“Take it.”
“No way.” He looks slightly panicked. “You love that thing.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not really my style anymore,” Teddy says, half-turning to give me a sheepish grin. “Besides, if all goes well, you’ll be needing a car next year, right?”
It takes Leo a moment to answer; he’s too busy gaping at the keys in his hand.
“I know this is sort of a weird thing to say, considering everything,” he says eventually. “But I kind of feel like I just won the lottery.”
“Funny,” Teddy says, his eyes finding mine again. “So do I.”
When I’m finished packing up the kitchen, the only thing left is the hippo-shaped cookie jar, and I stand there with a hand on its glassy head, lost in the memory of that blue-cold morning when the ticket was tucked safely inside, still a secret, still just a possibility, still only ours.
Now the midday sun is washing the room in honey-colored light, the cookie jar is once again filled with Oreos, and Teddy—the youngest winner in the history of the Powerball lottery—is in his bedroom, tossing his balled-up socks one by one into the box he’s supposed to be packing, and the story of that ticket—of that morning—doesn’t belong to us anymore.
It belongs to everyone.
Across town right now Uncle Jake and Aunt Sofia are eating a late breakfast in the quiet kitchen of the brownstone, the puppy snoozing beneath the table. A few miles away Katherine McAvoy is on her way to the hospital, where she’ll spend the day comforting a seven-year-old girl with leukemia, not because she’s getting paid to but because that’s where she’s supposed to be.
And Leo is driving to pick up his boyfriend in a red sports car, already thinking ahead to next year, to all the many trips he’ll be making in it as long as his luck holds out. And Max is waiting to surprise him with tickets to the new Pixar movie, because he knows Leo better than anyone.
In Portland a woman is standing in front of a mini-mart thinking about the last time she was here, with her four kids in the car, and a sick husband at home, and a long day of work behind her. She closes her eyes, grateful for whatever it was that made her ask for a ticket that day while paying for her terrible coffee and overpriced gas.
Down at the very tip of Florida, an old man is lighting the candles on an enormous cake. When he picked his numbers all those months ago, he tried to play his grandchildren’s birthdays, only he got one of them wrong. He was off by two days, which has sparked a new family tradition. Today, they’re celebrating his youngest granddaughter’s birthday for the second time this week.
And the man who was working the register at the convenience store that snowy night is opening a savings account for his two-year-old son, who will be the first in his family to go to college because of the prize money his father received for selling the winning ticket.
And one of the lottery officials is reading an article in a glossy magazine about what someone as young and rich as Teddy might do after graduation, because even after twelve years of giving away giant checks, the man likes to keep tabs on the winners, to see which ones collapse under the weight of all that money and which use it to make the world a better place.
Sometimes he even makes bets with his wife.
On Teddy, he’s about to lose.
In San Francisco the chicken lady is taking a shift at the hospice care center, listening patiently to a woman who sounds just like she did, with a sick mother and nowhere to turn, and she nods and pats her hand and opens a new file, knowing that now there’s something she can do to help, which is the best feeling of all.
And Sawyer is dreaming of castles in Scotland, and Charlie is walking into a meeting, and Caleb is taking a nap at his new foster home, his arms wrapped tightly around his stuffed pig.
And the man who was behind me in line that day, who won exactly four dollars on his ticket, then immediately used it to buy another one, which got him nothing, is mowing his lawn, because his life didn’t change at all. And who’s to say if that’s better or worse than what happened to Teddy, what happened to me?
Maybe it all would have gone this way no matter what.
Maybe it was always supposed to turn out like this.
Maybe it was never really about the numbers at all.
Teddy comes sliding into the kitchen in mismatched socks: one looks like a monster, with big teeth and googly eyes, and the other has tiny mustaches all over it.
“Look what I found,” he says, coming up behind me and grabbing me around the waist. He buries his nose in my neck and I shiver, then swivel to face him. He looks down at his feet, wiggling his toes. “They were stuck under my bed.”
“A perfect match,” I say, and without warning he bends to kiss me. In an instant my head is swimming, and my ears are buzzing, and our hands are everywhere. It’s still so new, this thing between us, even though Teddy is not, even though he’s the most familiar thing in the world, and that makes it all so much better because it’s the best of everything, and each time he kisses me—every single time—I get the feeling we might never stop, that we might just decide to live like this, lip to lip and hip to hip, bound together for the rest of our days.
But then he backs me up a few steps, and I bump up against the refrigerator, and we break apart, both smiling like crazy and breathing too fast.
“Hi,” he says, which he does pretty much every time we stop, as if he’s still surprised and delighted to discover that it’s me he was kissing all that time.
I grin back at him. “Hi.”
He leans forward, bracing his hands on the freezer, one on either side of my head, pinning me in place like he’s about to kiss me again, but then he frowns and draws back.
“This thing is really old,” he says, and I blink at him, confused.
“What is?”
“The fridge,” he says, looking around. “And the oven, actually.”
“That’s what you were thinking about just now?”
He laughs. “Sorry, but…”
“What?”
“What if I surprised the next tenants by putting in some new appliances?” he says, suddenly excited. “Wouldn’t it be cool if they just came in and saw it all here?”
“It would be very cool,” I say, and I mean it. Whenever he talks like this, whenever he lights up at the thought of doing something kind, my heart starts to feel too big for my rib cage.
He stoops in front of the oven, opening the rusted door and peering inside. The moment is clearly over, so I grab the brown garbage bag that’s resting beside the sink.
“Don’t throw away anything important,” Teddy says without looking up, and I can hear the laughter in his voice.
“That never gets old,” I say, hefting it onto my shoulder. “Never.”
But as I step out into the hallway, I’m struck again by the memory of that morning, of how close we came to losing the ticket, of the way something so small—a missing slip of paper—could have changed things so dramatically.
Once I’ve sent the bag sailing down to the dumpster below, I take a long look at the brass numerals hanging on the door of the apartment beside the chute: 13. There was a time when I wished none of this had ever happened, when I wished the number thirteen hadn’t been something I was quite so willing to hand over to the man behind the counter that day. But not now. It no longer feels like a trip wire or a land mine or a scar, that number. It’s something else entirely: a memory, a dedication, a good-luck charm.
It’s the thing that got me here.
And here is a pretty good place to be.
When I walk back inside, Teddy is standing in front of the refrigerator, his back to the door and his head bent, so it isn’t until he turns around that I realize something is wrong. His hair is sticking up the way it does when he’s been running a hand through it, and he looks a little pale. It takes me another few seconds to notice the card he’s holding, and as soon as I do my heart falls so hard and so fast I feel like it might have escaped me altogether.
I stare at the refrigerator, which has been pulled out a few inches from the wall, then back at the card, which he’s holding with both hands, then at his ridiculous socks: anywhere but his eyes, which I’m afraid to meet, because I’m afraid to see what’s in them.
It’s been so long since that snowy bus ride, so long since I borrowed Leo’s pen and emptied my heart onto the page. So much has happened since that night. So much has changed. And now I’ve gone and ruined everything, just because of one stupid, careless moment a few months ago, when I made the mistake of writing on a birthday card the three words we still haven’t said aloud to each other. If that’s not enough to scare him off, to give him second thoughts about us, I’m not sure what is.
I should know better than anyone that luck is not an infinite resource.
And here, now, I might’ve finally used up what little I had left.
The silence lengthens. I’m still standing by the door, and Teddy is still standing by the fridge, and the distance between us is unbearable. The card is in his hand and I can almost see the words from here, though I’ve been carrying them around with me for so long that I don’t need reminding. They’re like a second heartbeat, steady and painful and true: I love you, I love you, I love you.
I’m bracing myself, waiting for the moment to tip one way or the other, waiting for everything to end or to begin. The stillness in the kitchen is airless and tense. A cloud passes by out the window and the room goes dim. Somewhere in the distance, a siren blares. And here in the quiet I let out a shaky breath before finally forcing myself to look up at Teddy.
I thought I knew all his smiles, thought I had them memorized and categorized. But this one is different. The way he’s looking at me right now, it’s like he’s about to turn into someone else entirely. It’s like his ship is about to come in.
It’s like he’s the luckiest person in the world.
It’s like we both are.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
I’ve never won the lottery before, but I often feel like I have, and that’s because of all the amazing people in my life. This book wouldn’t have happened without so many of them.
First, I owe a great big thank-you to my agent and friend, Jennifer Joel. We’ve been working together for over ten years now, and I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have in my corner.
I feel incredibly fortunate to have landed at Delacorte, and I’m so grateful to my editor, Kate Sullivan, for the huge amount of time and love and energy she poured into this book. Thank you to Beverly Horowitz for making all my publishing dreams come true, and to Barbara Marcus for her incredible enthusiasm and support. My publicist, Jillian Vandall, is the absolute best. And I was thrilled to get to work with Dominique Cimina, Kim Lauber, Judith Haut, Adrienne Waintraub, Laura Antonacci, Cayla Rasi, Kelly McGauley, Kristin Schulz, Kate Keating, Hannah Black, Alexandra Hightower, Alison Impey, Christine Blackburne, Colleen Fellingham, Barbara Bakowski, and the rest of the wonderful Random House team. Thanks for making so much magic happen.
I couldn’t do any of this without Kelly Mitchell, my sister and sounding board.
I’m very lucky to have friends who are not only amazing authors, but also thoughtful and generous readers: Jenny Han, Sarah Mlynowski, Aaron Hartzler, Elizabeth Eulberg, and Morgan Matson. I owe a huge debt of gratitude to Siobhan Vivian for coming up with the title, and to Jenni Henaux, Ryan Doherty, Anna Carey, Robin Wasserman, and Lauren Graham for all the guidance and encouragement along the way.
It’s been a true pleasure to work with Rachel Petty, Venetia Gosling, Belinda Rasmussen, Kat McKenna, Bea Cross, and George Lester at Macmillan in the UK. I’m always grateful to Stephanie Thwaites, Roxane Edouard, Becky Ritchie, and Hana Murrell at Curtis Brown for all they do for me around the world. Many, many thanks to everyone at ICM, especially Josie Freedman, John DeLaney, and Sharon Green. And—as always—to Binky Urban, without whom none of this would’ve happened.
Lastly, of course, to my family: Dad, Mom, Kelly, Errol, and Andrew. Thanks a million.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Jennifer E. Smith is the author of seven novels for young adults, including The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight. She earned a master’s degree in creative writing from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland, and her work has been translated into thirty-three languages. She lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter at @JenESmith or visit her at jenniferesmith.com.
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