The Boys Next Door (24 page)

He slid his hand down a lock of my hair and twisted it around his fingers. “I don’t remember saying that, but I wouldn’t be surprised. I wasn’t lying that day in the truck. I really have loved you forever. Why else would I wear a skull-and-crossbones necklace you bought me from a bubble gum machine? It turned my skin green.”

“It didn’t.” To make sure, I moved the pendant aside and peered at his chest, which looked the normal scrumptious tan to me. “It didn’t,” I repeated with more confidence.

“It did when you first gave it to me. Any metal coating that might have been clinging to it wore off on my chest years ago.”

Come to think of it, the pendant
was
a funny color not found in nature. I’d probably given him lead poisoning, which was why he acted like that. I ran my fingertips down the bones, and poked the skull in the eyes. “You know, you could have told me you loved me a long time ago, before things got so crazy.”

“No, I couldn’t. I like to take chances. I’d blow a chance on anything but you. You didn’t love
me
.”

Didn’t I? It was hard to believe I’d called him
little dolphin
just two weeks before. “I didn’t think about you that way. Clearly I was capable of it. Because I love you now.”

He grinned and took my hand. “We should add another step to the secret handshake.”

“Then we couldn’t do it in public.” I turned his hand over and ran my fingertip lightly over his palm until he shivered. “When Sean came up to your mom because a fish had mouthed his toe, and my mom said I should just wait until I was sixteen… That wasn’t Sean. That was you. Right?”

He put his head close to mine, watching my finger trace valentines in his open hand. “I didn’t want you to like me because you thought you were supposed to. I wanted you to like me for me.” His breathing sounded funny. He was about to cry—which was going to cause him a world of trouble with the boys. He could live the first time down owing to the shock of seeing me crash into a very large, very stationary object. But if he cried again, he was toast.

I knew one way to stop him. I hollered above the motor, “Oh my God, Adam, are you about to
cry
?”

“Oh my God!” Sean echoed in a high-pitched girl-voice. Cameron squealed, “Adam, don’t cry!” My brother called, “No crying on the boat.”

Adam laughed with tears in his eyes and kissed me softly on the forehead, the side away from the stitches. And suddenly, to my complete horror,
I
was the one crying, sobbing into his chest. I was happy, but that wasn’t why I was crying. I was relieved. Relieved of a weight I couldn’t even name.

He held me more tightly and kissed my forehead several more times, then made his way down my cheek, dangerously close to my ear. I giggled at the same time I cried. If he didn’t stop, he was going to give me hiccups—which would be so incredibly sexy, on top of messing up my timing for wakeboarding jumps.

He kissed my lips. “What do you want to do tonight?” he whispered.

What a question!

“Put our names back on the bridge,” I said. “Only, you hold the sailboat this time, and I’ll take care of the handwriting.” I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, enjoying the warmth of Adam’s arms around me against the wind. We sat back and watched the other boats and the crowded banks of the lake spin by. When the show started, we spotted for the other boys while they took their turns. Then it was Adam’s turn, and mine.