Page 5 of The Perfect Steal

“Did you get sick then?” I asked, glancing between Kate and Nate, wondering if she could hear our conversation. She was focused on the papers in front of her.

Nate nodded.

“I haven’t heard of anyone else getting sick. Did you eat something later at the dance?”

He didn’t have a chance to answer because the classroom went quiet.

“Are we ready?” Mrs. Rhodes asked.

She adjusted her glasses and then began, listing the names of a girl in the class and then the guy pair. Johnny Davis got paired up with Eliza Duncan, and I was actually a little sad about that one. He was a good kid and always worked hard, probably the one person I had done a group project with who hadn't screwed it up.

The list of guys I could be paired up with was narrowing faster than I could grasp, and I wondered who she would put me with.

“Brynn Miller.” I sat up a little more in my chair, my heart pounding much faster than it should for a school project. The suspense this lady had built around it was just as bad as a television show leaving me hanging through a commercial break. We didn’t have a whole lot of streaming television at my house.

“You will be paired up with…” Again with the pause as she consulted her paper, crossing something off with her pen.

Please don't say Nate. Please don't say Nate. Please don't say Nate.

“George Ferguson’s father got transferred to another army base this past week, meaning your partner will be: Nate Everton.”

That was karma coming back to bite me. I should have thought about who Iwantedto partner with. Maybe then I wouldn’t be stuck with the guy currently looking like a sleeping zombie. I had to hold in an inward scream. How was I going to fit one more thing into my already jam-packed schedule?

That was it. We’d been the last pair.

Sounds of scraping metal against the tile floor jerked me back out of my thoughts once again. Several pairs were already sitting next to each other, waiting for Mrs. Rhodes to walk by with a small envelope. Was this some secret mission? I wasn’t built for stealth mode or anything, as I couldn’t fit into many places while all scrunched up. Six foot one of body will do that to a person.

With my gaze staring at my blank notebook except for a couple of words written about what our first assignment would be, I wanted to hide in a hole somewhere, wishing this term were over already.

“Looks like we’re partners, huh?” Nate said from my right, blinking his eyes a few times.“What’s it for again?”

“Yeah, so fun,” I said, laying on the sarcasm with my comment. “Life skills. We’re supposed to learn how to budget and all that.”

Nate’s chocolate-brown eyes turned in my direction. “What? You don't want to work with me?”

I hesitated, wondering if I should admit what was really going through my brain. With this added to my already overflowing plate of responsibilities, being paired up with him just tipped the scales heavily. Agreeable Brynn was gone for the day, leaving Blunt Brynn in her place.

“Nate, if you're going to be like every other guy, thinking I'm going to do it all, you may as well go ask her to switch now, because I can't even do that right now.” Why was I tearing up? This was a stupid assignment, not the end of the world.

He raised his hands like I was about to attack. “Whoa, whoa, you’re testy today. Of anyone here, at least I know you.”

There was some truth to that. We wouldn’t waste precious time trying to get to know one another, well, as much. I took a breath, trying not to get overwhelmed with all that I needed to get done just today. Hopefully we had until next week to get this first assignment done, because with basketball tryouts and a big test coming up in English, it would be hard to coordinate with Nate to get it accomplished.

“What situation do you think we’ll get?” he asked. “Going house shopping will be awesome. We can check out some of the bigger houses over on McLaren.” His focused look crinkled the scar from the accident last spring. To be honest, the plastic surgeon had done a great job despite how jagged it looked after his face had gone through the window at Lou’s Diner.But analyzing his face was not something I should’ve been doing. Graduation was the focus, not boys.

“Feeling better?” I asked, folding my arms across my chest.

He shrugged. “My head isn’t pounding, so I think that’s a good sign.”

Thinking back to his comments about a house, I shook my head. “I doubt we’ll be getting a salary of a million dollars or more.”

Mrs. Rhodes wouldn’t let us get off that easy. There would probably be mostly working families who were just trying to make ends meet for this assignment. She seemed like the kind of person always ready to point out the moral of the story.

“Mr. Everton and Ms. Miller,” Mrs. Rhodes said as she approached. “I look forward to your assignments. And as far as going to houses and ‘shopping’ for cars, we had to stop that two years ago. The agents and car dealers weren’t happy we were wasting their time, so everything for this portion of the project will be done using your skills of researching on the internet.” She winked at us and turned toward the next couple. What was that supposed to mean?

I opened the envelope she’d placed on my desk. Reading it aloud, I said, “‘You are two working parents with two kids, ages seven and four. Together you make $60,000 per year.’” My brain started going off on all the things we’d have to figure out. Not only housing and transportation but daycare and any hidden school fees. Then there was stretching the budget for four people instead of just two. All things parents usually complained about with having children.

“That's it? Why can't it be, like, at least a hundred thousand a year?” Nate snatched the paper away from me, reading it to himself for a few seconds.

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