The Perfect Escape (The Perfect Escape #1) - Suzanne Park Page 0,38
breathed out a gust of wind. “Shit! Thank fucking God Pete’s gone. I hate that he was in the neigh-bro-hood.” He coughed out a laugh. “Did you know that Zach is king of Skee-Ball and the bear claw game? He’s a beast!”
Zach smiled. “Just physics. And practice.”
Jaxon tossed over to me a pink My Little Pony with a misshapen butt. “Give that to your little sister.” Pinky Pie, her favorite character. She’d love it, mild deformity and all. Christmas was the last time she’d gotten any new toys—for her birthday she’d gotten a fairy costume and wand that would later double as her Halloween costume. Lucy was always sneaking into my room, trying to play with my collectibles.
Jaxon and Zach didn’t know about Pete’s proposition—they weren’t in the top ten percent of our class. Plus, I knew what Jaxon would say: Pete is a fuckin’-piece-of-privileged-shit-fuck-that-asshole-son-of-a-bitch-mother-fucking-ballsack-selfish-fucker-fuck-him-and-his-money! Zach would want me to report Pete to the headmaster, but no way in hell was that going to happen. Because you know the one thing worse than being called skid? Being called snitch.
“Annie got a ride home with Pete,” Jaxon continued. “He offered, and he lives a few streets away from her. Sorry you have to slum it alone with us skids, Natey boy.”
In a three-to-zero vote, we went to Zach’s house for an impromptu movie night. The Wolf of Wall Street was on, one of our all-time favorites to watch together. Jaxon loosely quoted from that movie all the time. Zach always corrected him.
I downed my frothy Coke and bowl of microwave popcorn. With the obnoxious, smug Jordan Belfort on screen, my mind drifted to my conversation with Pete and his tempting financial deal. That money could help my family. Get us a new car. A brand-new roof. Newer Xbox console. College tuition. So many possibilities.
Why couldn’t I have my turn with conspicuous consumption? My whole life I’d been poor. My parents were poor, and so were both sets of grandparents before them. It was like I inherited a poverty gene. A skid for life. For once, would it really be that terrible to get a taste of being rich like everyone else?
Chapter Twelve
Kate
All of the floodlights flicked on when Raina attempted to pull her car into the driveway.
“Whoa, that’s all new,” she murmured. “You housing maximum-security prisoners inside your house?”
Yes, the maximum-security prisoner was me. “There are snipers in watchtowers around us that you can’t see,” I whispered.
She burst into laughter.
“You can let me out here. The codes to the gates are complicated.” I scrambled out of the passenger seat and leaped out into the rain. “Thanks for letting me come out with you. Let’s do it again soon.”
Her brow knitted so close together they almost formed a unibrow. “Wait, you have more than one gate?”
“Yeah, it’s something my dad installed a few months ago. We’re always testing out his products. We also have a helper robot now, courtesy of Digitools. He pretty much sucks, though. I’ll message you later. I’m getting drenched.”
Raina beamed. “Yes! On your new phone! And after school on Wednesdays a bunch of us walk to the new diner down the street. It’s always empty. I think we’re the only ones who keep that place in business. You should come.”
It’d been so long since I was part of any group. “Yeah, I guess. Have a good night!”
“I’ll take that as a Kate ‘hell yeah!’”
She waited until I went through the outer gate before she backed out of the driveway. I slowed my pace down the hill even though the rain pounded down harder, thinking about whether hanging out with Raina and her friends my senior year would even be worth it if I was leaving anyway. Rekindling old friendships and making new friends was a lot of effort. But hanging out with Raina was so much fun and definitely worth doing again. Going out with real people on Wednesdays had to be better than staying at home with Jeeves.
As if he read my mind, Jeeves opened the front door for me. “Welcome back, Kate. Regretfully, I must inform you that you returned after your curfew by five minutes.”