Two Birds, One Stone

4. Happy Home

This took way too long I'm sorry but school is a lot ya know

I had a bit of a panic on Sunday morning when I realized my wallet was missing.

I retraced my steps, I asked people I knew if they'd seen it, and I searched my car and my entire house, but it didn't appear anywhere.

"Get the fuck out of my room," Jacob said the moment I stepped in without knocking.

"Did you take my wallet?" I asked sharply. I wasn't going to beat around the bush -- it wouldn't be the first time Jacob tried to steal money from me.

He screwed up his face. "What? No!"

But I, to be frank, didn't believe him, so I began looking around, opening the nearest drawer. "What the hell are you doing?" he snapped, like it wasn't obvious.

"Looking for my shit," I grumbled back.

I hadn't been inside Jacob's room in ages, but it was exactly how I'd pictured it. Walls covered in rock-album music records and alternative posters, dark clothes and band tees strewn across the floor, action figures and anime characters all over the dresser, and a messy stack of comics next to the bed.

"Well I don't have your shit, so get out!" Jacob hissed, but I ignored him and kept looking, so he sat heavily on his bed with an aggravated huff and crossed his arms over his chest, glaring relentlessly at me as I opened drawers and looked beneath clothing items.

After a thorough inspection of everything I could look at without my brother biting my head off, I left the room empty-handed, slamming the door behind me in frustration. That was the last room in the house I'd left unchecked.

Had I left my wallet at school? Maybe I could go look in the lost and found on Monday -- but no, I'd had it at the game, because I'd lent Bryan some cash for his post-game date with Vanessa (in his dreamy state, he'd forgotten his own wallet). I'd had it at his house last night, too, because we'd made a McDonald's run, and I hadn't been anywhere else since.

I had let someone into my car, though. Into the same passenger seat where I often tossed my wallet if I didn't feel like shoving it in my pocket.

I checked the car again, just to be absolutely sure. There was no wallet.

"That . . . that bastard . . ." I hissed to myself as I stormed back up my driveway. I couldn't believe it.

Except yeah, I could. It wasn't surprising at all. What was surprising was that I'd actually been dumb enough to fall for it. After what we'd done . . . fucking Jamie had seriously stolen my goddamn wallet.

I was bursting with impatience for sixth period on Monday, where I'd hopefully get a chance to . . . well, I wasn't sure what I was going to do. I just knew that there was a lot of money in that wallet, and I'd be damned if I didn't have it back by the end of the day.

The only thing that lessened the blow was my sister's arrival that afternoon for her Thanksgiving Break visit; my own break didn't start until Wednesday, which I thought was just about the dumbest thing on Earth. Despite my agitation and the constant urge I felt to punch someone in the face -- preferably someone with white-blonde hair and a bad attitude -- Stevie managed to put a smile on my face that didn't fade until I was walking through the halls on Monday morning, looking for any sign of Jamie.

None came, however, until sixth period calculus, and I didn't even get to approach Jamie at the beginning of the class, because Mr. Peters called me over to discuss some algorithm or another that he thought I would find incredibly interesting.