Ishould have been finishing my trigonometry homework or at least showering after softball practice. But to be fair, I hated math, and I didn’t allow myself to shower until I’d finished my homework. So really my only option was to take a book break.
There was a tiny possibility that my frustrations might have been motivated by the fact that I was exactly one chapter away from the really good stuff in my pilfered copy of Kathleen E. Woodiwiss’s Shanna.
It was my third reread of Mom’s tattered paperback, and I was besotted with the mercurial Ruark Beauchamp. Even though his—and Shanna’s—behavior would totally have been problematic in real life, I still liked the underlying idea that a secret torrid affair could somehow provide a safe space where you could be yourself.
I climbed onto the window seat cushion and built a mound of pillows behind me. A whiff of armpit caught me. I winced and shoved the middle window open to let in the fresh spring air. My team was on track to make the district playoffs this year, and the coaches pushed us harder every practice. I wanted it. It was all part of Sloane’s Awesome Life Plan, which I was fully dedicated to. But right now, all I wanted to do was lose myself in a sexy Caribbean love story. In seconds, concerns about my dried sweat and lame homework disappeared, and I was transported into the book.
I was midway through the good stuff when my attention was ripped from the page by our next-door neighbor Mr. Rollins reversing his pickup truck out of the driveway much too fast. He shifted gears, and the truck launched forward, spinning the tires as it accelerated out of view.
My stomach knotted. Things hadn’t been good next door since Mr. Rollins had lost his job a year ago. Dad said he’d been some kind of foreman at the chemical plant a few towns over. But the plant had closed. After that, Mr. Rollins stopped mowing the lawn. He didn’t grill burgers anymore either. Sometimes, if my bedroom window was open to the spring breeze, I could hear him yelling late at night.
My dad never yelled. He sighed.
He didn’t get mad at me and Maeve. He got disappointed.
I wondered what Lucian did when his dad yelled.
A tiny thrill rolled through me just thinking about him.
Lucian Rollins was a junior and starting quarterback on the varsity football team. I liked to think the serious, dark-haired boy who took out the trash shirtless was the reason for my teenage sexual awakening. I’d gone from thinking boys were gross—which, at twelve and thirteen, was absolutely accurate—to wondering what it would be like to be kissed by the bad boy next door.
Lucian was gorgeous, athletic, and popular.
I, on the other hand, was a four-eyed, busty, almost sixteen-year-old who would rather spend a Friday night curled up with a good book than drink warm beer by a bonfire in the field known as Third Base. I was not in his league. That league was occupied by cheerleaders and class presidents and beautiful teens who somehow escaped the desperate lack of self-confidence that had been bestowed on the rest of us.
I excelled at a not-sexy sport and had spent last week in detention thanks to my “strong objections” to dress code enforcement when my friend Sherry Salama Fiasco had gotten detention over a skirt that was one inch too short.
“Instead of policing the fashion choices of girls, why don’t you put that energy into teaching boys how to control themselves?” I’d argued. Loudly. I’d even earned some enthusiastic applause and a nod of approval from one of the senior cheerleaders in my study hall.
I didn’t hate the street cred. And my parents had refused to ground me for standing up for what was right.
I heard a creak and a slam next door. My book fell off my lap as I craned my neck for a better look.
My favorite thing about my room—besides the fact that it had its own bathroom, library-worthy bookshelves, and an awesome window seat for reading—was the view. From my window seat, I could see the entire side of Lucian’s house, including his bedroom window.
There he was.
Lucian stalked into the backyard. Unfortunately, he was wearing a shirt. His shoulders were hunched, and he was absently rubbing his right arm while staring pensively at the ground.
Our backyard, thanks to Dad’s green thumb, was a fenced-in wonderland of flowers and trees and shrubs. It was late March, and the cherry trees were blooming, an official announcement of the arrival of spring.
Lucian’s backyard looked more like an abandoned lot. The grass was patchy, and there were tufts of knee-high weeds against their side of the fence. A rusty grill was abandoned against the side of the garage. I didn’t mean to judge, of course. Lots of people had better things to do than play in the dirt every weekend.
Though maybe Lucian should think about helping out around the house if his dad wasn’t going to take care of the yard work anymore. There was a push mower next to the grill, for gosh sakes. I didn’t want to have a crush on a lazy, entitled guy.
I willed him to approach the mower.
Instead, Lucian kicked at a rock on a bare patch of lawn and sent it flying. It soared through the air before smacking against our fence with a loud crack.
“Hey!” I yelled.
His gaze instantly came to my window. I flattened myself on the seat cushion and put a pillow over my face.
“Well, that was stupid, dummy. He already saw you,” I said into the pillow. I sat up again. But Lucian was nowhere to be seen.
The cherry tree outside my window shuddered, and I heard a grunt.
“What the—”
There was something in the tree. No. Not something, someone. I blinked several times and wondered if I needed a new glasses prescription, because it looked like Lucian Rollins was climbing my tree. He shimmied up the trunk and gave the branch that skimmed over the porch roof a testing bounce.
Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. A hot, popular junior had just climbed my tree because I’d yelled at him.
It was with a heady mix of horror and excitement that I watched him scale the branch before nimbly jumping onto the roof.
I slid off the cushion and backed toward the middle of my room as Lucian Rollins threw a leg over my windowsill and climbed inside.
Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Lucian Rollins was in my bedroom. Shit! Lucian Rollins was in my bedroom!
I glanced around, hoping my room wasn’t totally embarrassing. Thank God Mom had insisted on giving me a room makeover for my twelfth birthday. My doll house and hammock full of stuffed animals had been replaced with floor-to-ceiling bookcases my dad had installed. The pale pink walls had been covered with a moody blue paint.
But I’d just dumped two loads of clean laundry in a haphazard pile on the floor in front of the closet because Mom needed the laundry basket. I’d also emptied the contents of my backpack at the foot of my bed because I couldn’t find my favorite berry-pink highlighter that I reserved for only the most important class notes.
Dear lord. I had a favorite highlighter, and this past fall, Lucian had broken the school’s passing record on the football field.
My uninvited guest said nothing as I panicked silently.
Lucian picked up my book, flipped it over, and read the back. He raised a mocking eyebrow.
I crossed to him and snatched it out of his hand. “Why are you in my room?” I demanded, finally finding my voice.
“Mostly considering apologizing for the rock,” he said, his voice low and smooth.
“Mostly?”
He shrugged and began to wander the room. “I’ve never been inside your house before. I wanted to see what it was like.”
“You could have used the front door,” I pointed out. If I were a cheerleader, I’d know how to flirt. I’d have showered and be wearing matching pajamas and lip gloss. I’d toss my hair without hurting my neck, and he’d feel compelled to kiss me.
But I wasn’t a cheerleader. I was me, and I had no idea how to talk to my hot neighbor crush.
He paused at my desk and flipped through my CDs. His lips curved in a smirk. “Destiny’s Child and Enrique Iglesias.”
“You can’t just break into my house and judge my taste in music.”
“I’m not judging. I’m…intrigued.”
He was even cuter up close.