Sami rolls her eyes. “Can we get a real dive now?”

I surge from the water, mermaid style, and pull myself up onto the edge of the pool to tap her on the nose. “No. I am not your trained seal.” With a wink, I sink back into the water and swim toward the lane set aside for lap swimmers, ducking under the floating divider and settling into a backstroke.

The cool water feels delicious against the brutal heat of Austin in the second week of August. Even setting Sami’s welcome home pool party for early evening hasn’t helped with the temperature. So far, only being in the water has. I should get in my exercise this way more except I pay way too much for my balayage to subject it to chlorine too often. The price of beauty and whatnot.

Still, for this moment, everything is exactly right. The rhythm of my body and the water I displace, the contrast of the setting sun and cool pool temperature, the sounds of my roommates—my favorite people in the world—laughing and talking in the background. It hasn’t been the same with Sami gone on tour with her band all summer. Now we’re whole again, and even though changes are coming based on the heart eyes two of my roomies are getting from their boyfriends, that’s later. Now is . . . now. And I’m fully in it.

Eventually, we eat all the delicious things Ruby’s brother has grilled, but as full night falls, the boys all remember their roles and disappear back to their own houses, leaving the four of us besties to stagger into our place, heavy with soaked-up sun, smelling of Coppertone with a whiff of charcoal briquette smoke for earthiness.

The other three girls sprawl across the living room furniture, and I choose to snuggle with Sami, who has claimed the sofa, picking up her legs and settling them across my lap while I nestle into the cushions.

“Hey, besties,” I say.

They each give me a mellow “Hey, Madi” back, the specific kind of mellow that comes from hot August nights.

I loll my head to smile at Ruby, then sweep my eyes over Ava and Sami, and give a contented sigh. I’ve known these girls since we were in the freshmen dorms. That’s eight years. Eight years in which we haven’t been apart much. We each did our own thing for a year or two after graduating, but when Ava got her job at the genetics lab and bought this condo two years ago, the rest of us moved in within a few months of each other.

“This is how it should be,” I say aloud. “My girls back home with me.”

“We missed you, Sami,” Ava says. “I’m glad your tour is over.”

“Me too,” Sami says. “I really missed Josh.” I pinch her thigh, and she laughs. “Fine, I missed your annoying faces too.” She does an awkward wiggle to crane her neck and look over at Ava, finally deciding it’s easiest to hang her head over the edge of the sofa and study Ava upside down. “I especially missed all the hot Joey action unfolding. It wasn’t the same getting Madison’s play-by-play via text.”

Ava blushes, something she does easily. I’d feel sorry for her if I weren’t so jealous of her beauteous red hair. She and Joey have only been an official item for a couple of weeks now, even though their feelings had been brewing since early summer.

“Ew,” Ruby says without any real disgust. “Could you not talk about my brother and hot action in the same sentence?”

“Your bet, your fault,” Sami says.

I pinch her again. “Didn’t hear you complaining when you lost to Ruby. Are we going to have to go next door and drag you back from Josh’s any time we want to see you from now on?”

Sami narrows her eyes at me. “Speaking of bets, isn’t it your turn?”

“Yes,” Ava says, clapping twice. “It is one hundred percent Madison’s turn to get Rubied.”

“I’m down,” Ruby says, sounding more alert. “And I’ve got ideas.”

Sami hoots and Ava snickers, but it doesn’t rattle me. Ruby had bet us on New Year’s Day that she could find us all true love by the next New Year.

She’d squared away Sami first, matching her up with Josh when he moved in next door. Then, in a series of moves so diabolical she’d made me nervous for a couple of weeks, Ruby connected Joey and Ava. It made sense on the surface. Her childhood best friend and her brother? Who could possibly know what either of them needed better than Ruby? But Ava is a real, actual scientist who lets me wear her lab coat sometimes when I want to feel smart, and Joey is one of Austin’s biggest playboys. Make that a reformed playboy. Sami and I had suspected Ava was into Joey, but leave it to Ruby to wake up Joey to the fact that the perfect woman had been under his nose his entire life.

I smirk at Ruby. “There’s only four months left in the year. You can try to find me true love, but you don’t have enough time or men I haven’t dated yet to win this bet.”

Ruby smirks back. “I said I have ideas. You should be worried.”

“And yet I’m not.” I give her my serene face. “I’d love it if you could, but there’s no way.”

“It’s true,” Sami says. “Mads loves falling in love so much that she keeps doing the falling part over and over and skipping the rest of it.”

I nod, not offended. It’s the image I’ve cultivated since college. “Yeah. I’m only here for the fun part.”

“I’m shocked to hear this from the woman who can’t commit to owning a succulent,” Ava says.

I blow her a kiss. “They’re too needy.”

“I hear you,” Sami says. “That whole thing where you have to water them once a month? What’s up with that?”

Ava and Ruby are our plant mamas, but even Sami has an air plant on the kitchen windowsill.

“No shame in my game,” I inform them. “Every minute spent watering a plant is one less minute spent flirting with a boy.”

“With a wrong boy,” Ruby says. “You will not find your man hanging out in the VIP section of a club, Mads.”

“Too bad, so sad,” I say cheerfully. “I can’t help where I work.”

“You one hundred percent can help where you work,” Ava says.

“Hey. Are you judging me?” I have two jobs, but I know which one she means. I work bottle service at Gatsby’s, the most elite club in the city. I’m the hostess and server for VIP tables, people who spend hundreds—even thousands sometimes—to reserve a table for the night. Luxury tables mean luxury tips. It would probably shock Ava and Ruby to know that I make more money working weekend nights at the club than they do full-time in their lab and library. I also work several shifts a week at a clothing and home goods boutique, but there aren’t too many guys to flirt with there.

“Of course I’m not judging you,” Ava says. “You like going to work, so that’s all I care about. I’m pointing out that it’s inaccurate to say you can’t help where you work. You chose it.”

Ruby points to a framed cross-stitch quote—made by Ava—on the wall. “Stay out of my territory, Ava.”

The quote says “Well, actually . . .” and it’s attributed to the very Ruby Ramos now pointing it out, who truly does use that phrase a lot. Very a lot. So much a lot. It’s a job hazard.

But so is my flirting. “I wasn’t being literal. But I do spend all my time either here or at work, and you’re all gorgeous and worthy, but I don’t want to date any of you. So, hot guys at the club it is.”

“Which is why you need me,” Ruby says. “I can find you a man.”

Sami snorts. “Madison can find herself a man. A new one a day if she wants to.”

I smile. “Sometimes I do want to.”

Ruby, who has been curled in an armchair through all of this, leans forward to fix me with a look. “We know. But I mean the prince.”

I ignore a prickle of anxiety and give her the smile of a poker player holding a winning hand. “Never going to happen, but sure. Bring it.”

“Terms?” Ava asks. Ruby won Ava’s room with the en suite bathroom in their bet. Ava “won” Joey, and Ruby maintains it’s Ava’s own fault she came out worse in the deal. Ruby’s joking. I’m not sure anything has made her happier than her best friend and brother getting together.

“Madi’s bed.” Ruby names her stakes without missing a beat.

Zero surprise. Ava and Sami don’t look surprised either. Saying I have the most comfortable bed in the house is both a fact and a criminal understatement. If they knew how much my mattress cost, I’d probably witness their souls leaving their bodies.

I only smile at Ruby. “Accepted. But you made a critical mistake. There is no man worth giving up that bed for.”

Sami grimaces. “She might be right, Ruby.”

“It’s a really good bed.” Ava’s voice is reverent.

Ruby only shakes her head. “You’d think after I’ve won twice, you’d have more faith in me. Especially when the third time’s a charm.”

I snort. “True love by New Year’s? You’re on.”