Night Owls by Jenn Bennett Read Free Book Online

birthday, so clearly it was a nod to that. But for the love of Pete, just send me a
Have a Terrific Day!
message online. No need to bring a felony charge into the mix. Was Jack a secret adrenaline junkie? I could already hear Mom labeling him a troublemaker.
    Despite all that, it was—in a way—incredibly romantic. Or maybe I was just romanticizing it. Maybe he pulled a dozen nutball stunts every day before breakfast.
    “You okay back there?” Mom asked when we were nearly home, peering into the rearview to make eye contact.
    “A little weirded out by everything, that’s all.” Which was true. “And hungry.” In the wake of what had happened, I’d forgotten all about getting my fancy
strawberry shortcake.
    “I thought we’d pick up Mae Thai for your birthday dinner. How does that sound?”
    I sighed with plea sure. “Heavenly.”
    Mom’s eyes crinkled at the corners when she smiled at me in the mirror. I really hated lying to her, especially when she’d been so nice to me today. This whole situation with Jack
was exhausting. If this was what it was like to have a crush on a bad boy, I wasn’t sure if I could handle it. I mean, Howard Hooper—aka the only real boyfriend I’d ever
had—was kind of a jerk, but not in a tough-guy way. In the way that geeks sometimes are when they look down on everyone who doesn’t know the name of every Avenger or what 1337 meant
.
    Howard Hooper would probably wet his pants if he even daydreamed about doing something as ballsy as vandalizing a museum in broad daylight.
    Where are you, Jack?
    When I finally got so frustrated I couldn’t handle it anymore, I decided to throw caution to the wind and posted the pic I took at the museum. I added the vaguely troll-rific comment
Golden Apple Vandal wishing me a happy birthday.
    Once I’d hit send, I had a minor panic attack. There it was in my feed, for all 167 people who followed me to see. Okay, almost none of those people actually knew me, so maybe I was
overreacting. Besides, I really only wanted one person to see it, because hey, you just can’t make an epic public declaration like that and then walk away as if nothing happened.
    When we finally got home, a printed note was stuck to the door from some place named Godspeed Courier. “Sorry we missed you, but we need your signature. We’ll try again ___.”
The blank wasn’t filled in, and there was no name.
    “Bike messenger?” Mom said, hefting steaming bags of takeout. “What is this, Heath?”
    “How should I know? I didn’t order anything. Maybe it’s a birthday present for Bex.”
    “Right. Because I have so many friends who use courier service.”
    “Probably the wrong address,” Mom said, taking the courier note before heading toward the kitchen.
    “Maybe it was meant for Julie.”
    “Who knows,” Mom called back. “I’ll ask her about it next time I see her.”
    “I can run it up to her,” I said.
    “I said I’d take care of it, Beatrix,” she snapped in a very un-Katherine way.
    “Sheesh,” I mumbled. “Bossy much?”
    I remembered Mom’s late-night phone call. She’d told the person not to mail anything. Was this what she was talking about?
    “I thought you were starving. Come help me get ice in the glasses,” she said in a nicer tone from the kitchen before I could read anything more into it.
    Besides, I had other things to worry about, like the ding on my phone. One HAPPY BDAY text from Lauren and Kayla in LA (who couldn’t even spare enough time to send
separate texts or type the
IRTH
). While I was at it, I checked my email. Holy freaking alerts, Batman: The photo I’d uploaded two hours ago had been reposted 503 times, which was
about five hundred more times than anything else I’d ever posted. Was I the only person who’d snapped a picture?
    “Bex,” Mom called again.
    “Coming!” Ugh. Maybe posting that photo was a mistake.
    My post-museum panicky high faded into a slow buzz after a movie and massive amounts of Pad