Page 23 of The Perfect Steal

I could feel the rush of heat, the embarrassment of my emotions just moments ago taking over. “Yeah, I was just a little worried about you. I’m glad you made it.”

He flashed me that smile and locked eyes with mine, his baby blues causing my insides to flip. “Sorry about that. Our printer at home ran out of ink. I was on my way up here when I remembered I needed to print it out, so I hurried to the library. I didn’t know so many kids use that thing.” His confused expression was something I hadn’t seen on him before. Maybe he was just used to having what he needed when he needed it.

I had to hold a hand to my mouth to stifle the laugh bubbling up in my throat.

“Now that we know how to budget money for the bigger things, like where to live and how to get places, we’re going to focus on some of the smaller items, but they are no less important,” Mrs. Rhodes explained. “Part of budgeting is knowing how much to spend on the little things, like groceries.”

Several students turned to discuss with each other. I could understand about groceries, but we didn’t have too many extra food items hanging out around our house. My mom had finally learned to use a grocery pick-up option at our local supermarket, and I usually added a few things to it before she checked out.

Mrs. Rhodes cleared her throat to bring the attention back to her. “Okay, so we’re going to have you work in your pairs on budgeting and meal planning. To get full credit, you’ll need to plan out all meals and snacks for an entire month, writing up a grocery list and figuring out how much that would all cost. You can get extra credit on it by making one of those meals and having a parent sign off on it, but again, you have to do it together.”

A meal plan for a month? I had never heard of something like that. Occasionally, my mom used to write a couple meals on the big whiteboard calendar still hanging in our kitchen, but nothing extensive.

“Are we planning just dinners?” Nate asked. I was surprised at how excited he was about this. I would be lucky to come up with even five meals.

“Great question, Mr. Everton. You’ll be planning all meals, all snacks, everything with your budget for the month.”

Oh, man. This class had just gone from my easiest to competing with math for time, which was saying something.

“This should be fun,” Nate whispered, glancing over at me and then back up at our teacher.

Fun wasn’t what I’d use to describe it. But I enjoyed the enthusiasm he had for it. At least he’d pulled his weight this far.

“This assignment will be due at the end of the month, when we come back from Thanksgiving break. Don’t put it off until then, though. There’s a lot required on the sheets I’m passing out to get full credit, so get started as soon as possible.”

I took a deep breath, hoping to keep a mini anxiety attack at bay. It wasn’t something I dealt with on a daily basis, but the stress levels over the past several weeks had been amping up my anxiety exponentially. Basketball this evening was my outlet, and I just had to survive until then.

“When do you have time to meet up for this?” Nate asked.

I glanced over at him, trying to give him some sort of smile but failing. “That is a great question. Probably not until next week sometime. Our first game is Wednesday night, and then I’ve got work a couple times later.”

“Thursday, Friday, and Saturday I have our last baseball tournament. Next week will work, though. Let’s plan on then. Maybe we could go get ice cream or something to help us focus.”He raised an eyebrow, the corner of his mouth turned up, which made him look more mischievous than anything.

Was he asking me on a date? Or was it just something fun to do while we did homework?

I smiled, knowing I would probably go over and over this situation for the rest of the night, picking it apart. “I can get behind ice cream.”

The sun was partially blockedby the clouds as I strolled out to the compact car I drove. It wasn’t a beat-up piece of junk, but it also wasn’t brand-new, which I appreciated. Especially since I got a dent in it by running into a pole two weeks after getting my license last year.

“Hey, bro,” I said to John. He was leaned up against the car, reading some kind of comic book. He loved that kind of stuff, but he was also a good athlete, which made him a normal Miller kid.

“I’ve been out here forever. What took you so long?” he asked, slipping his book in his bag.

I unlocked the doors, and he sat in the passenger seat, leaning the chair all the way back.“What happened with you today?” I asked, putting the car in reverse. With a quick glance, I saw he’d closed his eyes, the usual sign that he didn’t want to talk about it.

Join the club, kid.

My emotions were all over the place, especially when it came to Nate. I’d told myself I couldn’t have a crush on anyone, that I would get through school and move out of Pecan Flatts. Apparently, I didn’t meet that goal.

I thought back to my last class and how overwhelmed I’d been.

“You know Nate Everton, right?” I ventured, hoping it would get me some more information about the guy and get John to open up about his day.

John opened one eye, as if wondering where this line of questioning had come from. “Who doesn’t? He’s on my baseball team. Our last tournament is this weekend, by the way, so don’t forget about this one.” John adjusted the seat up so I could talk to him normally, which I appreciated. It looked a little odd to other drivers that I kept talking to myself.

Tournament this weekend. That’s what Nate had said.

“Do you ever talk to him?” I asked, curious. John’s opinion might have been a little skewed since he looked up to the older baseball boys, but I wanted to hear more about Nate, wanted the chance to talk about him, if even for a few minutes.

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