Page 3 of The Boys Next Door

She cleared her throat. “Uh, shouldn’t everyone be wearing a seatbelt?”

“Ian’s fine.” Brendan’s dimple showed from the side. “Don’t worry.”

“I’m not worried,” she sniffed. Ian slid lower in his seat and gave the volume knob a twist, turning the radio up to blaring.

“What classes are you taking, Di?” Hazel eyes met hers in the rearview mirror. God, Brendan could see her blushing. Had he caught her checking him and Ian out? Pulling her knees together, she tugged at her bright blue skirt.

“I’m taking Honors English, Honors World History, French 2, Algebra 2—”

“Algebra 2?” Brendan looked startled. “That’s a junior class. No one takes that before sophomore year. Even the smart kids.”

“I took geometry over the summer. And biology, and Journalism 1, and, um, P.E.,” she babbled. If she’d been the type, she’d skip her P.E. classes all year long and hide out in the library. She had a drawer stocked with extra-large t-shirts, ready to hide every inch of her. At least she’d only be with girls in high school.

“I took your-mom-etry over the summer,” came a rumble from the front seat.

Three years ago, Diana would have fired back a choice insult about Mrs. O’Brian, who’d practically been a second mom when she was little. Ian would have smirked and told her she didn’t know what she was saying. Brendan would have laughed and told them to stop hating.

Now, she wanted to bury her face in her bookbag.

“Never mind,” she mumbled.

“No, that's great, Di,” Brendan stretched an arm across the back of Ian’s seat, rubbing his brother’s shoulder. “This is going to be a good year. I can feel it. Give us your schedule when we park and we’ll show you where your classes are. And find us at lunchtime. Just look out for me or Ian, and—“

“No!” she blurted. Her face was on fire, and all she wanted was to leap out of the Jeep. Find them at lunchtime? Was Brendan crazy? She couldn't handle a conversation with the twins -- make that Brendan, since Ian would barely talk -- in their car. Sitting with them at lunch, with all their cool older friends, would mean the most intense humiliation she could imagine.

She needed to stick to her own world. She needed to stay safe.

“I’m fine.” She took a deep breath. “I’ll sit with my friends. I already have plans.”

“Okay.” Brendan sounded disappointed. He eased the Jeep into a parking spot in front of the school. Little did he know the embarrassment he'd been spared. “Your choice.”

“Yeah. Sure.” Her brain was too panicked to let her form more than a few words. “Thanks for the ride.”

Without a word, Ian shoved his door open, angled his long body out, and slammed the door behind him. In seconds, he’d sprinted across the lawn to a pack of guys. They surged around him, yelling and slapping his back, and his face broke into a grin for the first time that morning.Loose cannon,Mrs. O’Brian had called Ian.

Brendan waited, his hands resting on the steering wheel.

“I’ll be okay,” she managed. “Thanks.”

“All right.” He turned over his shoulder to smile at her again. A gorgeous, dimpled smile that made her stomach drop and her knees shake, but she knew Brendan gave that smile to everybody. “I meant it, Di. If you need help with anything, let us know.”

She nodded quickly and clambered out of the Jeep. As Brendan strolled across the lawn to join his brother, she took the long way around to the front doors of the school to avoid the twins and their friends.

That evening, Brendan called again and offered to carpool every day. At least, that’s what her mother told her, because Diana refused to take the call. After the way she’d seized up in the Jeep, barely able to look either twin in the eye, there was no way she’d put herself through that embarrassment again.

If it hadn’t been clear enough, high school made it obvious: her friendship with the twins was a hundred years in the past. Brendan and Ian were basketball stars, always practicing on the court or pumping iron in the gym. She found a niche in the literary magazine and stayed up late at night working her way to the top of her class.

Brendan at least called out a hello when she passed him in the halls, and she tried her best to say hi back without breaking into a sweat. Ian ignored her completely now.

It wasn’t hard to pick up on the gossip about the twins, though, and she knew that Brendan was a reasonably conscientious student, voted “Most Likely to Succeed” and busy with student government, while Ian was giving his parents one headache after another. Sophomore year, he and some other guys had been suspended for pulling a prank on their biology teacher that involved more frogs than anyone should have access to, and his mother complained he was partying every weekend and doing the bare minimum to keep his grades up in order to play basketball.

Diana snorted now, remembering all the rumors she’d heard about Ian in high school. Knowing him, every word was true: the girls, the pranks, the traffic citations, the mouthing off to teachers, the partying.

But she couldn’t help feeling warm, remembering what had happened yesterday. She’d run into Ian in the grocery store, and right there in the dairy aisle, he’dlooked her overand smirked at her. Turning beet-red, she whirled and marched off to the produce section, where she’d pretended to be choosing just the right bag of cherries until she could be sure he’d left the store.

He’d been laughing at her, no question. Leering at her checkered dress, her bobbed haircut, and her glasses while the giant bags of chips in his shopping cart rustled mockingly at her. So why were her breasts tingling, her hard nipples telling her they could still feel his eyes?

She didn’t even want to think about what she’d done in bed late that night as she pictured Ian unbuttoning her dress in front of the milk and eggs. Of all the people.

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