Dumb Luck by Lesley Choyce Read Free Book Online Page B

it seemed so much more interesting than video games or reality TV shows. This was my life. And I had some seriously hot chicks wanting to be my friends.
    So I wrote back to a few of them. What could it hurt?
    â€œThanks for writing,” I’d begin. “You sound like a very interesting person. Tell me a bit more about yourself.”
    I wasn’t much of a writer. But I was curious.
    I had to remind myself that they were writing to me not because they wanted to get to know me. (Hey, I’d been me all my life and there had been no girls queuing up in my inbox.) They were interested in the guy who had won the three mill. They were all that shallow.
    But it was a game, right? And I’d have some fun playing the game.
    In fact, after I’d answered the twelfth e-mail from a beautiful girl who I had never met (I was only answering the ones who’d sent photos), I was thinking that this was more fun than I’d had most of my life. For number thirteen, I just cut and pasted my little now-standardized reply to number twelve into the message and fired that one off.
    Back in my inbox, I discovered a message from Taylor. Brandon, I was hoping you’d call. I sent you a text but you didn’t respond. Are you okay?
    I looked down at the faded ink on my hand and then at her cell phone number that I had scrawled on the pad on my desk. I couldn’t comprehend that Taylor was actually interested in me. As I pictured her in my head, I could feel my heart beating faster. I almost reached for the phone. But I didn’t.

chapter twelve
    Needless to say, I forgot to do my “homework” for Mr. Carver. He hadn’t given me a deadline. In fact, I didn’t really see what the point was, but it would have to happen at a later date.
    In the morning, my inbox had more of those tantalizing incoming messages, including some from the girls I’d written back to. I was running late but I peeked at one. It was the twenty-one year-old woman, and the photo this time was of her on the beach in the summer in a very skimpy bathing suit. Oh yes. It turned out she—her name was Sheila—lived in a town not far away and she thought that I looked “cute” from the picture she saw of me in the paper. (Well, hell, any guy would probably look cute to her, standing with a check for three million dollars.) She ended her note with: Maybe I can drive over and pick you up, and we could go out for coffee to get to know each other.
    Oh boy.
    I felt a little dizzy again.
    Just then my dad yelled up to me that he’d drive me to school. That was new. But then, my dad was now unemployed.
    Did I actually want to move from fantasy world to reality and meet this Sheila—who was drop-dead gorgeous but obviously only interested in my wallet and not me? I would have to think about this. And school. Why the hell was I going to school?
    My only answer was this: Right now, I don’t know what else to do other than keep doing the things I was doing before I won . So I figured I would go to school.
    As we got into the car, my dad said, “I know you had a talk with your mother. I apologized to her and told her I would be careful. Don’t worry—I will make this work. I’m meeting with the landowners today and then the bank. You’re still feeling okay about this?”
    My dad was a little calmer about his business plans today, less like the salesman (and bully) that he could sometimes be. I felt trapped and uncertain about me and about what was going to happen to my family. I squirmed in my seat but I didn’t see any real turning back. “Sure, I’m okay with what we talked about. It’s now or never.”
    He smiled.
    I saw Grant Freeman sitting outside on the wall at school with a couple of his buddies from the track team. I thought about going over to him and just saying I was sorry so we could let that shit go. But I didn’t. I should have, but I didn’t.
    I also