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“She was probably just not looking forward to hanging with him when he was acting like that,” I assured him, getting up to check on the water. I yanked on his earlobe as I passed, making him jerk away.
“Probably.” Bird leaned back in the chair and looked over his shoulder at me. “Hey, have you heard from that school you applied to?”
“Which one?”
“You know,the one,” he replied. “The one in town that you really wanted to get into.”
“Not yet,” I said with a sigh. “They probably threw out my application.”
“Yeah, right,” Bird scoffed. “You could’ve gotten into any college you wanted.”
“That was straight out of high school,” I pointed out. “Now they’re probably wondering what the hell I’ve been doing for the last year and a half.”
“Maybe they assume you were taking a gap year,” he joked, grinning. “Backpacking through Europe or some shit.”
“What the hell do you know about a gap year?”
“Rich people do it,” he answered with a laugh. “Because they need a long ass vacation after going to school for twelve years.”
“Unlike the poor schmucks like us that actually have to start working.”
“Exactly,” Bird said. “I really hope I can get a scholarship so I can just go straight to college.”
“You will,” I promised. “You won’t be like me, too busy being an idiot to get your paperwork turned in on time and I’ve been saving up to pay for all your application fees.”
“Nana said she’d help with those.”
“Nana tries,” I replied ruefully. “But I have a feeling she’s underestimating how much it’s going to actually cost.”
“I’m going to college,” Bird said firmly, looking blankly down at his textbook. “Even if I have to get a thousand student loans.”
“Hopefully we’ll be able to get you enough in scholarships that you don’t have to do that.”
“Why the hell are we so poor?” he asked in frustration, turning to face me. “Pop has worked at the garage for like forty years plus all of the Aces side shit and you know he’s making as much as everyone else, so why the fuck are we in a trailer and they’re out there with ten houses and nice bikes and shit?”
As my brother scowled at me, I felt a pang in my chest that wasn’t unfamiliar. I’d wondered the same thing when I was younger. All of the kids my age were getting cars and always had spending money and generally just lived very differently than we did, so I’d asked Nana about it. I’ve never felt so shitty or guilty since that conversation.
“I asked Nana the same thing when I was a few years older than you,” I said, leaning against the counter facing Bird. “And she was so nice about it that then I felt like a complete asshole.”
“What did she say?”
“Pop got into some trouble before they met,” I said, giving him the bare bones that Nana had given me. “And someone died.”
“Popskilledsomeone?”
“I don’t know,” I answered truthfully. I’d never really gotten a clear answer on that either. “But I do know that the guy’s family sued him or something, and Pop has had to pay reparations ever since.”
“Shit.”
“And I’m pretty sure that it’s most of his paycheck.”
“That fucking blows.”
“I’m pretty sure any money we see is from Nana’s job and the side shit from the club,” I said with a shrug as I finished the macaroni and cheese and started cutting up the hotdogs to throw in it. “And I’m assuming you mean Tommy and Heather when you’re talking about the ten houses?”
“They’re rich as hell.”
“I don’t think they’re quite that rich,” I said with a laugh, though compared to us Rumi’s parents could definitely be considered well off. “Tommy bought a house when he was young, like Micky’s age and he started fixing it up and he sold it for way more money, and then did it again and again and again.” I glanced at him over my shoulder. “It was good timing and good luck, but he also worked his ass off on top of his responsibilities at the club.”
