Mind-Reading the Billionaire's Heir

The kid couldn't have been older than seven, and he was standing in my shop, plotting to break my legs.

I know that because I could hear him think it.

Let me back up.

I burned out, quit the grind, and moved home to do absolutely nothing. Opened a snack shop across from the elementary school. Sell hot chips and corn dogs to nine-year-olds, watch my shows behind the counter, talk to no one over four feet tall.

That was the whole plan.

Then this kid walked in at lunch and stared at me like I'd run over his dog.

I opened my mouth to ask what he wanted.

His voice went off inside my skull, clear as a kicked-over radio.

[So this is the one. The comments said Dad's marrying the lady with the shop by the school. She's got a shop. Right by the school. It's her.]

[They said she waits till Dad's gone, then she hits me. When I'm big, I'll break both her legs. That's so scary. I can't let her be my stepmom.]

[But she's got so many hot chips. And corn dogs. How am I supposed to not want some?]

My heart kicked. For one second I saw my own legs, snapped clean in two.

The kid lifted his chin and looked me dead in the eye.

"Hey," he said. "Did you know my dad doesn't wipe?"

Chapter 1

"Huh?"

I'd been so deep in the kid's head I missed whatever he actually said out loud.

"I said it's true." He planted his feet, the way he'd seen the big kids do. "My dad doesn't wash his hands. He goes to the bathroom and doesn't even wash."

"He won't brush his teeth. He hates showers. He's basically a swamp."

He said it to my face, very serious, the way you deliver important news.

The whole time his mouth ran, his eyes never left the roller grill. The corn dogs turned slow under the heat lamp, fat and shining. He licked his lips. Swallowed. Licked them again.

[The teacher says nobody likes a dirty person.]

[I made Dad sound so gross. She won't want him now. Right?]

[But if she marries him anyway, do I get hot chips every day? Corn dogs every day?]

[No. No. The comments said she's the evil kind of stepmom. Bad. So bad. I can't let her marry Dad.]

He stood there like a tiny soldier, calm as you please. Inside, he was a shaken soda can.

I smiled. "Your dad sounds pretty gross, huh? Shame. I happen to like a man who doesn't wipe."

You said I wasn't even pretty. Chew on that, kid.

Under the teasing, though, my stomach went loose with relief. Thank God I'd heard him. Imagine signing up to be this child's stepmother and getting my legs snapped for the trouble.

A bead of sweat slid down his forehead.

His fists balled up in his school shirt. His voice cracked.

"Why would you say that? I told you he's gross!"

He was about to cry.

My whole chest seized. Making a little kid cry in your shop is not a good look.

"Beckett? You here to scavenge chips again?"

"Ha, bet he is. No chips on the floor in class, so he comes to the shop."

"Lady, watch him. He's totally gonna steal your snacks."

Five, six kids poured through the door at once, all talking over each other.

The one called Beckett flattened against the wall, slid to the door, and bolted.

"You all know him?" I asked.

"That's Beckett. He's in our class. Can't even afford hot chips. He picks the ones I drop on the floor and eats them."

The chubby kid shook a bag of chips at me and handed over two bucks.

"He licked out my empty chip bag once, too. Beckett's such a mooch."

A little girl set down a crunchy noodle snack and slid me a dollar.

This kid's family was that broke?

So I was supposed to do what, exactly. Marry some twice-divorced deadbeat with a kid hanging off him.

Marry into that.

What was I running here, a charity?

Chapter 2

The bell rang and the kids scattered like dropped marbles.

I got up to pull the door shut, and there he was. Beckett. Front-row desk, dead center, pointed straight at my shop like he'd picked the seat on purpose.

He caught me looking and dropped his head.

At lunch he came back. Didn't come in this time. Just posted up outside the door like a tiny guard.

[I'll watch her from here. If Dad shows up, I'll tell him she hits me. I'll tell him she's a bad woman.]

[The comments said it. After Dad marries her, I get picked on for years. I grow up and I beat her till she can't walk right. But then I'm not a good kid anymore.]

[If Dad never sees her, he can't marry her. I want to be a good kid. I don't want to hit anybody. I just don't want to get hit.]

[...The corn dogs smell so good, though.]

His little play-by-play went on and on in my skull until I couldn't stand it.

I grabbed a corn dog off the roller, one that had split open down the side, and held it out. "On me."

God knew how broke this kid was, scraping food off a classroom floor.

Then again. I thought about being seven myself, nose to a shop window, wanting.

Yeah. I got it.

"I don't have money," he said, sniffling.

"It's free. Take it." I pushed it into his mouth.

"I" His teeth closed on the corn dog mid-word. Grease ran down his chin.

He shut his mouth and chewed, and whatever he'd meant to say went down with it.

[So good. Way better than the steak they make at home.]

[If she just never hit me, I'd have corn dogs forever.]

[Maybe the comments are lying. She gave me a corn dog. Bad women don't do that.]

Poor kid. So hungry he was talking nonsense in there. Steak. At home.

And for the record: me, a bad woman? Please.

"Tell you what. You want a corn dog, come by after school. On me."

"But don't go nuts on them. Too many and you'll break out."

The leftovers don't keep anyway. Day-old, I can't sell them. Trash or this kid, same difference.

"They're... they're really free?"

He pinched the little stick out of the middle and stared at me, eyes round.

"Free. All leftovers. You don't eat it, I toss it."

He didn't say anything. He slid the stick into his pocket and left.

After that, every day after school, he showed up for the corn dogs nobody bought.

"Sold out today. Try this. Opened it and couldn't finish." I tossed him a bag of chips.

All that grilled stuff, I worried he'd get mouth sores.

"Want soda? Can't finish a whole bottle myself. Goes flat if it sits."

"Ramen? Don't like this flavor."

Whatever I handed him, he ate. And he ate it like it was the best thing in the world.

[Soda's amazing. Way better than the green juice they make me drink.]

[Ramen's crunchy. Crunchy and good. That fancy pasta last night was gross.]

[What do I do. I want her to marry Dad now. What do I do. She's amazing. She's got all this good stuff.]

[No. Beckett, focus. The comments said it's a trap. She's being nice on purpose so she can be my stepmom.]

He chewed and chewed, and his head never once stopped going.

I pretended to scroll my phone and listened to every word.

Chapter 3

"Frankie, you know what?"

"Nope," I said, just to mess with him.

He scrambled. "I'm not done yet!"

"Okay, okay. Go."

"Frankie, you know what? My dad's actually not great at all."

"He's so busy he eats busy. So busy he forgets Mom's birthday. Forgets mine. Mom says he's not a good man."

"And his temper. One look from him and the housekeeper shuts right up. Everybody does."

"So, Frankie." He swung the whole thing around and landed on the one question I hate. "Do you have a husband?"

"No," I said, sour.

His eyes rolled around while he thought. "Then when you go looking, don't pick one like my dad."

"Mom says marrying him was the biggest regret of her life."

[I made him sound so bad. She won't like Dad now. Right?]

[But the housekeeper says Dad's the strongest person there is. Whatever he wants, he gets.]

[So what do I do? What if Dad makes her marry him anyway?]

Every single time he came in, the kid's head was full of one thing. Me. As his stepmother.

For a solid month he ran his dad down to me, working to make me hate a man I'd never laid eyes on. Got to where I twitched at the word Dad.

"Frankie, why don't you go get a job?"

"I'm at one. Watching the shop is a job."

"Frankie, why don't you find a husband?"

"Scared I'll end up with a guy who doesn't wipe. Like your dad."

Somewhere in those weeks he quit calling me lady and started calling me Frankie. I started calling him kid.

We were friends. God help me.

He was mid-snack when something lit up behind his eyes.

[If she had a boyfriend... Dad couldn't marry her.]

[Then she wouldn't be my stepmom. She'd just be Frankie. And I'd still get all the snacks.]

He looked at me like he'd just cured world hunger.

I had no idea what was coming.

Chapter 4

"Frankie, look who I brought!"

Friday night, late, the kid finally turned up.

"Oh, so you remember me. Few more minutes and these corn dogs were going to the dogs."

I came out from behind the counter, both hands full of corn dogs dripping sweet-chili sauce, and stopped dead.

The man next to the kid had to be six-one. Broad shoulders, narrow waist, the whole package.

Good face on him, too. Big eyes, straight nose, a mouth tipping up at one corner like he already had me figured out.

It should've been illegal.

"Frankie, this is my cousin. Flew back from overseas yesterday. Everybody says he's a useless trust-fund kid!"

"So? You want him for a boyfriend? His family's loaded!"

The kid put a hand on his hip, proud as anything.

"And where'd you dig up this relative? Trust-fund kid, huh. You can't afford hot chips, but your cousin's a millionaire?"

The man was, I'll admit, a problem. Lucky for me I keep a scam-blocker on my phone.

A rich guy. Into me. Sure.

"Listen. You're a grown man. Conning a little kid for kicks?"

"And I'll tell you right now, this boy is dirt poor. So don't get any ideas about him."

"Don't get any about me, either. I'm so broke I'll be living on crumbs all winter."

I didn't wait for the shock to land on his face. I grabbed the kid and towed him back inside.

"Stop claiming random relatives. Somebody hauls you off, you're not coming back."

"Frankie, that really is my cousin. I'm not lying!"

He was going frantic.

[She doesn't like the uncle. She doesn't like the cousin. She's not really going to marry Dad, is she?]

[The parent-teacher thing is coming. The teacher called Dad in special this time. What do I do?]

[The comments said she's only nice to me to get to Dad. Once she's my stepmom she won't like me at all. She'll only like her own kids.]

While the kid spun out, the man followed us in.

"Hi. I'm Roman. Beckett's cousin."

"He's told me a lot about you. That you're good to him. That you feed him."

"I came to thank you."

He reached into his coat for something. I didn't catch what.

"Save the thank-yous. You're his cousin, so this works out."

"Go tell his family. However tight money is, slip the kid some pocket change. He's a child. Watching everyone else eat with nothing in his own hands. That's a sad way to grow up."

"You were a kid once. You get it."

I'd meant to say all that to the boy's father. But I didn't want Beckett worrying. The thing he dreaded most was me meeting his dad and turning into the stepmother.

The man's brows pulled together.

"I think you've misunderstood something. Beckett is the heir to the Lockwood Group. His family has everything. How could he be the one to pity?"

Sure. Keep going.

"This kid scavenges corn dogs off the floor. You know that? If his family's so loaded, how's he this starved?"

"He'd never had hot chips. Never had ramen. The first soda of his whole life, he drank in my shop."

Halfway through, my throat closed up.

I thought I'd had it bad as a kid. Beckett had it worse.

Across from me, something shifted behind the man's eyes.

For the first time, he didn't look so sure.

Chapter 5

"Miss Cole. You really have this wrong."

Something complicated moved across the man's face.

"Beckett was raised by his grandparents. Strict people. Everything he ate went by a meal plan, down to the gram. Nothing off the list. Not ever."

"They wanted him balanced. Healthy. None of us knew he was like this at school."

He pulled out his phone and tapped it twice.

My phone buzzed against the counter. A transfer notification lit the screen. Fifty thousand dollars.

"For the snacks you've given him. Thank you for looking after him."

"He's a sad case, honestly. And you were right. Kids get hungry."

"This is way too much." I stared at the number. "He's eaten a few hundred bucks of leftovers, tops. Over months."

"Keep the rest. Call it his snack fund." He paused. Just a beat. "Call it making up for my own childhood."

Then he was gone, and I was standing there holding a receipt with too many zeros on it.

Okay. So the kid was rich.

Fifty grand, handed over like a bar tab. Trust-fund kid, confirmed.

"Frankie, why won't you let my cousin be your boyfriend?"

Beckett stared at the door Roman had walked out of.

"Because I'm a broke nobody, kid." I shrugged. "I'm not in his league."

"So spend all his money. Then he's broke too." He blinked up at me, completely serious. "Then you match."

The logic of a seven-year-old.

"Enough. You talk about your dad every single day. What does he even look like?"

A cousin who hands out fifty grand. This kid's family was not normal. If his father ever decided to come after me, I'd want to know the face coming.

Beckett went stiff.

"My dad's ugly. So ugly. You'd be scared if you saw him."

[She's not going to go find Dad, is she?]

[She really does want to be my stepmom. I can't let her see what Dad looks like.]

[I'm never coming back here again.]

I opened my mouth to explain. He was already gone, swallowed up by the dark outside.

After that, days went by with no Beckett.

"Your class. Has Beckett been at school?" I caught the chubby kid the next time he came in for snacks.

He shook his head. "Hasn't shown up in days. Teacher said he's sick."

"Nah." A taller boy grabbed a soda. "Heard from a girl in our class he just won't come."

What was wrong with the kid? Sick, or something worse?

I spent the whole afternoon uneasy. My show dropped a new episode and I couldn't make myself watch it.

After the fifty grand I'd gone and stocked the good imported snacks, just waiting for him to come try them.

And now he wouldn't come.

"You the one who runs this shop?"

A man walked in. Sharp suit. He didn't look at me first. He looked at the snack shelves, the hand-lettered sign, the roller grill, and priced all of it at nothing.

Then he looked at me.

"I'm Victor Lockwood. Beckett's father. My son's been coming here a lot."

So this was the dad. No wonder he looked familiar. Beckett, grown up and poured into a suit.

He caught me studying him and his brows came down.

"I don't care what you're after, getting close to my son. Drop it."

"Don't come near him again. Any way, any reason. Or you'll wish you hadn't."

Chapter 6

I wanted to take a strip off him. I didn't.

A man like that, with that kind of money, standing in my shop calling me a schemer. Whatever I said, he'd already decided I was a liar.

So I held my tongue and let him finish and walk out. Not because he scared me. Because there was no winning it. Not today.

But I clocked him. Every wrong thing he assumed about me, I filed away.

Beckett came back to school the next day. He never came back to my shop.

He sat at his desk and studied like his life depended on it. Sometimes I hid behind the door and watched him. He never once looked up.

I figured that was that. The kid and I were done.

Then one night, locking up, I turned around and he was standing right behind me. Silent.

"You trying to give me a heart attack?" I pressed a hand to my chest.

His fists were balled at his sides. "You're marrying my dad. Aren't you."

"You met him that day. At school. Didn't you."

[I thought she was my best friend. Why is she taking my dad away from me?]

[The comments were right. She got close to me on purpose. She was nice to me on purpose.]

[If I'd never eaten her snacks. Never hung around. Dad would never have come looking. He'd never have met her. He'd never have liked her.]

[She's a bad woman. I don't like her anymore.]

His little face was cold as stone. Inside, he'd already cried himself dry.

It landed in my chest like a dropped jar.

"What are you talking about?" I crouched down to his level. "Your dad came to me, all right. To warn me off. He told me to stay away from you or I'd be sorry."

"Does that sound like a love story to you?"

"You're lying! Dad came home from the parent-teacher thing and told me. He said he's getting married!"

[The comments said Dad fell for the lady who runs the grocery store. Love at first sight.]

[They said the two of them are the real thing. Happy forever. And I'm the extra piece nobody asked for.]

[Once she's in the house I live by her moods. She'll be cold. She won't want me.]

I sat there in the dark with all of it pouring into my head and didn't know where to start.

"I am not marrying your dad. I promise you that."

"It's not me, Beckett. Your dad's marrying the woman who runs the big grocery chain. Her. Not me."

He went very still.

[...It was never her.]

[She fed me. She kept the grill warm. She called me kid. And I believed a bunch of voices over her.]

[I'm sorry, Frankie. If she knew the things I thought about her, she'd hate me.]

[But I'm still getting a stepmother. I'm still going to get hurt. I'm going to turn into a bad kid.]

"Hey." I knocked his chin up with one finger. "Your dad getting remarried isn't automatically a bad thing."

I'd looked the grocery-store woman up while the kid was talking. Sharp. Ran a clean business. Good name around town. Not the type to knock a kid around.

"But everybody says stepmoms are mean. They say they hurt you." His voice came apart. "I'm scared."

Chapter 7

I crouched down and tried to fix it. "People come good and bad. Stepmoms too."

"If she ever really gives you a hard time, you come find me. We'll figure it out. Deal?"

That cheered him up a little.

"What if she doesn't hit me? Can I still come?"

"Course you can." I pinched his cheek.

His dad was busy getting married anyway. Too busy to keep track of one kid.

I could feed him while I had him. I hadn't touched the good imported snacks I'd bought.

But by the time I had the snacks and the drinks all ready, Beckett didn't come. Not once.

"Beckett transferred. Last week."

"Teacher said he went to some fancy private school. The kind where you ride horses."

"He's like a little rich kid. Weird, though. How's a rich kid too broke for hot chips?"

The kids talked over each other until I finally pieced it together.

Turned out Beckett went to that plain little public school because his grandparents wanted it. Now they were gone, his dad had remarried, and his dad called the shots. So he moved the boy to the priciest school in the city. Moved the whole house, too.

Poor kid never even got his fill.

The shop was a lot quieter without him.

He kept turning up in my head anyway. The way he'd stared at the roller grill. The drool when he ate hot chips. The way he looked at a whole wall of snacks like it was a wonder of the world.

I wondered if he had anything to eat now.

Junk food's got no nutrition. Half of it's bad for you.

But what does a kid know about that? They're hungry. Especially watching everyone else eat while they've got nothing.

Like me.

The whole reason I opened the shop was to make up for that. Couldn't have it as a kid, so I went overboard grown.

So I stuck a sign in the window. Pass a test or do a good deed, get a free bag of snacks on me.

"Frankie, I saved a kitten today!"

"Frankie, I helped an old lady cross the street last night!"

"Frankie, I got a 59. Does that count?"

The kids came in a steady stream. Some days I gave away dozens of bags of hot chips alone.

Burned through Roman's money fast.

"Do you know where Beckett went?"

I was rubbing my temples over the snack budget when Roman walked in.

"He ran away last night. We've searched the whole city. Nothing."

"Have you seen him?"

He looked like he hadn't slept in days. He probably hadn't.

"Haven't seen him in a while," I said. The truth.

"Don't panic, though. Cameras everywhere these days. He'll turn up fast."

A family that rich, finding one kid couldn't be hard.

"You'd think. But he left in his school uniform. You've seen them. Every kid in the city wears the same thing. He had a hat on, too."

"I sat in the police station all night watching footage. Nothing. His dad and stepmom are still overseas. When they're back..." He didn't finish.

He was scared of Victor. It was all over him.

"I have to go. Anything at all, call me. That's my private line." He pressed a card into my hand and left.

Somewhere out there was a seven-year-old in a uniform and a hat, one of ten thousand just like him, and nobody could find him.

Chapter 8

The second he left, I ran into the school and tracked down the kids I knew.

Asked around. Nothing.

[Heh. Frankie finally left. Now I can eat.]

[What first? Ramen. Let's start with a ramen.]

[No, wait. Chips first. Which flavor, though.]

I'd locked up and barely made it down the block when his voice went off in my head.

I crouched right down on the sidewalk and listened.

[These chips aren't great. Gonna tell Frankie to stop stocking them.]

[Mmm. Chips, then soda. So good. It's nicer here than anywhere.]

[...I wish I could just live in the shop.]

Well, well, Beckett. Turned into a little mouse, sneaking food in the dark.

I unlocked the door and flipped the light on.

Sitting on the floor by the shelves, both arms full of snacks, was the kid.

The soda hit the floor when he saw me.

"F-Frankie. You didn't leave?"

He wiped his mouth.

I caught him by the ear. "Course I didn't. How else do I catch a mouse?"

"You know your family's losing their minds looking for you? Your cousin hasn't slept. He's gone full raccoon-eyed."

"Raccoon?" Beckett looked up, eyes wide.

"Never mind the raccoon. Talk. Why on earth did you run away?"

I locked the door behind me.

He didn't answer.

"Your stepmom hurt you? Hit you?"

"No."

"Yell at you?"

"No."

"Then why'd you run, huh?" I jabbed a finger at his nose. "Use your words."

Nothing. My patience ran out.

This small and already running away. Already climbing through windows to steal snacks. Lord help us all at sixteen.

Wasn't he at the fancy school now? How'd he get less sensible, not more?

[If I told Frankie I ran away because I missed her, she'd just laugh at me.]

[Aunt Camille's actually nice to me. Not like the comments said.]

[But at home I'm like a guest. It doesn't feel like mine. It's Dad and Aunt Camille's house.]

The kid was just lonely. That was the whole thing.

"Well, well. I should've known this was your doing."

"You put my son up to running away. Didn't you. I know your type. You'll do anything to latch onto people with money. Sniffing for a payout."

Victor kicked the door open and sneered at me.

"You always talk before you check your facts?" I looked at the door, hanging off one hinge, and the lid came off my temper. "You don't have the first clue what happened here, and here you are, spraying it everywhere."

So he was rich. Rich doesn't buy you the right to invent people.

"Beckett. Come here. We'll deal with this at home."

Victor didn't so much as glance at me. He just gave his son the order.

"I'm not going with you. I'm staying here with Frankie."

Beckett ducked behind me, grabbed a fistful of my shirt, and held on.

Chapter 9