Page 16

Sticky Fingers – Rolling Stones

I wanted to stay in the little town in Wyoming for one more night, but Brooke said no.

I was on the verge of getting fired up to argue with her, wanting to linger in the place where I’d finally found Jessie, when she reached out and brushed my hair back, and all my arguments withered up and died on my tongue.

There would be more two-stoplight towns, more cute nature parks, if we looked out for them.

It didn’t feel so much like we were running anymore. It felt like we were just moving.

I liked that.

We’d already decided we were going to Denver next, so we got an early start, not wanting to hit rush-hour traffic.

Brooke seemed happier now than she had at any point since we’d left Seattle.

It could have been because we were about to head into a city, and she was much chirpier when she was surrounded by people, but she sometimes looked at me and smiled in a way I hadn’t seen her smile at anyone else.

I almost didn’t want to consider what that could mean.

The disappointment of finding out she was 100 percent straight would crush me.

‘We should stay in the city tonight,’ Brooke said, turning down the music so I could hear her.

‘Won’t that be expensive?’ I asked.

‘Yeah, but we need supplies,’ she said, and I wasn’t sure what that meant. We’d stocked up at the grocery store in Wyoming.

‘Supplies?’

‘Yeah,’ she said cryptically. ‘Trust me. I have a plan.’

We found a huge hotel, which I definitely didn’t think was in our budget, but Brooke pulled into the parking lot like she knew exactly where she wanted to go. The other cars were expensive. Like, Mustang-level expensive. It was also pretty full.

We rode up in the elevator to the main lobby with two men in suits. Another thirty or so of them milled around the lobby bar. I suddenly felt self-conscious of my ripped jeans and baggy T-shirt. At least my hair looked good.

‘There must be a convention happening,’ Brooke murmured, looking around casually.

‘That’s good?’ I asked.

‘That’s excellent,’ she corrected.

We waited in a short line for check-in, and I quietly scanned the room, quickly building an impression of the suited, obnoxious men who were talking in loud voices near us.

‘Hi,’ Brooke said when we were called up to the desk.

She slouched and stuck her thumbnail in her mouth to chew on it, making her look and sound like a stupid, bored teenager – something she definitely was not.

‘We need a room for tonight. My phone and credit card got stolen, so I need to pay in cash.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that.’

This woman wasn’t like the other receptionists we’d encountered in the shabby motels on our way here.

She was dressed in a blue silk shirt with a scarf tied around her neck, and an extremely tight pinstriped skirt.

She tapped at her keyboard for a really long time – like, a really long time, to the point where I started to think she’d forgotten about us – and then nodded.

‘I can offer you our saver rate of one-eighty a night, plus tax. That doesn’t include breakfast.’

I wanted to wince – a hundred and eighty dollars was a lot more than what we usually paid for a room. I was starting to get annoyed. Brooke had better have a good reason for this.

‘Great,’ Brooke said. ‘Thank you.’

I let her take care of paying, counting out the twenties from our stash and slapping the dirty bills down on the counter. The receptionist took the money and counted it again before handing Brooke the change and two key cards.

I still didn’t say anything as we went up to the room, dodging the suits. We got into the elevator with three more of them, and I opened my mouth to ask Brooke a question, but she shook her head subtly.

Our room, when we got to it, was plush .

Like, seriously plush, especially compared to the motels we’d been staying in.

It had thick gray carpet and one king bed made up with crisp white linens.

The walls were painted the same shade of blue as the receptionist’s shirt, and the TV was a flat-screen and mounted to the wall.

I’d almost forgotten TVs could be like that.

And we had a sitting area .

‘They didn’t have a twin room?’ I asked, forcing myself to be casual as I dumped my bag next to the closet. I didn’t want to let my mind skip ahead to thinking about sharing a bed with Brooke.

‘I guess not,’ she said with a shrug. ‘We got the saver rate, though. I don’t want to argue with that.’

I wanted to argue, or offer to sleep in the little scoop chair or even on the floor, but I knew Brooke wouldn’t let me do any of those things now that we were friends. It was a king bed. There was plenty of space in it.

We’d be fine.

I’d be fine.

‘Are you planning on telling me what’s going on?’ I said, trying to be assertive without being an asshole.

Brooke sat down in the gray armchair and stretched out her legs. She pursed her lips and looked up at me.

‘We need more cash,’ she said after a moment, her voice strangely neutral.

‘And staying in an expensive hotel is going to solve that?’ I retorted.

‘Jessie … How morally opposed are you to a little light theft?’

I sat down on the bed. ‘Brooke.’

‘Just a little,’ she said, holding up her hands. ‘You want to tell me those guys downstairs can’t afford to lose the contents of their wallets?’

She was so frustrating I wanted to strangle her. And also kiss that smug expression right off her face. But mostly strangle her.

‘How?’ I asked wearily.

‘I’m going to put on my ugly St. Catherine’s shoes, white shirt and black skirt and pretend to be staff.’ She made it sound so easy.

‘And then what?’

‘Start in the coat-check area next to the ballroom, or wherever they’re having dinner tonight. I need you to work the lobby bar.’

‘You want me to help ?’ I couldn’t stop the sudden rush of panic and my fingers curled into fists around the comforter. ‘Oh no, Brooke. That’s really not a good idea.’

‘You look like the most innocent person who’s ever existed. You’re gonna be great.’

‘I can’t,’ I said quickly. ‘I’m not like you, Brooke. I can’t do that.’

‘You can,’ she said, soothing and reassuring, petting the air in front of me. ‘I promise. We’ll wait until later, when they’re all blind drunk, and it’ll be the easiest thing you ever did.’

‘You’ve done this before.’

She nodded. ‘Yeah, I used to do it with my cousin for fun.’

For fun.

Spoiled little rich kids who could afford to get caught, who knew their parents would pay the fines and drive them to community service if they were given more than just a slap on the wrist.

The anger was bubbling in my stomach, ready to spill up and out if I let it.

Kids like Brooke and her privileged cousin would never know what people from my side of town had to go through, what would happen to people like me if we were caught lifting wallets. She could do stuff like this for fun, but I couldn’t, and, for just a second, I resented her for it.

It wasn’t fair.

But then, life wasn’t fair.

And maybe this was my chance at righting some of those wrongs. After all, the guys in their designer suits were from Brooke’s side of town, not mine.

I shook my head, unable to reconcile my resistance with Brooke’s convincing. ‘We’ll never get away with it.’

‘We need cash for when we get to Orlando. We have enough to get down to Florida, but once we’re there, motels are going to get really expensive.’

‘No one carries cash anymore, Brooke. They pay for stuff with their credit cards.’

‘These guys will,’ she said. ‘Especially at the bar. Especially for tipping.’

‘How do you know all this?’

‘I’ll explain later.’

I flopped back onto the bed, groaning. ‘Brooke. Seriously.’

‘I will!’ she said. ‘This was the plan until you came along. I could’ve maybe rinsed more out of my family’s credit card, but I was always planning on, you know, liberating what I needed.’

‘Stealing, you mean.’

‘If you want out, you can stay up here,’ she said. I could tell she was baiting me.

‘No,’ I said. Then again, with more conviction. ‘No, I’m in.’

She grinned, in that cat-like way of hers. ‘Excellent.’

It was only early afternoon, so we left the hotel still wearing jeans and T-shirts, and walked the half-block to Target so Brooke could pick up what she needed.

Being back in a big city put me on edge.

I was waiting for the moment someone tapped me on the shoulder, a police officer put their hand on my arm, someone in the crowd shouted ‘Jessie!’ and I’d know I’d been recognized.

I felt my anxiety flare every time I met someone’s eye by accident, or a police car drove past us, or a sign told us THESE PREMISES ARE MONITORED BY CCTV .

It didn’t feel anywhere near as safe as those tiny towns in the middle of nowhere.

I wasn’t ready to cut this road trip short, to give up the precious freedom that it had given me. The freedom was a gift, one I’d never expected and now never wanted to let go of.

I wasn’t ready to let go of Brooke, either.

If we ever did end up back in Seattle, I couldn’t be sure whether she’d treat me like she did now or like she had before – friendly but cool and distant – and I really didn’t want to find out.

Despite my restless anxiety, Brooke seemed calm, like this was a regular Friday afternoon shopping trip to pick up hair ties and tights.

‘We need to make you look not like you,’ she said.

‘That shouldn’t be difficult.’

Brooke stepped back and assessed me, head to toe. ‘I think you could pass as a college freshman.’

‘You think?’ I was acutely aware that I was often mistaken for being younger than seventeen, rather than older.

‘Yeah. Why not?’ Brooke grabbed a shirt and thrust it at me. ‘Hold this.’

‘I’m not sure it’s my size.’

She pointedly rolled her eyes at me. ‘It’s cropped, Jessie. On purpose.’

‘Oh. Oh no.’ I held the shirt out to her, desperately hoping she’d take it back. ‘I can’t wear this.’