Chelsea Fine - Perfect Kind Of Trouble

He studies me for a long moment then looks away. “Hmm.”

I stare at him. “What?”

He shrugs. “Obviously, your dad knew your mom was dipping into the trust fund, right? So he probably assumed you and Gia were living comfortably. Which means…” He leans in. “He didn’t purposely leave you and your mom broke. He thought he was taking care of his family—or at least taking care of you. So maybe you should cut him some slack on the money front.”

I start to argue but stop when I realize Daren’s right. Mom was making large, consistent withdrawals from the trust fund, so my dad had every reason to believe we were financially secure.

“You’re right,” I say as guilt weighs down on me. “I guess I got so used to blaming my dad for everything tough in my life that I just directed all my financial bitterness toward him. Wow.” I bite my lip. “I’m a brat.”

“No. Your mom is a brat,” he says, shaking his head.

I slowly nod. “Yeah.”

We sit in easy silence for a few moments as I think about my mom and all the trouble her selfishness has caused me. I loved her. Dearly. But she made it hard sometimes. And now this? I wish I could say her stealing from me is a shocking revelation, but it’s not. It pretty much falls in line with her behavior these last few years.

I look up at the statue of the town founder, Lewis Copper, just a few yards in front of us and wonder if he ever had a crazy mom—or a nutty dad, for that matter. Probably not like mine.

I shift on the bench and glance down at our locked wrists. It’s nice sitting beside Daren. Easy. I can’t remember the last time I was so relaxed around a guy. Then again, it’s been a while since I’ve been around a guy at all. But Daren feels different. He’s too pretty for his own good, probably, but he’s not a bad guy. I’d even go as far as to say he might be one of the good ones.

He looks over and smiles at me with a piece of cotton candy stuck to his lip. He’s handcuffed to me on a park bench in public, while we feast on all things unhealthy, and he seems perfectly content. Yeah. He’s definitely one of the good ones.

“Right here.” I brush a finger over my lip to show him where the cotton candy is stuck on his mouth.

“Are you asking for a kiss? Again?” He sighs and leans over. “Okay, fine…”

I laugh and push away his face. “No, you arrogant weirdo. You have cotton candy on your lip.”

He darts his tongue out and swipes the sugary goodness from his mouth. I stare at his lips.

“Did I not get it all?” He licks his lips again.

“What? No. Yes. It’s gone.” I cut my eyes away and stare at anything other than his lips. Or tongue. My eyes settle on the statue. “Why do you think they do that?”

He follows my gaze. “Erect giant stone replicas of old white men who demanded things be named after them? No idea.”

I toss some popcorn in my mouth. “I bet Lewis Copper wasn’t even a cool guy. I bet he was a grumpy old man with a drinking problem.”

“And a wife who hated him,” he says.

“And an irritable bowel.”

“And really bad body odor.”

I shake my head. “But yet he got a friggin’ statue made of himself.”

“With a plaque.” Daren tips his chin at the foot of the statue.

On the plaque is an engraved picture of a steam engine, which brings my thoughts back to the clue at the train station.

“Bust out that clue again,” I say. “Let’s see if we’re any better at deciphering it when we’re hopped up on sugar and carbohydrates.”

He pulls the note from his pocket and we stare at it.

“Are you sure you don’t remember what you liked more than stickers?” he says.

“I don’t even remember liking stickers,” I say. “My dad once bought me a sticker book when I was like six, but instead of decorating the pages with the flower stickers inside, I stole a roll of stamps from his office, licked every last one of them, and stuck them to the pages.” I laugh thinking back to how his eyes bulged when he saw what I’d done. “He was so mad.”

Daren scratches his jaw. “Maybe that’s the clue.” He looks at me. “Stamps.”

I consider for a moment. “Maybe… but what would that mean for your part of the clue? Are there special February stamps that you looked forward to getting in the mail each year?”

He shakes his head. “The only thing I ever looked forward to getting in the mail was the swimsuit issue of Sports Illustrated.”

I roll my eyes. “Of course.”

He pauses. “But it did come out every February.”

“Really?” I say. “Huh. Do you think that’s the clue then? A magazine?”

He shrugs. “I can’t think of anything else it would be. And if the clues are stamps and a magazine then we need to go…”

My mind races. “To a magazine store.”

“A magaz—in Copper Springs? You’re not in the big city anymore, Blondie.” He shakes his head. “Maybe we need to go to a stamp museum or something.”

“Oh sure.” I sneer. “A stamp museum in this tiny town makes total sense, but a magazine store? Preposterous.”

He squints at me. “God, you’re sassy. I’m just trying to draw a connection between stamps and magazines here.”

I gather all our junk food trash and toss it in the garbage can beside the bench as I shrug. “Well, they both come in the mail.”

We whip our heads to face each other and say, “The post office.”

He says, “Turner probably left the money in a postal box for us.”

“Yes!”

Quick as lightning, we dart up from the bench and take off in opposite directions—only to be whipped back into each other by our linked wrists. My chest slams into his rib cage as his knee pushes into my thigh.

“Seriously?” I pull back from him and huff. “Where are you going?”

He points behind him. “The post office is that way.”

“Since when?” I make a face.

He juts his jaw. “Since the old one burned down and got moved from Main Street to Langley Drive.”

“Oh.” I straighten my skirt, which has once again ridden up my thighs. I don’t know why I even bother.

He looks up at the sun hanging low in the sky. “It’s almost closing time. We need to hurry.”

As we speed walk through the park toward my car, people everywhere turn and stare.

Don’t mind us, folks. We’re just a couple of kids bound together with metal on the hunt for what may or may not be a twenty-dollar bill. We’re not desperate or anything.

We reach the car and quickly climb in. The drive to the Copper Springs post office takes less time than it takes for us to get our linked bodies out of the car as Daren climbs over the console with the grace of a one-legged chicken, cursing and thwacking his elbows and knees against the dashboard.

“You’re like a bull in a china shop,” I say.

He tries to fold his long legs into the driver’s seat one at a time but ends up kicking the steering wheel and honking the car horn.

“A very noisy bull.” I shake my head.

He climbs out of the car with a scowl. “Well maybe my bullhorns wouldn’t make so much noise if they weren’t being crammed into an Oompa-Loompa-sized car.”

“If you complain about my car one more time,” I say, “I will track down your precious Porsche and draw all over it in lipstick.”

“Easy, tiger,” he says. “There’s no need for violence.”

We walk toward the post office’s entrance, but stop in our tracks when we see the CLOSED sign on the door.

“Shit,” Daren mutters.

“We’re too late?” I say, wanting to scream. This day has been a complete waste. “What now?”

A muscle flexes in his jaw as he shakes his head. “I don’t know. Come back in the morning?”

“And what are we supposed to do until then?” I say, lifting our joined wrists. “Stay locked together all night? I don’t think so. We need to find Eddie.”

“Okay.” Daren pulls out his phone and calls the lawyer. “Hey, Eddie. It’s Daren… Yeah, so Kayla and I haven’t been able to find Turner’s money yet… Oh yeah, it’s been super fun, but we need to get into the post office and the post office is closed. So it looks like we’re going to have to delay this scavenger hunt until morning. Do you mind if Kayla and I swing by your place in a few minutes so you can unlock the handcuffs? Just until tomorrow of course. We’ll put these babies back on first thing…”

Daren listens to Eddie on the other end of the line for a moment. “Uh-huh… uh-huh… I see… Right, well of course… True, but… uh-huh… uh-huh… okay, then.” He smiles at the floor. “Thank you so much. You have a good night too.” He hangs up and purses his lips.

“So…?” I prod, waiting.

Daren rocks back on his heels. “So Eddie says he can’t unlock the cuffs until we’ve found the money. No exceptions.”

My mouth drops open. “You have GOT to be kidding me. Doesn’t he know that being handcuffed together means we can’t leave each other’s side?”

“I’m pretty sure, yes.”

“Then how does he expect us to sleep tonight?”

Daren holds up our chained wrists with a grin. “Side by side?”

Un. Believable.

If I weren’t so exhausted, I’d be offended by the horrified look on Kayla’s face.

“That’s not happening,” she says, shaking her head adamantly. “No way. We’re going to pick the lock on these things. Now.” She yanks up our wrists and jiggles the handcuffs.

A family of four walks by with confusion in their eyes as they stare at our criminal restraints.

Kayla casually lowers our wrists and half-smiles at the family. “We’re not dangerous. Promise.”

The parents gather their children close and shuffle past us without looking back.

I slant my eyes to Kayla. “People don’t think we’re dangerous. They think we’re crazy,” I say. “And we are. But if we want to pick the lock, we probably need to do it somewhere other than outside the post office. I don’t want someone to see and report us to Eddie.”

She nods at her car. “Let’s just get back in the front seat and do it in there.”

I shrug. “Or we could just do it in the backseat.”

We glance at each other.

The back of my neck grows warm and a tinge of pink stains her cheeks as we stand locked in a hot gaze. I would love nothing more than to do it in the backseat with Kayla. But she’s made it clear that doing anything with me, in the backseat of her car or elsewhere, isn’t on her agenda and I need to respect that.

“You know,” I clarify, “just so I don’t have to climb over the center console again.”

“Right.” She nods. “Of course.”

Walking back to the car, we pass three different guys who stop to gawk at Kayla. They crane their necks to follow her. They eye her lewdly. They adjust themselves.

God. It must suck to be a girl.

Kayla doesn’t pay the guys any attention, but I can’t help but want to pop them in their drool-covered jaws. She’s not a walking centerfold for them to openly ogle. She’s a human being.

The hot protectiveness slipping through my veins is new to me. It’s not the same as when I want to protect Amber or keep Pixie safe. It’s thicker than that. Meaner. And it’s rooted so deep inside me I can’t pinpoint when it came to life. But it’s very much alive and thrashing wildly in defense of Kayla.

I trail my eyes over her face, down her body, and to our joined wrists, oddly satisfied by the fact that she’s literally locked to my side. Twisted, I know. But everything about this girl tangles me up.

Kayla opens the back door on the driver’s side and motions for me to get in. I awkwardly scoot over to the other side, knocking cups and shoes and other miscellaneous items out of my way as I go. She follows after me, slipping into the car gracefully and crossing her legs like we’re sitting down for tea and not about to break into a set of steel handcuffs.

The setting sun warms the car and all the noise from the street—the birds, the pedestrians, the traffic—disappears the moment she closes the car door. The only sound now is our staggered breaths.

She uncrosses and recrosses her legs. Her black skirt rides up, showing more of her legs, and I inhale through my nose. If I have to see her thighs one more time today I might just explode.

Which is weird for me because I don’t explode. I am a cool cat. I do not get worked up and feverish over girls. Until now. Until Kayla.

Twisted. Tangled. I’m a total mess.

“So.” She lets out a breath and lifts our adjoined hands. “Do you know how to pick locks?”