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

finds out they sold the ticket to me as a minor. Knowing Wanda and her family’s happiness is at stake unless I figure out what to do with this ticket just makes finding someone to cash it ASAP that much more urgent.

But who?

Mom? Grandma? Holden? Is there no one else I can trust?

There really isn’t. And I will have to choose from these three soon.

Ugh.

LAKESBORO COMMUNITY FACEBOOK GROUP FRIDAY, 11:00 P.M.

AMY PEMBERLY: Starting a new thread here about the lotto winner because I seriously cannot believe no one has come forward.

MARY FULTON: Same! How can you just be sitting on all that money? Like, if you don’t want it, give it to someone who does!

LISA HAWKINS: Agreed! It’s unthinkable. Send some of that money my way. Lord knows I could use it for bills or gas in my car.

AMY PEMBERLY: I think it’s a sin to waste all that money and not come forward.

MARY FULTON: They have 180 days to claim it; we could be in for a long wait, folks.

J. WILKINS: They’re a coward for not coming forward.

MARY FULTON: Now, don’t be so harsh. Maybe they’ve got something going on we don’t know about.

J. WILKINS: YEAH right. Like they’re now worth more than the entire budget of this town for the year. Talk to me later about all their problems. [100 more comments]

CHAPTER TEN

DID YOU KNOW MOST OF THE OCEAN IS A WATERY DESERT? IT’S HUGE and empty, with predators cruising endlessly. At least that’s what David Attenborough reports in his series for the BBC, The Blue Planet.

I’m deep in a The Blue Planet marathon on Saturday morning, and I’m alternating between jotting down facts about the ocean in my notebook, avoiding Bran’s phone calls, composing replies that I then delete to Holden’s friendly text—It was fun to hang out! We should do it again soon—and doing homework. I’ve seen all the The Blue Planet episodes a dozen times already, but Attenborough’s soothing voice and the magnificent, aloof, turbulent ocean are the only company I can handle right now.

The Facebook threads about the lotto winner are getting worse. I don’t normally go on Facebook, but now I can’t seem to stay out of the town’s group. It’s like watching an accident in slow motion. People seem genuinely pissed that no one has come forward, and there’s been talk of bodily harm. As I read through the threads, all I can think about are those predators in the deep, empty places of the ocean, cruising around, looking for something to sink their teeth into.

Fifty-eight million dollars is a lot to sink your teeth into.

At three o’clock in the afternoon, there’s a knock on my window. Although my room is on the second story of the farmhouse, and that should be a deterrent to using the window as a door, I immediately know it’s Bran. Because who else would show up at my house like this? I also know he’ll keep knocking unless I answer.

I somehow manage to haul myself off my bed and push the curtains aside. Then I nearly fall over.

Eeeek.

It’s not Bran. It’s Holden. He’s balancing on the top of a rickety metal pool ladder (one of Mom’s oldest finds) and holding two cups of Starbucks.

“Uhm … hi,” I say as I open the window. I try not to cringe as I imagine how Holden must be seeing me: braless, wearing a tank top and leggings and no makeup, which could be an effortlessly chic look on some girls, but not me.

“Brought you coffee,” says Holden by way of greeting. He hands up both of our cups. “It’s a vanilla latte. Can I come in?”

Something in my heart lurches. Holden never used the front door when we were dating because I didn’t want him to see the overall state of the house. This is a few steps too close to those old times.

“Why?” I can’t keep the note of suspicion from my voice. After my talk with Bran yesterday, and about a thousand pep talks with myself today, I vowed to keep my distance from Holden.

“Because I can hear David Attenborough’s voice from out here, and no one has seen you all day. That can mean only one thing: The Blue Planet binge. Which in turn can only mean one thing: that you’re super stressed or worried about something and need some company.”

I hate that he knows this about me.

“What if I don’t want company?”

Holden shrugs. “Then I’ll leave the coffee and be on my way.”

I sigh. I do want company. Because being alone with my enormous $58 million secret, my homework, and Mom’s piles of junk cannot be good for any seventeen-year-old.

“Fine.”

He grins. Then, in one fluid movement, he hoists himself into my room. His presence fills it.

“I like what you did with the place,” he says, gesturing to the pile of papers on the bed. “And I still haven’t read this book. Even though you gave me a copy ages ago.”

He picks up Sea Change and turns it over to read the back-cover copy. Putting our cups down so fast some of the coffee sloshes onto my nightstand, I snatch the book from Holden’s hands. The winning lotto ticket is still inside, and I’ve only looked at it like nine hundred times today. All Holden would have to do is flip through the pages, and the truth would be out.

Of course, if I just told him about it and asked him to cash the ticket for me, then problem solved. But can I really trust Holden to give me the money? What if he took all the money for himself and went off to live that super-rich lifestyle he’s always talking about?

“This book is not that great,” I lie, shoving Sea Change into my backpack, along with all the bio homework on my bed. Which leaves the bed very open. Which leaves me very open to remembering the last time Holden was here. When we were having sex. In my bed. A