Just My Luck by Adele Parks (best interesting books to read TXT) 📕

pink dress from Boss...probably supposed to be on the knee but since I’m vertically challenged it is a little longer on me.

I glance at Mum and Dad. They are not smiling. They are both stone-still and bone white. I know Mum didn’t want the Heathcotes and Pearsons to know about the win yet; she’s going to go ape when she finds out I told. Dad cared less. I guess he accepts we have to face their reaction at some point. Will the parents be jealous, like Ridley and Megan? Or will they be more reasonable? They said they were here to congratulate. I hope so, then perhaps Megan, Rids and I can make up.

Jennifer and Fred are Ridley’s parents. Ridley looks like his dad, but he has the same smile as his mum. She’s not smiling now, though—her jaw is set with a grim determination. The Heathcotes are dressed as they dress most of the time: smart. Not fashionable but somehow decidedly suitable. Classic. Jennifer has expensive-looking caramel highlights in her hair, and I think she’s probably just had a trim to sharpen things up. She always looks as though she’s just stepped out of a hair salon. Fred has a beard and it makes him look like some old royal duke or something. I can’t quite describe it, but they’ve nailed the look I’m pretty sure Mum and Dad were hoping to discover when we were trailing around New Bond Street, money burning a hole in their pockets. Mum has told me before that Jennifer and Fred are actually very posh in a way that none of our other friends are. They both went to boarding school and she had a pony when she was a kid. I think maybe Carla and Patrick are actually richer now, they certainly live in the biggest house, but despite this Jennifer and Fred are the ones everyone admires the most, I think. Because they are so proper and different. They are very nice. Polite, you know?

I glance at my parents. They look cool, younger than either the Pearsons or Heathcotes, but they also look a bit too shiny. They are undoubtedly people wearing new clothes, which is never a good thing. Except maybe on holiday. My mum is basically pretty but doesn’t do anything about it and as neither Carla nor Jennifer work, they both have a lot of time to go to the gym and beauty salon. Maybe now we are millionaires, Mum can even things up a bit. I remember once joking with her that when me and Ridley get married, she’ll have to work really hard not to let the mother of the groom outshine the mother of the bride. All she said to that, though, was, “You’re too young to be talking about marriage.” Mum isn’t really very competitive.

Is Ridley still even my boyfriend? The thought scuttling into my mind sends actual shots of pain through me, like someone is repeatedly flicking at my flesh. This has to be a blip. It has to be! Patrick, Megan’s dad, is wearing his usual weekday uniform, a suit and tie. I briefly wonder why he is not at work. Usually Patrick is permanently attached to his phone and talks about nothing except work. Not something my dad is guilty of. In fact, shouldn’t both Patrick and Fred be at their offices? It’s got to be a good sign that they’ve taken time off specially to come to this press announcement, hasn’t it? They must want to be supportive. Or at the very least, to suck up to us. I’m pretty sure that now they know we are lottery winners they’ll want to scam a free holiday when we rent some amazing chateau somewhere. Everything is going to be okay. Once they see how generous we’ll be. I’ll get my boyfriend and my best friend back. Things will be okay.

Carla basically looks better than I’ve ever seen her look. She is wearing a green-and-blue midcalf, slim-fitting but not vulgarly tight body-con dress. Green and blue shouldn’t work but it does. The season is all about the bold colors. A woman in Armani told me that when we were on our shopping spree. I have to admit it, Carla has upstaged Mum. Honestly? She always kind of does upstage everyone. Carla likes to be the best at everything. She has to be the slimmest, the chicest, the fastest if they go on a run. Her kids certainly have to be the cleverest. Look, that’s just my opinion. Mum likes Carla a lot, but I think she’s a bit full-on. You know, she’s one of those mothers that can tell you exactly what percentage Megan got in her midweek Physics test and who played defensive fullback in Megan’s last hockey match. Megan has two younger brothers, Scott who is twelve and Teddy who is nine. Carla watches them all like a hawk. She constantly complains how exhausting it is being a mother of three, but I wonder what would she do with herself if she wasn’t living through them?

At least I can’t complain that my mum lives through me.

Gillian politely asks the Heathcotes and Pearsons to take a seat two or three times over, but they still don’t. Instead, Patrick marches up to the microphone. “Ladies and gentlemen of the press,” he says, which is a bit over-the-top, but he can do that. He knows that a slow, posh voice makes people sit up and listen. “We are thrilled that the entire syndicate of winners are able to be here today after all, for this photo opportunity, rather than just the syndicate representatives, Mr. and Mrs. Greenwood.”

What? I don’t get it! I turn to Mum and Dad, who look like a bus has just hit them. No one seems to know what is going on and there’s a confused murmur throughout the room. The words “syndicate” and “team” are repeated by the press people, over and over, the words are stones, the pond