Lucky Girl by Jamie Pacton (novels for beginners txt) 📕

Jack Whittaker is harder to feel sorry for than Urooj Khan, because this lucky bastard was already rich (worth something like $17 million) and then he won another $315 million in Powerball. (THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTEEN MILLION! I can’t even imagine!)

Jack did some good with the money, like donating to charities and setting up foundations, but he also seemingly couldn’t get enough of strip clubs. Get this: The guy got robbed more than once outside of strip clubs, and each time the thieves took hundreds of thousands of dollars from his car.

(Get an effing bank account already, Jack. Sheesh.)

But that’s not the worst part: Jack became an alcoholic, he and his wife divorced, and his granddaughter (whom Jack was supplying with thousands of dollars every month) died of a drug overdose.

Whittaker and his wife both said they wished he had torn up the ticket.

NOTE TO SELF: JACK WON NEARLY A HUNDRED TIMES MORE THAN I DID AND BROUGHT MISERY TO EVERYONE HE LOVED.

MY FOLLOW-UP QUESTIONS:

Do I tear up the ticket???

Or am I the most entitled, shitty human alive for not finding a way to cash it and try to do some good????

Also, Holden is eighteen now and not being a total jackass. Is he even an option for cashing the ticket? Would he give me the money?

(No, Jane. Stop. Don’t even consider this. Bad idea.)

CHAPTER NINE

“WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU HELD HANDS WITH HOLDEN?” BRAN asks, nearly spitting out the mouthful of chips he’s just stuffed into his face.

We’re crammed inside the Kim family pumpkin farm’s ticket booth, sitting behind the low counter. Bran is eating from a supersized bag of chips he’s pulled out of his backpack. For scale: There’s barely room for the two of us, the backpack, and the bag of chips inside the tiny booth. But this was the only place we could chat without Bran’s mom assigning us separate tasks.

“It wasn’t a big deal,” I say quietly, so the line of people outside of the booth doesn’t hear us.

“Of course it’s a big deal. We hate him,” Bran mutters. He offers me the bag of chips. I shake my head.

“I know we hate him,” I say, running a hand over my super-short hair and then fiddling with the row of earrings in my right ear. When did I become such a fidgeter? “But he was nice today.”

“He’s not nice! Remember how he’d do stuff like make you think things were your fault when they weren’t? Like that time when we were at the carnival last year, and you both were in the seat below Sofie and me. Remember what happened to his phone when he was trying to take a picture of you two? Sofie and I saw that he dropped it, but he blamed you for breaking it for the rest of the night. Or what about the way he was always saying you made him late for movies and stuff, even though he was the one who could never decide what he wanted at the snack bar? Or the way he made you second-guess what you wanted? C’mon, Jane. He was a jerk.”

Those are all true statements, and they are certainly not part of the easy, breezy rom-com relationship I thought I had. But there’s a chance we’re remembering things wrong.

“Maybe he was just really stressed out? Maybe his family was going through some stuff?”

“Jane. No. We don’t feel sorry for Holden. That’s a rule.”

“Fine,” I say, smiling at a small girl in a witch costume who’s standing beside her parents in line. “But what if he’s changed?”

“Who cares?! He’s a douchebag, and you deserve someone better!”

The little girl in the witch costume widens her eyes, and her mother glares at us.

“Sorry,” I mutter, handing them their tickets to the hayride.

I turn back to Bran. “So, how is Sofie? I saw her Instagram photos from yesterday. She’s so lucky to live in Sydney. Can you even—”

“Jane, don’t change the subject. You don’t need Holden in your life.”

With a long sigh, I slump into the chair behind the counter. “Fine. You’re right.”

“He wants something,” says Bran. “Trust me. I can just tell.”

“With what? Your investigative instincts?”

He makes a face at me. “Yes, those. Don’t let yourself get drawn back into his orbit.”

He’s right, of course. Holden’s orbit is planetary. It loops around and around, and before you know it, he’s the center of everything else in your life. Because he shows up with coffee out of the blue and takes you on surprise trips to places you think you’d hate, like waterparks, and then convinces you to love them like he does.

I squeeze some hand sanitizer into my palm, as if that would cleanse me of the feeling of Holden’s hand in mine.

“Mandatory subject change: Tell me about the investigation,” I say. “I’m sorry I didn’t get to help with anything after school.”

I had rushed straight from the Aquarium Oasis field trip to soccer practice and then just barely made it to work at five, in my sweaty practice clothes. Bran had a bowl of his mom’s noodle soup waiting for me in the ticket booth, which I slurped down in about ten seconds.

“We’re not done with this Holden conversation,” warns Bran. “But, okay. Subject change noted. The investigation is not going at all.”

“Did you go by Wanda’s?”

Bran nods. “I did, but it’s closed.”

“Closed? They’re never closed.”

“Except when they sell a winning lotto ticket and get a fifty thousand dollar payout for being the ones who sold it.”

My stomach sinks. “Doesn’t the winner have to come forward before they get that?”

Bran shakes his head. “Nope. I looked it up. They get the payout immediately, and in Wanda’s case, she left a sign on the door saying she and Mary Anne are on vacation for the first time in ten years.”

Welp. At least somebody is enjoying their surprise riches. I just hope they don’t end up having to give them back (or worse) if the world