Mr. Jingles stopped to sniff a bush and pee on it, and I opened up the text.
Are you still mad?
I scoffed. Was I still mad?
I thought about that for a second. The automatic answer would have been yes. But truthfully?
No. Not really.
And did I forgive Rainy?
As amazing as it seemed, I think I did. All of the anger I’d felt the other day had already dissipated. There was no reason to hold onto my bad feelings any longer. Not when all they did was hurt me. Not when there was so much more in life to look forward to.
But was I ready to start chatting again, to pick up our friendship right in the place where it had left off?
That one I didn’t know about.
Mr. Jingles had apparently found a bush that was popular with the neighborhood dogs, which meant having to go around and smell each and every leaf, so I took another moment to think about my response before texting back.
I haven’t thought much about it. I’ve been pretty busy.
My phone buzzed with a response almost immediately.
You don’t have to be so dismissive, and you don’t have to turn your back on me. I’m still your friend.
I sucked in a deep breath through my nose. The convo had just started and it already felt ridiculous.
I’m not being dismissive, I texted her. And don’t get mad at me. You’re the one who started seeing Eli behind my back.
The last part might have been unnecessary, but I sent it anyway. Rainy’s texts were starting to piss me off. I’d been enjoying an amazing day when, out of the blue, she had to text me just to… what? To see if I thought ill of her? To try and stop me from being catty and spreading dirt?
It didn’t matter. I slipped the phone back in my pocket, resolving to think through the next text before sending it. A fight with Rainy would prove extremely satisfying, yes. But it would also wreck me emotionally and derail the rest of my day.
I didn’t want anything ruining my evening with Luke.
Mr. Jingles finished at his bush, and we carried on, with him leading the way to Mrs. Roessler’s brick cottage. After letting myself in through the back door with the key Mrs. Roessler had hidden in a flower pot for me, I gave Mr. Jingles some fresh water and a treat. He wiggled his tail gratefully and proceeded to settle down on the cool hardwood floor with his head between his paws. Surprisingly, the sight gave me some satisfaction. It was trivial, I knew, but it felt nice to have spent a half hour turning a bouncing ball of fluff into an exhausted and happy pup.
“See you tomorrow, Mr. Jingles,” I softly told him, closing the door securely behind me.
My bike leaned against the back of the house, and I climbed on it and started off, taking a deep breath as I cruised down the slanted driveway. Gaining some speed, I veered left into the road, heading for home and maybe a nap. A car honked behind me, and I moved over slightly, but then the car honked again.
Annoyed, I glanced over my shoulder. It was Tracey’s white truck, slowing down enough so that it almost matched my speed. I steered the bike into the grass to stop and waited while Tracey pulled up next to me and leaned across the cab. Her hair was up in a high ponytail, and she looked slightly more rested than the previous times I’d seen her.
“Hey,” she called.
“Hi,” I answered, straddling the bike. “How’s it going?”
She shrugged. “Okay. Better than the last time you saw me.” She smiled then, a real, genuine smile.
“Wow. Good.”
She looked me up and down. “What are you doing?”
“Just going home… so nothing really.”
“Ah.”
She didn’t say anything else, yet didn’t make a move to leave. At that moment, I saw just how self-conscious Tracey could really be. Maybe it was mostly because of everything I already knew about her. It had to be difficult looking in the eyes of someone you’d only recently met and knowing that they were witness to your deepest struggles.
Or maybe she was just shy.
Or maybe she was desperately in need of a friend and didn’t know how to ask for one.
If the last option was the case, I understood it all too well.
“Do you wanna hang out?” I asked. It felt like such a weird thing to ask a woman with three children. I had to remind myself that Tracey really wasn’t that much older than me. Back in L.A., I had friends I hung out with regularly who were way past both mine and her age.
But Tracey really was older in some ways. She’d been through things those friends in L.A. had been spared from probably even having bad dreams about.
“Yeah,” she said, the brightness in her face kicking up a notch. After a second, the smile dampened slightly. “I mean, if you don’t mind being around three kids. They’re home with a babysitter right now, so I need to get back.”
I laughed. “I’m sure I can handle it.”
Talk about famous last words. Tracey’s house was crazy.
I couldn’t fathom how she kept herself together. The place was clean and tastefully decorated, with nice furniture, lots of books, and a spinet piano, but it was loud.
The six-year-old, Mackenzie, had the radio on in her room and kept turning the volume up all the way, despite her mother telling her three times to cut it out. Owen, the four-year-old, was even more energetic than Mr. Jingles before a walk. He bounded from one corner of the living room to the next, first showing me his Star Wars Legos, then his book about spiders.
“Hey,” he nearly shouted at me. “Do you like dogs?”
“I love dogs,” I told him. “I just walked one ten minutes ago.”
“Be right back,” he quickly said, turning and flying down the narrow hallway. He came back with not only two stuffed dogs, but two full back stories on the animals’ lives as well, complete with where they’d been born and why their mothers had needed to leave them at the pound.
Down the hallway, a pop country song grew louder, shaking the walls.
“Mackenzie!” Tracey snapped from next to me. In her arms, Henry wailed about something. Tracey sighed. “I’ll be right back,” she told me before stomping down the hall.
Twenty minutes later, the household was mostly sedated. Owen and Mackenzie sat on the floor with a coloring book between them and Henry relaxed in his highchair with a bottle stuck between his chubby lips.
“That wasn’t too bad,” I told Tracey, who sat across the table from me. Honestly, I didn’t know what to expect around kids. My experience with them had been ignorantly short.
Tracey cocked an eyebrow. “Did you not see how fast the babysitter ran out of here?”
I chuckled. “Yeah. Point taken. So why do you need a babysitter? Aren’t they in daycare?”
Tracey sighed. “Their daycare had a teacher workday today.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Daycares do that?”
“Yep.”
“Huh.” I watched Henry tilt his bottle up to get the last of the liquid in it.
“And the irony is the babysitter cost more than a day’s worth of daycare.”
I whipped my eyes back to her. “So why did you go to work then? Why didn’t you just take the day off?”
She let out a dry laugh. “Because I had to take off the other day when Owen got sick. My manager told me I can’t get out of another shift so soon.”
“Jesus,” I breathed. Quickly, I looked behind me to see if the two kids on the floor had caught my curse. They were still busy coloring though, squabbling over who got the page with Scooby Doo on it.
“Color it together,” Tracey told them. “Stop fighting.”
“That’s bullshit,” I told her in a whisper. “Your manager can’t do that.”
She looked at me oddly. “Of course he can. There was no one else to work the shift anyway.”
I slumped back in my chair. “That still sucks.”
“Yeah,” she agreed, taking the empty bottle from Henry and giving him a set of plastic toy keys to play with. “But it’s my j
ob for right now,” she sadly added. “Trust me, I’m looking for something better.”
“Anything in particular?”
She shrugged. “Anything. Something that pays better. Or something that has more flexible hours. All of the above, ideally. God, I wished I could make my own schedule. If only I could do that, everything would be so much easier. I wouldn’t have had to go in today and waste money on a babysitter.”
“Maybe you can,” I said, the idea forming in my brain even as I put words to it.
She looked at me in confusion. “What do you mean?”
“What if we started our own business?”
She laughed. “That’s a nice idea, Grace, but it’s also a pretty vague plan.”
“No, no, listen,” I said, getting excited. “There’s more to it. I just started walking this lady’s dog, see? And I’m going to be doing it regularly. She also told me she has a friend who wants me to walk her dog. So I’m basically already starting my own business.” My voice rose as I went on. “We could do it together!”
“I don’t know,” she said, clearly not convinced. “I mean, thanks for thinking of me… but would we be able to get enough clients?”
“Maybe. I mean, it’s not like you have to quit the job you have now. I’m at Community First in the mornings anyway… and I’m starting school soon,” I added, remembering my promise to my aunt and uncle. “It could be like a part-time thing.”
Tracey twisted her lips around. “I guess.”
“You could even do it with the kids. Right?”
Tracey looked at Mackenzie and Owen still coloring on the floor. “Yeah, I think I could,” she agreed, but the words were still slow as she considered the idea.
“I think it’s a great idea,” I quickly responded, getting excited for both her and me. “Just think of being able to say yes or no to clients because of your schedule. It would be so freeing.”
Tracey smiled, and I could tell I was breaking her. “It could be some extra money,” she agreed. “That would be nice. God, to be able to work without worrying about paying someone to watch the kids. That would be amazing.”
“Then it’s settled.” I set my palms on the table. “I’m going to ask Mrs. Roessler to hook me up with this other lady. And we should make some fliers so we can get other clients.”
“Make what?” asked a little voice behind me. Owen came up to the table, a streak of purple marker across one of his cheeks.
“Fliers to walk dogs,” I told him. “Would you be able to be good and go with us to do that?”
His eyes went as wide as full moons. “Yeah!” he shrieked. “I love dogs! Remember, Grace? Remember I just told you I loved dogs?”
I held my hand out to him for a high five, and he slapped it, only managing to land half of his palm on mine.
I looked back at Tracey, and she smiled and nodded. “All right. I’m convinced. Let me get my laptop.”
I watched her get up and walk across the living room. “Now?”
“Yeah,” she said over her shoulder. “What are we waiting for?”
She gave me her laptop, and we pushed our chairs together to begin creating the flyer. Mackenzie and Owen both offered their suggestions, mostly ones involving adding pictures of mythical creatures and candy, but we gently let them down on those.
After fifteen minutes, we had the completed flyer advertising our services. Satisfied, I e-mailed it to myself.
“I’ll go and print some copies out at the library,” I offered, “and then put them up around town.”
Henry started hiccupping, and Tracey stood and placed him with his head over her shoulder so she could rub his back. “Great. If you give me some, I can put them up around here.”
“Mom,” Mackenzie said. “Can we play outside?”
“Sure. Just stay in the backyard.”
Mackenzie and Owen both ran for the back door.
“Put your shoes on,” Tracey told them. “And Mackenzie, keep an eye on your brother.”
“Okay!” they both called before bursting out the back screen door.
Tracey turned back to me. “This is a really good idea. Thank you.”
I let out a slow breath, feeling pretty good myself. “Yeah, it is. So, anyway… you went to social services?”
Her face grew more serious. “Yeah. They got me on emergency food assistance. I’ve already got the card.” She sat down, Henry still in her arms. “Thank goodness. I’ve heard stories of people going there and not being able to get it right away. They’ve had to wait a few weeks.”
“That’s terrible,” I murmured, my stomach feeling like it was curdling.
“I got a call from Community First, by the way.”
I stared at her. “You did?”
She nodded. “Yeah, it was from a man who said he was the coordinator there. He asked me if I needed anything.”
I smirked. “Luke.”
“You told him about us?”
“Sorry. Was that okay?”
“It’s all right… you were just concerned. Thank you.”
I smiled and looked down at my hands.
“So that guy is your boss?”
“Yeah.” A memory from the night before washed over me — one that took place on top of Luke’s sheets — and I grew warm.
“What?” Tracey asked, her eyes growing wide.
I looked up at her. “What?”
“I’m asking you what. You’re smiling.”
“Am I?”
“And blushing.”
I laughed. “Oops.”
“You got a crush on him or something? He sounded hot.”
I laughed. “I didn’t know someone could sound hot.”
One side of her mouth lifted. “Only a rare few can, I think.”
“It’s more than a crush,” I explained, setting my elbow on the table and resting my head in my hand.
“Ah. You’ve got it bad.”
“I think so. We’ve kind of started seeing each other.”
“Well, that’s good.”
“I guess…”
Henry burped, and Tracey swung him around so he could sit up in her lap. “What do you mean you guess?”
I watched Henry, uncertain how much to say. The whole issue was kind of embarrassing, but man, I needed to unload.
“Okay,” I began. “You’re probably going to judge me for this. You might think I’m an awful person.”
Luke sure would.
Tracey wrinkled her nose. “How bad can it be?”
Deciding to just rip the band aid off, I went for it. “All right. So here’s the story. My dad used to own this big chain of pet stores, Pet Hop.”
Tracey’s eyes went wide. “Oh wow. Those are, like, everywhere.”
“Yeah, well now the company is bankrupt. My dad is losing everything. He had to sell our house in L.A. and our house in Massachusetts. That’s the whole reason that I came out here, to live with my aunt and uncle. Anyway…” I hesitated.
“Go on.”
I shook my head. “You may not like me anymore.”
Tracey watched me closely. “Let me decide that on my own.”
I pressed my hands together in my lap. “This is the thing. Luke is from a really rich banking family. He’s worth, like, billions.”
“Billions?”
“According to the internet. So, um, I kind of came up with this plan to marry him.” I bit my lip, giving my confession a second to sink in before rushing on. “I’ve got nothing. All I have is my allowance from last month. I got to Crystal Brook, and I didn’t have a job. I didn’t know when I would get to go home to L.A., and now it looks like that’s not happening at all. So I kind of freaked out. I met Luke and, well, it just seemed like fate.” I clapped my hands over my face. “I’ve known more than one woman who married a guy because he was rich. I always thought it was a trashy move, but then I found myself here, and suddenly it made sense. “I peeked at her between my fingers. “Do you think I’m a bad person?”
Tracey gaz
ed at a spot on the wall above my head. “I don’t know,” she finally said. “A few months ago, I might have said yes, that’s something a bad person would do. But look at me now. A rich man who was into me would be like a God send. I hate to say it, but it’s true.”
“Ugh.” I propped my elbows back on the table. “It is true, isn’t it?”
She turned her gaze down to rest it on my face. “But you’re really independent, Grace.”
That made me sit up straighter. “Me?”
“Yeah. You just sat there and decided you were going to start your own business. Just like that. And then you got started. You didn’t waste a minute.”
“Our business,” I corrected her.
“See, that too. You encouraged me as well. You’re more than capable. I think you’re one of the last people who needs a man to take care of them.”
I snorted. “It sounds like you’re talking about somebody else.”
Henry whined, and Tracey bounced him on her leg. “People don’t always see themselves the way others see them.”
“I guess not… so what should I do?”
“Are you just seeing him because of his money?”
“God no,” I quickly said. “Not anymore. The man is amazing. I mean, he’s borderline perfect.”
She shrugged. “Then just keep seeing him.”
“But should I tell him? You know, about my plan to marry him? How I connived my way into his life?”
“Is it still your plan?”
I sighed. “I don’t know. I think I’m starting to fall in love with him. What if that keeps happening and he falls in love with me too? Getting married and getting to be with him every day would be incredible.”
“Plus, being a billionaire’s wife would be incredible,” Tracey added.
“Exactly… and I think I should feel bad about that.”
“It’s not quite so cut and dry. Who wouldn’t want to be the wife of a borderline perfect billionaire?”
I leaned back in my seat. “I can’t stop thinking about it. I feel like I should tell him, but if I do, I could lose him. He’s only just starting to believe I’m a decent person and not some spoiled brat used to getting everything she wants. Plus, I don’t even know that he fully trusts me.”
Tracey cringed. “This sounds really complicated.”
Wrecked (Crystal Book Billionaires) Page 17
