Page 170 of Lucky Mother Pucker

“Oh, shit,” I blurt.

She looks up at me, her eyes big. “That means…”

“Lucy, this means the house is yours.”

She stands there, her mouth open in shock. “I can’t believe it. It’s really…Is it really mine? All this time, it was mine?”

I nod and cup her face in my hands. “It’s yours, Luce.”

Her eyes water, and her mouth curves up in a wobbly smile.

Lucy can finally get her house back. After two years of struggling, she finally has a home again.

A second later, her brow furrows and her smile fades away. “Wait, how do I even go about this?”

“What do you mean?”

“How do I get the house back?” she says. “Richard lives there. He’s been living there for over two years. If I go over there, even with my mom’s will, he’ll refuse to leave. You met him. You know what a jerk he is. He doesn’t care about doing the right thing.”

I’m quiet for a second. Lucy’s right. That asshole isn’t going to leave quietly even if she shows him her mom’s will. Even though she has a legal document proving that the house belongs to her.

Anger spikes up inside of me when I think about what he stole from her. How he stole her parents’ home from her and made her suffer for this long.

But then, a second later, realization hits me.

I grab Lucy’s hand along with the stack of papers and head inside the house.

“Poppy will know what to do,” I say as I walk straight to Nick’s bedroom. “Her parents are lawyers. She was gonna go to law school.”

I knock on his closed door. A second later, he answers.

He grins at us. “Hey. What’s up?”

“Can we talk to Poppy?”

“Yeah, sure.” He steps aside, and I see Poppy sitting at his desk, headphones on while working on her laptop. It looks like she’s editing a video for her YouTube channel.

He gently touches her shoulder. She looks up and smiles at him, then takes her headphones off.

“Leo and Lucy wanted to ask you something,” Nick says.

Poppy spins around in her chair and smiles at us. “Hey, you two.”

“Hey. Um, this is kind of a weird question, but do you know anything about wills or transfer of property when someone dies?” I ask.

Poppy frowns in confusion. “A little. My parents would know a lot more. I can ask them. Why, what’s up?”

I walk over and hand her the papers. “Lucy just found this in a box of her parents’ stuff. It’s her mom’s will. It says she left the house to Lucy.”

Poppy’s expression turns focused as she studies the text.

“That means legally the house belongs to me, I think?” Lucy asks. “My stepdad has to move out and give me the house back, right?”

Poppy looks up at us and nods. “Yeah. The house belongs to you, Lucy. Legally it’s yours, and he has to give it back.”

Lucy lets out a shaky breath. Her eyes are teary again. I give her hand a soft squeeze.

“I’m not a lawyer, but when I was studying for law school, I reviewed a whole section about estate law and wills, and this document would hold up in court,” Poppy says.