So, my plan was not very well thought out, logistically.
Firstly, Marc McGovern lived four kilometres away from me, and his house was not near a train station.
Secondly, I was on crutches, and could not really travel four kilometres on them.
Thirdly, Alex had yet to answer my text messages, and therefore Chance was not here to, begrudgingly, drive us.
In some ways, this was a blessing. Chance was panicky and safe and very much liked to adhere to rules of proper conduct he had made up in his head. For example, when I had generously set him up with Alesha Hart's brother last year, Chance had disregarded all of his fabulous qualities; the gorgeous skin and face and body and killer personality, all because Maverick Hart had done a little bit of cocaine at their 9am brunch and tried to play a drinking game with him at the cute café on the corner of West and Elm.
Maybe that was not the best example.
I think Maverick Hart was in prison now. Alesha told me he'd repeatedly shoved his special tool into a traffic cone at midday in the middle of the main street.
His real problem seemed to be with recognizing time of day, actually. Which didn't work for the ever-punctual Chance.
I was just not a good Cupid. Clearly, I couldn't recognize a perfect couple if it was standing right in front of me.
I had already hopped an entire kilometre and my body was aching in protest. I could practically hear my underarms shouting at me as the crutches dug viciously into them. I was, honestly, tempted to cut the cast off my body and just walk normally, but I knew the poor thing would just collapse. She had truly been through the wringer, my poor leg. What a trooper.
"Ugh," I said aloud. I couldn't go any further. I would just have to wait for Alex to respond to his stupid messages.
I sat down on the nature strip outside Lenny Holden's house with a disgruntled sigh. Toorak was an affluent suburb, and I knew most of the people here, even though I didn't go to fancy private schools with their kids. But it was a safe area—otherwise, I would not be traipsing the streets in the dark—and I used to dog walk most people's puppies on the weekend, so I tended to know most of the folks around here.
I pulled out my phone. Alex had yet to text me back. I tapped his number and held the phone in front of me, set on speaker. I liked speakerphone, because if someone tried to murder me, at least Alex could yell at them that he was going to call the police or something. The call rang out once, so I tried again. Alex's voicemail was just him making a fart sound. And he wondered why he was never hired.
"What's up, Montez?" said Alex as he picked up the phone. He sounded sleepy. It was only just reaching midnight, the clock having just shifted to let me know that it was now April 19th.
"Get Chance to drive you up here. We're going to Marc McGovern's."
"Wha—?"
"Have you been asleep?"
"Well, yeah. It's a school night."
"You sound like Daria."
Alex laughed, and the noise echoed through the empty streets. "It's called adulting, you turd. And why do you want to go to Marc McGovern's? He's the worst. No one but the stoners will be there."
"Since when are you responsible?"
"Lena, I'm not becoming a priest. I just don't really think Marc McGovern is my particular brand of fun. Also, no offence, but you're a cripple. Looking after you would be very boring."
I sighed. "Fine, then. Be lame."
"Fine, then," he said mockingly, his voice rising far too any octaves in what I assumed was meant to be an imitation of me. "Be passive-aggressive."
I hung up on him.
"Great way to subvert the idea that you're passive-aggressive," said a male voice from behind me.
"Oh, shit!" I yelled, and screamed, lifting my crutch to bash it against him. But when I turned around, all I could see was a figure in a dark hoodie nestled in the leafy alcove of bushes at Lenny Holden's side gate. He never used it.
The man was clearly homeless. He had a pillow and a blanket nestled against the fence, and the set up suggested he'd been there for a little while. It was incongruous with the neighbourhood. I knew I was privileged beyond belief and recognized that the homelessness epidemic was a severe problem. Yet I'd never seen it on my own street corners.
Then the man started laughing, and I realized it was hardly a man. It was a boy. "God, Montez, I did not remember you being so highly strung," he said.
Recognition dawned on me. It was a voice I knew, and when he lifted his head, it was a face that was uncomfortably familiar. "Cole Knight?"
"The one and only."
I was stunned, momentarily. Cole, in a bush. Homeless and shivering. Then I whacked him with my crutch, squarely on the head. "You scared the shit out of me!"
"Ouch," was his response, rubbing his head. His smirk was cheeky. "Someone is cranky. No lift to your crack den? What a bummer."
"Whatever this is—" I gestured to the makeshift camp he'd set up. "Is a far bigger bummer."
He pouted in mock hurt. "How dare you insult my humble abode!" Then the hurt melted to reveal a tight smile. "A little different then what we're used to, hey?"
That was an underestimation of epic proportions. A little different. Neither Cole nor I were accustomed to anything of the sort. The closest we'd ever come to homelessness was charity functions hosted to raise money for the homeless. Which was, I recognized, a little out of touch and tinged with a certain arrogance.
This was not charity. I frowned, still startled by the sight of a socialite snuggled into a bush. "Are you...living in a bush?"
Cole looked up at me, dark eyes framed by darker lashes. His expression contained a foreign sadness that did not belong on the face of a boy like Cole Knight. I didn't know him well—he was the son of Carl and Daniella Knight, rich socialites and associates of my father's—and we'd only met a few times. Still, in every encounter I'd ever had with him, he was energetic, passionate, alight with life. Sadness didn't suit him.
Knight quickly glanced at his "humble abode", as if to remind himself that yes, he was living there, and this was his reality.
"Seems so," he said, with a poorly feigned lightness. Pride was a fatal flaw we shared, it seemed.
"Uh, why?" I asked. I was still gaping at him. Cole Knight, in this place. The cool night breeze settled against my skin, and I almost shivered. Boys shouldn't be living like this. No one should be living like this. The cold would be impenetrable at night; inescapable.
"I like the view," Knight said, defensiveness hidden beneath a façade of airiness. As if homelessness was a temporary vacation, and he was rather enjoying the process. But misery was evident in every line of his face, in the resigned hunch of his shoulders. "And I'm really trying to become one with nature. You know, self-improvement."
I collapsed next to him, setting my crutches aside and ducking my head to fit into the bush with him, stretching my legs out beside his. It wasn't particularly comfortable, but the poor guy was already doing it tough, he didn't exactly need my commentary and insults about his new home, or whatever else you could call it. "Your sarcasm is not appreciated."
Knight grinned, and it lit up his face. He once again resembled the annoying kid from my memories. "Coming from the most sarcastic person I've ever met. And I spoke to you for about twenty minutes."
"Hey." I frowned. "Let's not criticise my dazzling personality. Let's analyse why you, one of the richest people I know, are living on a street corner."
Knight hesitated for a moment. Questioning. I couldn't imagine what his answer could be. I'd seen publications print stories of riches to rags, but the loss of face or Instagram followings did not apply here. White trust fund kids from affluent suburbs with a thousand connections did not post a disgusting symbol on social media and fall completely from grace.
Someone like Cole Knight benefited from every system, every day. I did too. I couldn't imagine a world where I was left to freeze in a bush.
Knight ran a hand through his hair. "You know Analise Sestima?"
I did. She was blonde, stunning, the heir to old money from European royalty. I loathed her; she was a cow. She was always posting online about how the burden of taxation shouldn't be on the rich, and subtly racist commentary about asylum seekers. If I was a little shallow and out of touch, she was actively so.
"Absent-minded, rich and a waste of space?" I asked.
"That's the one." He plucked a leaf from the bush and tore it carefully in half, directly along the stem. I glanced at the ground around us, littered with similarly carved leaves. Entertainment was scarce, it seemed.
"What about her?"
"My parents want me to marry her." He shook his head with derisive amusement. "Sorry. They're hinging any funds or access to the family property on my engagement to her."
I opened my mouth briefly and closed it again. "Uh, the 1780s called and they want their family drama back."
Knight laughed drily. "I had a similar perspective. They were not impressed."
I held a hand up. "So what you're telling me is, they asked their eighteen-year-old son to marry advantageously, and when he refused, they kicked him out of the house with no money to support himself?"
"That about sums it up."
Woah.
It was baffling, honestly. In the 21st century, how could any parent expect something so outlandish? And the Knights were hardly hard done by. If we were wealthy, they were on another level. The lavishness of their estate was unrivalled by any other I'd ever witnessed. Old money, unlike us. So why they felt it was necessary to ostracize their son because he refused to help compound their wealth, I failed to understand.
Eat the rich, honestly. Except me.
With all the issues with taxation, I was now a firm believer in an asshole tax. It would probably solve every social issue facing this country. And the world.
I looked at Cole for a moment. Dejection was etched into the lines of his face, hurt curving his spine. I'd always associated cocky arrogance with him, but his fall from grace had robbed him of it.
Marc McGovern's party didn't seem all that important, really. Drugs and smoke and people I barely tolerated, all to prove... what? That my life was still a-okay?
At least I'd been cooped up in a lavish mansion. Cole was living in a bush, for crying out loud.
Was I a bad person?
I grimaced for a second. There was something I had to do tonight that was far more important than second-hand smoke.
I held my hand out to him. "Okay, I'm doing this apparently. You can stay at Chambermore."
"What?" Cole looked at me with bafflement.
"You can live in my closet or something. We can iron out the details later," I said.
Cole looked at me with reverence, which I honestly didn't mind. Generosity was nice, both to help people and to send warmth coursing through my stomach. Definitely not the point, though. "You're going to give me a place to stay?
"Well, we need to have an in-depth analysis of that dazzling personality of mine." And I was dying to know more about his family, Analise, and everything that had led him to Holden's side gate bush.
"Can I stay on the streets?"
Okay, maybe he wasn't going to treat me as if the sun shone out of my asshole. I grinned anyway. Cole Knight had always been a blast.
"No."