I was super insecure about the whole shebang.
Jarred Amato. The dopest. Period.
Joey Tam. I’m pretty sure your critique is literally what pulled this whole thing together in my head.
Kristin Schulz. #workwife4life, you have no idea how much you liking this thing has helped me chill. For real.
Random House fam: Kathy, Auntie Barbs, Auntie Judith, Aunt Felicia, John (NEMESIS!), Dominique, Syd, Adrienne, Angela, Jules, Christine, Alison, Lisa M….(This is when I start forgetting people. SORRY!)
Anyway, anyway: with all of you by my side, I clearly hit the jackpot.
Nic Stone is the author of the New York Times bestselling and William C. Morris Award finalist Dear Martin and Odd One Out, an NPR Best Book and Rainbow Book List Top Ten. Jackpot, her third novel, is a life-affirming story about the humanity in people, no matter how little or how much is in their bank account.
Nic lives in Atlanta with her adorable little family.
nicstone.info
From where he’s standing across the street, Justyce can see her: Melo Taylor, ex-girlfriend, slumped over beside her Benz on the damp concrete of the FarmFresh parking lot. She’s missing a shoe, and the contents of her purse are scattered around her like the guts of a pulled party popper. He knows she’s stone drunk, but this is too much, even for her.
Jus shakes his head, remembering the judgment all over his best friend Manny’s face as he left Manny’s house not fifteen minutes ago.
The WALK symbol appears.
As he approaches, she opens her eyes, and he waves and pulls his earbuds out just in time to hear her say, “What the hell are you doing here?”
Justyce asks himself the same question as he watches her try—and fail—to shift to her knees. She falls over sideways and hits her face against the car door.
He drops down and reaches for her cheek—which is as red as the candy-apple paint job. “Damn, Melo, are you okay?”
She pushes his hand away. “What do you care?”
Stung, Justyce takes a deep breath. He cares a lot. Obviously. If he didn’t, he wouldn’t’ve walked a mile from Manny’s house at three in the morning (Manny’s of the opinion that Melo’s “the worst thing that ever happened” to Jus, so of course he refused to give his boy a ride). All to keep his drunken disaster of an ex from driving.
He should walk away right now, Justyce should.
But he doesn’t.
“Jessa called me,” he tells her.
“That skank—”
“Don’t be like that, babe. She only called me because she cares about you.”
Jessa had planned to take Melo home herself, but Mel threatened to call the cops and say she’d been kidnapped if Jessa didn’t drop her at her car.
Melo can be a little dramatic when she’s drunk.
“I’m totally unfollowing her,” she says (case in point). “In life and online. Nosy bitch.”
Justyce shakes his head again. “I just came to make sure you get home okay.” That’s when it hits Justyce that while he might succeed in getting Melo home, he has no idea how he’ll get back. He closes his eyes as Manny’s words ring through his head: This Captain Save-A-Ho thing is gonna get you in trouble, dawg.
He looks Melo over. She’s now sitting with her head leaned back against the car door, half-asleep, mouth open.
He sighs. Even drunk, Jus can’t deny Melo’s the finest girl he’s ever laid eyes—not to mention hands—on.
She starts to tilt, and Justyce catches her by the shoulders to keep her from falling. She startles, looking at him wide-eyed, and Jus can see everything about her that initially caught his attention. Melo’s dad is this Hall of Fame NFL linebacker (biiiiig black dude), but her mom is from Norway. She got Mrs. Taylor’s milky Norwegian complexion, wavy hair the color of honey, and amazing green eyes that are kind of purple around the edge, but she has really full lips, a small waist, crazy curvy hips, and probably the nicest butt Jus has ever seen in his life.
That’s part of his problem: he gets too tripped up by how beautiful she is. He never would’ve dreamed a girl as fine as her would be into him.
Now he’s got the urge to kiss her even though her eyes are red and her hair’s a mess and she smells like vodka and cigarettes and weed. But when he goes to push her hair out of her face, she shoves his hand away again. “Don’t touch me, Justyce.”
She starts shifting her stuff around on the ground—lipstick, Kleenex, tampons, one of those