Total pages in book: 197
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
Joe laughed, and gave his brother a look. “So, what, you want me to loan you what you need?”
“No, I want you to join me. Like a partnership. Yeah—that works.”
“A partnership.”
“Are you a fucking parrot now, or ...?”
Joe did punch him that time. “Fucker.”
Cory rubbed the aching spot on his arm, and grinned. “So, is that a yes?”
“Well ... I won’t be doing all the work,” Joe warned.
“Nope—partners.”
“All right, then yeah, I’ll go in on this.”
“Great, man.”
Cory patted himself on the back inwardly, and stared at the shitty restaurant that he wouldn’t have given a second look to otherwise. This would make his father happy, and get Joe out of the house to do something that wasn’t the mafia.
Win-win.
Now, to keep this up somehow ...
Tommaso| Camilla
The New Friend
There was someone sitting in Camilla’s spot. Cam had sat in that spot every morning since her first day at the Academy, so she hadn’t been expecting this at all. She shifted the bookbag on her shoulder to loosen a bit of the weight of all the new school supplies, but it didn’t help very much.
She didn’t really notice, either, considering she was wondering who that was sitting in her spot on the high wall. It was the perfect place at The Academy to people-watch, as her father liked to say. She could see everything from there. She enjoyed watching people go about their business.
But she didn’t want to be weird and go sit down next to the new girl—it might creep her out, even if that was Camilla’s spot. Besides, the girl couldn’t possibly know it was Camilla’s spot, either.
Then again, the girl did look kind of alone, and given it was the first day of school and Camilla hadn’t seen this girl around before, she figured the girl probably hadn’t made very many friends.
And that was sad.
So, creeper or not, Camilla went over.
She dropped her heavy bookbag to the ground, and dropped to sit beside the girl who was currently typing out a text on her phone. She didn’t even notice Camilla sitting beside her. Camilla couldn’t help but notice how pretty she was with her chestnut skin, and wild, corkscrew curls held up in a silk wrap. She was probably a couple of years younger than Cam’s thirteen, but not by much.
“Hey,” Cam said.
Finally, the girl looked up from her phone. Dark brown eyes stared back at Cam—and the girl smiled hesitantly. “Hi.”
“Transfer, or new altogether?”
“Transferred in from The Saint of Redemption Academy,” the girl said with a shrug. “I don’t really know anybody, and I miss my old school. But hey ... at least, there’s boys here.”
Camilla laughed. “Yeah, but most of them suck.”
“Probably. One tried to touch my hair earlier—had to hit him for it.”
“Really?”
The girl arched a brow. “What, the touching my hair thing, or the hitting thing?”
“Well, both now that I think about it.”
The girl shrugged. “People should know better—I don’t go around touching their hair. Just because mine looks a little bit different doesn’t mean it’s purposely like that because I want people to come along and touch it. That’s rude as heck. Mom tells me just to tell them to stop, but if that worked, people wouldn’t keep trying, you know?”
“It is rude.” Camilla nodded. “Your hair is super pretty.”
It really was, too.
All wild, and gleaming black.
Natural.
And she loved the bright colors of the wrap keeping the girl’s hair held back out of her face. That was probably not a look Camilla could pull off—and she tried everything at least once—but this girl pulled it off really well.
“Thanks,” the girl said. “My mom did it.”
“She should come teach my mom.”
“Well,” the girl said, eyeing Camilla’s high-piled, messy bun, “white girl hair isn’t like black girl hair, but she could probably show you a thing or two.”
“Hey, I am up to learn. I’m Cam, by the way.”
The girl smiled a little wider. “August.”
“Did the boy at least apologize for touching your hair?”
August shrugged. “Called me a bitch, actually.”
“See—the boys here suck.”
“Most boys do.”
“I know it’s kind of early,” Cam said, “but have you made any friends.”
August shrugged. “One, now.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah, well ... I tend to stick out around here, if you get what I mean. One of these things is not like the other.”
Camilla’s brow furrowed, and it took her a minute to get what August was trying to say without actually saying it. Then again, all she really needed to do was take a look around The Academy’s grounds.
It was a sea of white.
The only spot of color at the moment was August.
Sure, their school was kind of small, but it was only then that Camilla realized just how ... white the place was. She bet that felt shitty for August—to feel kind of put in a spotlight, and yet alone at the same time. To look around, and find absolutely nobody that looked like her.