Page 76 of The Heartbreakers
After a minute or two of grinning to myself, I grabbed my camera off the table in front of us and hooked the charm onto its strap. “I still don’t know why you needed to get me a gift,” I said. “I’m not complaining or anything, but were you trying to butter me up?”
“Well,” Oliver said, smirking at me, “I figured it wouldn’t hurt.”
• • •
“You got a letter,” Drew told me over the phone. “I think it might be some kind of junk mail.”
I heard the sound of shuffling paper on his end of the line, and I wondered if he was checking the mail pile as we spoke. Mom always dumped it by the fruit bowl, and there was a clear vision in my head of him leaning against the counter, phone wedged between his shoulder and ear as he went through it all.
“Oh yeah?” I said. I was lying in a bunk on the tour bus, picking at my nail polish. Being away from home was becoming much less painful the more time I spent with the Heartbreakers, but thinking about my brother standing in our kitchen doing something as ordinary as sorting the mail sent a pang through my heart. “Who’s it from?”
We’d been talking for the past hour, catching up on what was happening in each other’s lives. Besides finishing the last book on his summer reading list, Drew was spending as much time as possible with Cara before he left for school. The final round of her chemo had finished, and soon she’d have the high-dose treatment before her transplant.
“The School of Visual Arts? Looks like some mass recruitment letter. Want me to toss it?”
I shot straight up in bed and nearly slammed my head on the bunk above. “Oh my God,” I gasped. “Open it, Drew!”
“What is it?” he asked, and I heard the tearing of paper. “It’s a pretty thick letter.”
“What does it say?” I was too eager to answer his question.
“Dear Ms. Samuel,” he said, reading it off to me. “On behalf of the Admission Committee, it is my pleasure to offer you acceptance to SVA—wait, Stella. Did you apply to another college?”
“Holy crap, are you shitting me?” Squeezing my eyes shut, I tried to keep from squealing as I danced in place. Prior to this moment, I hadn’t realized how much I was anticipating my potential acceptance.
“What’s going on?”
“Drew,” I said, after I calmed down enough to explain. “I just got accepted into a school with one of the top photography programs in the country.”
“Really, Rocket? That’s awesome! Does Cara know about this?”
“Not yet,” I told him. “Honestly, I just applied for kicks. It was all Xander’s idea.” From there, I brought Drew up to speed on Paul’s new job offer and how I didn’t know what I was going to do.
“Sounds like you have a tough choice to make,” he said. “But aren’t you glad you decided to go in the first place?”
“Yeah,” I said, nodding and smiling. “Yeah, I am.”
Chapter 21
On the morning of the movie premiere, I still didn’t have an outfit to wear. Oliver was planning on taking me shopping, but then his phone rang.
“Hello?” He started to pace around the room, answering whoever was on the other end with a series of “yeses.” Finally he told the caller that he would be there shortly and hung up.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“Have to run downtown and stop by Mongo headquarters,” he explained. “You don’t mind going shopping without me, do you?”
“No, but is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” he said, shoving his phone into his pocket. He leaned over and kissed my forehead. “Have fun, okay? See you tonight.”
Five dresses, three pairs of heels, and two necklaces later, I managed to make it back to the hotel without spending all the money I had earned over the past month. JJ was on the couch playing a video game when I stepped in, so I dropped my shopping bags and plopped down next to him.
“I’m wiped,” I told him. Maybe I’d have time for a nap before we needed to get ready.
“I can see that,” he said. “Looks like you bought an entire mall.”
“I couldn’t make up my mind,” I told him sheepishly.
