Page 8 of The Bluffing Game

“Will you marry me, Eldora?” I joke, trying to butter her up, but the older lady doesn’t succumb to my teasing smile, nor does she look amused. It does hit me, though, that I’m now zero for one on marriage proposals, even if this one wasn’t real.

“Have a good evening, Mr. Leone.” She walks past me, holding her handbag to her side. A handbag that I now notice is packed with every odd item she’d previously left in the house. “You take care of that little boy.” She looks down at Toby and offers him a small smile. “You be a good boy, Toby.”

“Farts,” he calls out and starts giggling.

I don’t blame her as she practically runs to her car to leave. She’s finally making it out of the madhouse, and I know she has no intention of ever coming back.

Chapter 3

SAGE

“So, what’s the plan? How do we meet billionaires?” Rosie’s practically bouncing in her seat as we make our way to the Garden Grove apartment complex to get our keys.

I hope the photos I saw online were real and not artificially lightened or made prettier with Photoshop.

“Sorry, what?” I glance over at her, trying to ignore the doubts in my mind.

One thousand dollars a month for rent doesn’t seem like much in this town, and now that I am here and see just how beautiful Santa Capinari is, I can’t imagine that we were lucky enough to get an amazing place for that price, but I don’t want to tell Rosie that.

“Where are we going to meet our future husbands? This town seems big, and I don’t know if we’re going to fit in at many places.” She pauses, and I can tell she’s considering her words. “Not that we’re trashy, but we certainly don’t look like we have money. Not like the people in this town.”

“We fake it until we make it, sis.” I grin at her. “We’re the Meadows sisters. We are as good as everyone else.”

My heart sinks as I realize my words aren’t exactly true. I hope Rosie didn’t hear the hesitation in my voice. I don’t want her to know anything is wrong or amiss. Not until I figure it out.

“I can fake it. I faked having a real Coach handbag for years, and no one knew.”

She stretches her arms, and she moves them in small circles so she can release the knots in her back. The cheap motel we stayed in wasn’t comfortable, and we both woke up with a backache.

“I’m hungry.”

She gazes at me with hopeful eyes, and I know that means she wants pancakes and bacon. Along with a mocha latte or something like that. I run the numbers quickly in my head. A breakfast like that for both of us is forty bucks easy, and we don’t have much money. I’m also not super hopeful we’ll snag billionaires right away. I’m not that delusional.

“Can you wait until we get the keys?” I ask her, keeping my tone light. “Then we can unpack and get some groceries, and I can make us pancakes. I’ll even add apples to the batter, just like you like.”

“How long is that going to take?”

She rubs her stomach and gives me the most pitiful look. It reminds me of when we were kids, and she would beg our parents to get her candy at the store. The pitiful look came before the fake tears, and I don’t want the fake tears. Though, to be fair to her, she doesn’t try to pull that shit on me. She knows I don’t fall for manufactured drama.

“Fine, maybe that’s a little long to wait, but everything is so expensive around here, sis.” I sigh and offer her a wry smile. “We moved here so we can meet super rich men, but our broke asses can’t afford the prices to live here.” I can’t help but laugh at the irony of the situation.

“How much do we have left?” She nods and sits back in the seat.

Disappointment crowds her face, but I can tell she’s trying not to show it. She’s good like that. Which makes me feel worse. I wasted our money on drinks last night, and now we don’t have money for breakfast. That was irresponsible of me.

“We have two thousand dollars in our checking account and fifty dollars in savings. One credit card has one thousand dollars available credit, and the other has seven hundred eighty-nine dollars.” I grimace. “We have to pay rent again in a month, and we have to pay our cell phone bills and make the minimum payment on the credit card.”

My stomach drops again. It sucks, being poor. It sucks, robbing Peter to pay Paul. It sucks, carrying the stress of worrying if we can pay rent and eat.

“So, we’re rich then?”

“Not quite.” I grin at her so that she doesn’t feel the depths of the stress that I’m carrying.

Rosie still thinks our parents help pay the bills and that we’re comfortable. She’s been sheltered her entire life by all of us, and I want to keep it that way. I love my sister, and her well-being matters more to me than my own.

“Do you think we can get a dog?” she asks suddenly, and I look over at her in shock.

“What? Rosie, I just told you that we barely have any money. Why on earth would we get a dog?”