Page 74 of The Boys Next Door

Ian was doing it. Ruining her date — slowly, surely, and completely. Couldn’t he leave her alone? Did he consider every girl he’d fucked his property, so he couldn’t let her go have a good time with Alex in Mrs. Noriega’s minivan?

And as Ian kept talking like he planned to be there all night, piling on details Diana never would have believed if she didn’t know he was capable of it all, was she really looking pleadingly over her shoulder at Brendan, who was watching the whole conversation with a look of amused interest? When she caught his eye, he just gave her an exaggerated shrug and mouthed something that looked an awful lot like “not my job”. Then he fuckingwinked.

“You know what?” Diana shouldered her purse. “I’m just going to leave the two of you alone together and go get ice cream.”

Ian raised an eyebrow at her — she wanted to tell him to put it back down again — but Alex looked abashed.

“I’m kidding.” She put her hand on Alex’s arm. A little part of her watched the whole scene in shock. She was putting her hand on a guy’s arm like it was nothing, when three weeks ago she wouldn’t have been able to really look him in the eye. She supposed she had the twins to thank.

“So how do you guys know each other?” Alex finally asked.

“The O’Brians live next door to me,” Diana said shortly. “Ian’s like my annoying older brother. Brendan, too. See you around,” she said to Ian, firmly steering Alex towards the door.

But as they left the theatre, she looked over her shoulder. Brendan stood with an arm around his brother. While their friends laughed and talked, both twins watched her go.

*

She had to blame that look back. There was no make-out session with Alex in his mom’s minivan. Her glasses never came off. Instead, driving away from the movies, there was a passionate debate about some band she didn’t even like. Once Alex made a comment she mildly disagreed with, she began arguing harder and harder, just for the hell of it.

So much for being afraid she’d run out of things to say on a date. It wasn’t until she came up for air at a stoplight that she noticed Alex looked a little scared of her, even though he was still sneaking peeks at her breasts. A guy? Scared ofher?

The date ended with an awkward elbowy hug in front of her house — or so she thought, until Alex’s rambling postmortem via text showed up half an hour later, right before she dropped the needle on her record and climbed into her sleeping bag. Maybe Ian had been right about the leash. And that was the absolute last time she was going to think about him tonight.

As Diana’s eyelids drifted closed, the shine of the stars and the flash of fireflies kept her company. It was nice outside. Peaceful. The one thing she could count on to make sense. She could see herself spending every night out here until she left for Yale.

Deep into the night, she rolled over and stirred awake, sleepily taking in the whispering trees and the damp grass against her hand. The needle scratched the record. The air had cooled down from the humid heat of the day.

Something lay in her field of vision, a lumpy pile on the grass that hadn’t been there when she’d fallen asleep.

Curious, she crawled out of her sleeping bag, dew on the grass getting her legs wet, and knelt in front of the pile, shivering a little in the night air.

Fleece met her hands. A blanket. A Huskies blanket. She recognized it from the O’Brians’ den. Maybe it had cushioned her back when she’d lost her virginity to Ian in the treehouse. And taken Brendan right after that…

Next to the blanket was a thermos.Probably spiked,she thought wryly, but she unscrewed the lid. Steam rose to meet her. Little marshmallows bobbed on top. The smell brought back every cup of Swiss Miss she’d ever drunk.

A piece of paper lay on the blanket. She unfolded it. Three words:Can we talk?The messy, spiky handwriting didn’t leave any doubt who’d written it.

Who the hell waswe?Her and Ian? Brendan too? Could she honestly sit down and talk with either of them without wanting to jump them? Or yell at them, or both?

She pressed the blanket against her cheek, running her hand over the fuzzy fleece, and sniffed the hot chocolate again, closing her eyes at the warm scent. There was no way this could work. Brendan had told her to trust them, but right now, she didn’t trust herself.

Chapter Eight

Saturday afternoon, Diana sprawled on her bed, reading in her underwear. She’d fallen asleep wrapped in the blanket the night before, still smelling hot chocolate. But when the sun rose, she’d folded the blanket neatly, set the thermos and note on top of it, and tiptoed inside her sleeping house.

She couldn’t bring herself to go out today or see her friends.Can we talk?tugged at the inside of her head. She saw the twins’ hazel eyes on her as she left the movie theatre, felt their solid bodies surrounding her in the club, in her bed, in the treehouse, heard their whispers urging her to do everything she’d always wanted to do. She smelled smoke and beer and the twins’ male sweat, tasted Ian’s hot mouth as his lips closed over hers in front of everybody.

Voices and laughter floated through her open window from the party next door. Mr. and Mrs. O’Brian were gone for the weekend again — Diana had to wonder what they thought the twins did when their parents were out of town — and her own parents were off at a lecture somewhere.

After an especially loud shriek, Diana couldn’t help it. She wiped the sweat from her forehead, rolled off her bed, and went to the window.

A twin lay in a chair on the O’Brians’ patio, beer bottle dangling from one hand, staring out at the pool.

Girls came up to him, and he ignored them.

From this distance, Diana could tell who it was. She didn’t need chin clefts or freckles as guides anymore.

And suddenly, she knew what to do. Throwing down her book, she unhooked her black bra, wriggled out of her damp panties, and let them all drop to the floor. She took just a second to turn a full circle in front of her mirror, eyeing the new tan lines on her body that outlined the full pale globes of her breasts and pointed to the velvety patch between her legs. The sunburn was calming down, but her skin still prickled, making her very aware of every touch — the lace on her bra, the breeze from the window, her dark hair tickling her shoulders.

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