The Boys Next Door (15 page)

Adam and I looked at each other. Sean had been saving the money he earned at the marina to buy a Byerly for himself. He’d bragged about it every day in the boat, like all he needed was this new trick wakeboard and he’d be numero uno again. We were talking hundreds of dollars.

He’d spent that money on Rachel instead?

Adam jogged down the pier and stepped in front of Mr. Vader, blocking his way. “What about bindings?”

“Bindings too,” Mr. Vader said. “They’re on order.”

It didn’t make sense for Mr. Vader to be proud of Sean buying his new girlfriend a wakeboard instead of buying one for himself. It was a frivolous purchase made way too soon in their relationship. Right? What Adam and I knew, and what Mr. Vader knew too but clearly wasn’t admitting to himself, was that this was the first time Sean had ever done something selfless.

Or so it seemed. But he’d given it to her in front of his mom and dad, like he’d wanted to impress them more than her. The
ew
factor was off the charts. Parents were bad enough. You didn’t go out of your way to
involve
them.

Adam was thinking the same thing. “Her birthday isn’t until March. Why’d he make this big presentation at the dinner table?”

“Because he values her,” Mr. Vader said haughtily, “and he wanted to show us how much he values her.”

“Couldn’t he value her out in the Volvo?” Adam hollered. “Jesus!”

Mr. Vader pushed past Adam and resumed his walk up the pier. Partygoers in his yard stepped out of his way. I watched him carve a swath through the crowd until he disappeared inside the house. I couldn’t hear over the music, but I could tell from the way people near the house jerked their heads in that direction that Mr. Vader slammed the door.

Adam pinched his own arm thoughtfully. He reached over and pinched
my
arm.

“Ow!” I squeaked.

He took me by the shoulders and shook me gently. “He gave her a wakeboard.”

“I know.”

“In front of my parents. Because he values her.” He imitated his dad’s tone, heavy with gravity.

“
You
could have valued her,” I pointed out. “You could have given her something that meant a lot to you.” I nodded toward his neck.

His eyes flew wide open. He gripped the skull-and-crossbones pendant protectively. “
You
gave this to
me
.”

We pinned each other with a long look, and I wished for the millionth time in the past week that I could read his mind. He was upset all over again about losing Rachel. He was mad at Sean about Rachel. He was outraged that his parents believed Sean over him about Rachel. But the pendant was more important to him than Rachel? Because I’d given it to him?

The boys with bottle rockets had noticed us and shouted to us. They were shooting bottle rockets near us in the water. Sooner or later they would set a boat on fire. Yet I couldn’t tear my gaze away from Adam’s blue eyes so bright in the gray mist. He must have seen something in my eyes, too.

“I’d better go change,” I said slowly. “For the party.”

“Right,” Adam said, still holding my gaze.

“So.” I laughed nervously. Dork. “I’ll meet you back here in a while. Beauty takes patience. Ha ha ha ha.”

He shook his head. “We should go to the party like this.”

“Like
this
? My hair is full of lake.”

“You look great in a bikini. As you know.”

I was glad the dusk hid my blushing face. Or maybe it made my blushing face stand out like it made other colors pop, because I was that fortunate. “What do you mean,
as I know
? I don’t
know
.”

“If you didn’t know, you wouldn’t be wearing a bikini to get Sean’s attention.”

“Yeah. Fat lot of good it’s done me.”

“You wouldn’t be flaunting it.”

“
Flaunting
it! Are you sure? I have no idea what that would look like.”

“Come flaunt it up at the house.”

I wasn’t sure why this irked me. He’d told me I looked good. He’d told me I would look good to Sean. This is what we wanted. Anyway, I couldn’t stand out here and flaunt it for
anyone
in my bikini. I knew the night was hot and steamy, but the rain had done me in. I was freezing.

“Cold again?” he asked me, stepping closer.

I shivered some more. My stupid body had a mind of its own. “Toasty.”

“Hold on.” He took the extra key to the warehouse from the ledge above the door and stepped inside. He came back out with his zip-up sweatshirt printed with the name of our football team on the front and his number on the back. He held it up like an old man holding up an old lady’s coat for her. I slipped my arms into the sleeves. Then he turned me around toward him. He pulled the hood up over my hair. Put the hood back down. Kissed me on the tip of my nose.

Foop!
A bottle rocket exploded in the water just below us, illuminating a blob of bryozoa clinging to the wharf.

Adam took my hand, whispering, “We’ve got them right where we want them. Trust me.”

He led me through the crowd in the yard, up the deck stairs, into his shadowy living room pulsing with music. Sean was surrounded by a group of people listening with open mouths to his puffed-up story of how he gave Rachel a wake-board. Even Holly and Beige exclaimed like they were happy for Rachel instead of grumbling internally that Rachel was another in a long line and Sean was just showing off. Two feet away, Rachel was surrounded by hoydens screeching about how lucky she was to have a boyfriend like Sean.

From inside the dark room, the lights on the deck must have made Adam and me glow like a TV show. As we stepped through the door, everyone turned to stare at us.

I backed the slightest bit toward Adam. He squeezed my hand.

Then the floodgates opened. The girls who’d surrounded Rachel flocked to me to squeal about Adam spray-painting our names on the bridge. The boys with bottle rockets on the dock had seen it before the sun set and had spread the news around the party. The people who’d surrounded Sean moved to Adam and ribbed him about misspelling our names.

Adam played this perfectly. He laughed it all off like he didn’t even care he was getting more attention than his stewing brother. He rubbed my shoulder and asked, “Aren’t you hungry? We haven’t eaten.” He peered over my shoulder at the spread Mrs. Vader had laid out on the bar. “Party food isn’t going to cover it.”

“Starved.” I followed him around the bar that divided the living room from the kitchen. There were partial walls on either side, so the kitchen was a little more quiet. At least we could raise our voices over the beat of Splender without making ourselves hoarse.

He opened the refrigerator door. “What’d they have for dinner? Chicken casserole.” He wrinkled his nose. “I don’t want the casserole of love, do you?”

“Definitely not.”

“Hey, chica,” Tammy called across the bar.

“Hey, chica,” I responded, and looked over Adam’s shoulder into the refrigerator again. Then I realized what I was supposed to be doing. I walked around the bar, screamed, “Tammeeeee!” and hugged her while jumping up and down. This was a lot easier in bare feet than it had been in heels, let me tell you.

“Hi there,” she said, wrestling me off her. “You’re insane. I’m so late. My mom made me play in a stupid tennis tournament in Birmingham today. Where is everybody?” She peered into the kitchen.

“Don’t I count?” Adam asked from inside the refrigerator.

“That’s Adam, right?” Tammy whispered.

“Right,” I said. “Sean is holding court by the palm tree in the living room. The art geeks are outside in the grass.”

“The football team is on the dock, shooting bottle rockets into the lake,” Adam offered. I knew where his heart was.

“The trumpet line from the marching band is on the deck,” I said. “Who were you looking for?”

“You!” Tammy said. She handed me a small present wrapped in Valentine’s paper.

“Hey, thanks!” I said, ripping it open. “What’s it for?” My birthday was still a week and a day away, and I didn’t think anyone from school knew when it was. “How sweet!” I held up the eyelash comb, twirled it between my fingers, and slipped it into the pocket of Adam’s sweatshirt. I hoped I remembered to take it out again at the end of the night. If I didn’t, Adam would have some explaining to do next football season when it fell out of his pocket at practice.

“It’s a hostess gift,” Tammy said. “You know, when you come to a party, you bring a present for the hostess.”

“But I’m not the hostess. This isn’t my house.” I wondered whether she’d tripped over some tennis balls, hit her head, and forgotten she’d gone with me to my house last week, scaring the bejeezus out of the father figure.

“You’re the hostess because you’re the girlfriend of one of the hosts,” Tammy said.

Without meaning to, I glanced up at Adam. He’d closed the refrigerator door and leaned against it, watching me.

“Or
pretending
to be,” Tammy added.

Adam’s blue eyes widened at me. Something told me—and I am sure this was not feminine instincts, because we have established I did not have any of those—but
something
told me my explanation of how Tammy knew about the plot might go over better if I heated Adam up. I slid my arms around his waist and pressed close to him, backing him against the refrigerator. His eyes grew even wider.

I gave him a coy half-smile that probably ended up looking like the first signs of a seizure. “You know how girls are. Girls can’t make a move without telling other girls about it.”

“Yeah,
girls
are like that,” Adam told me, “but
you’re
not.”

Tammy cleared her throat.

Adam cleared his throat.

I cleared my throat, removed my hands from Adam’s waist, and brushed imaginary dust off his bare shoulders, setting straight any oafish damage I might have done. From now on, whenever I got the idea that maybe he liked me a little, I would remember that he did
not
like me a little. I didn’t need to read his mind.

“Heeeeeeey,” Tammy squealed. She must have seen Holly or Beige or a super-cute boy—but no, it was only McGillicuddy. They disappeared into the living room with their heads close together, shouting over the music. If she got rid of my approaching brother for me because she thought I needed some alone time with Adam to talk out our problems, she was wrong-o about me. Again. I started to follow her.

“Dinner’s ready,” Adam said behind me.

I looked toward the table in the kitchen. He’d set two of the places with knives, forks, spoons, and napkins. He’d placed a sandwich on each plate and sprinkled parsley flakes in a circle around it. Bam! He’d stacked the potato chips artfully in dessert bowls. He’d even lit one of his leftover birthday candles between our places. It all would have been really cute if he’d meant it. It was still pretty cute as a farce to make Rachel jealous, I supposed, but I wasn’t in the mood.

“Let me help you,” he said, pulling out a chair for me, as if I were a girl or something. Vivid imagination, this boy. I sat, and he scooted me up to the table.

He took a bottle of soda from the fridge and held it in front of me, like he was a wine steward. I nodded that the year was okay. He unscrewed the cap and handed it to me. I sniffed it like a wine cork, nodded my approval again, and handed it back to him. He poured soda into wine glasses for both of us, then sat down with me.

He took a gargantuan bite of his sandwich, chewed, swallowed, and looked at me. “What’s wrong?”

Oh, nothing
. That’s what a girl would say, and she’d sulk for the rest of the night. But I wasn’t capable of keeping my mouth shut. “I’m confused.”

“It’s not really wine,” he said. “It’s Diet Coke. And if anyone
ever
serves you brown wine with a foamy head, send it back.”

“Thank you, Dr. Science.” I took a dainty bite of my sandwich. Adam was a real gourmet. Peanut butter and strawberry jam. “I’m confused because I thought you said I was flaunting, and now I’m not even a girl? I thought you said I was a good flaunter.”

“You
are
a good flaunter.” He swirled the Diet Coke in his glass and sniffed the bouquet.

“Then why am I not a girl?”

“You—Shit, I
knew
that’s what you were mad about. I didn’t mean it that way.” He leaned his head to one side and popped his neck. “You know as well as I do that you don’t act like other girls.”

“I’m working on it, though.” I was working so hard! I felt like crying into my salt and vinegar chips, which was a step in the right direction.

“But it’s
good
you don’t act like other girls. Of course, I don’t have any say in it, because you’re not after me. You’re after Sean.”

“You wouldn’t have any
say
in it
anyway
, you patriarchal freak.” I chomped a chip and said with my mouth full, “Thanks for cooking dinner. I love it when the little missus makes a house a home.”

He glared at me. “Eat up. We have work to do.”

“What kind of work? Devious kissing work? May I point out that we both have peanut butter breath?”

“Eat up,” he said again. Sean’s jovial voice escalated over the music in the living room, which made me want to speed up eating to get out of there, but also made the sandwich sit on my stomach like a rock.

We went upstairs. Adam shared his bathroom with Sean and Cameron, and the bathroom looked it. He brushed his teeth, then sipped straight from a bottle of mouthwash. As he swished it around in his mouth, he nudged my bare tummy with his toothbrush and prompted, “Hm.”

“You want me to
use your toothbrush
?”

He spit in the sink. “You might as well. You’re about to do a lot worse.”