Yeah I was in Juvie. Get over it.

Chapter 23

CARMEN

The waiter came up to the table and smiled, "Here's the check."

Both me and Rex nodded before we turned to glare at each other.

There was a silent clock going. 

Three, two, one.

We both reached for the check, but I got to it first, smirked at him in the process.

I started to open the check wallet thing and looked at him, "Too slow."

He laughed a little and took a sip of the wine he had drunk three glasses of, "Damn, you're getting better at that."

We usually would put a dollar in the center of a table and see who could get to it first, a fun way to move cash around, because God forbid a bunch of kids in juvie would have access to cards.

Supposedly using real money in poker is illegal.

Some shitty law that was, they do realize that people could be making a lot more money that way right?

Oh, wait, I guess people could also be losing a lot more money too...

Yup, okay, I see where they were coming from. 

I rolled my eyes, "Your own fault, you kept 'letting me win' back in juvie, I started to actually get good."

I grabbed my own glass of wine. Courtesy of the fake IDs that Rex had gotten from a guy he knew. 

And then I shifted my eyes to the check, and I almost dropped it. 

"Fuck."

I only had thirty-five, and that was a shit ton more than thirty-five.

Rex smiled, "Hand it over, Carmen."

I glared at him but reluctantly forked over the check. 

He looked at it for a second, and pulled a one-hundred-dollar bill out of his pocket, sliding it into the middle of the check.

I looked between the bill and him, "How the hell did you get that?"

He shrugged, "You'd be surprised how many rich people are just walking around Manhatten, just gotta look for the right ones."

I smiled, "Well, maybe sometimes you can help me look for them."

Rex nodded, "Yeah, that sounds like fun."

The waiter came back and looked at the money in the check.

"Keep the change," Rex said before standing up, motioning for me to follow him. 

I raised an eyebrow as we left the restaurant, "Keep the change? Really?"

Rex shrugged, "What can I say? I felt generous." 

I nudged him a little, trying to stay with him as we made our way through the streets of Manhatten, almost to Times Square.

Rex was looking up at the sky, almost stumbled into a few people. I even had to mumble sorry to an especially pissed-off guy.

I glanced up at him, steely eyes in deep concentration. 

"What're you thinking?" 

He shifted his eyes over to mine, "Haven't been out in the open for so long, you know, it's like..."

"You've missed out on the world for two years of your life?"

Rex nodded, "Yeah, that. It's like, after all this time, I'm finally free. Feels like I can own the whole world. "