Page 1 of The Boys Next Door
Chapter One
Shouts and splashes echoed through the late May afternoon, bouncing from the neighbors’ backyard pool to Diana’s second story bedroom.
She stretched out on her unmade bed, trying to lose herself inHamletand ignore the party going on next door. Senior finals were coming up, with graduation two weeks away, and even though she was set to go to Yale in the fall, the grades still mattered.
But every time she turned a page, some girl would shriek or some guy would bellow, or another splash would tell her someone had jumped in the pool, and it just reminded her how very hot her room was and how very alone she was this weekend.
Throwing her book aside, she tugged the window open to let in some air, glaring at the O’Brians’ landscaped patio and manicured lawn. Beer bottles littered the grass, thumping bass shook her floor, and sleek wet bodies in swimsuits dove into the glistening pool.
Her eyes swept the yard for the twins. They’d be hard to miss: tall, muscled, powerfully built, moving with an easy confidence that made her sick with envy.
Her gaze stopped at a tanned male stretched out on a patio chair, beer in hand, surrounded by laughing girls.
Hard to tell from this distance whether it was Brendan or Ian. Up close, she’d know the difference right away: the cleft in Brendan’s chin, the dark freckle below Ian’s left eye, were obvious signs to anyone who knew them well.
But she hadn’t been up close to them in years, and she couldn’t say that she knew them well. Anymore.
The twin on the patio looked up from the bevy of girls, sipping his beer. Suddenly, his eyes met hers.
Shock zinged through Diana. God, she was in her underwear because it was so hot, and spying on her neighbors’ party like the social lame-o that she was, and he’d seen her! She ducked down below the window, her heart beating fast. Maybe he hadn’t seen her. Maybe he’d seen her, but he hadn’t noticed her black lace bra and the creamy cleavage spilling over the top.
Once her heart slowed down, she crawled along the floor and maneuvered back onto her bed. No way would her hand slide into her panties just because a pair of hazel eyes had turned her insides to jelly.
Tossing aside her black-rimmed glasses — oversized enough to be hip, if you embraced the hipness in being a complete nerd — she squinted at her laptop, trying to motivate herself to bang out another 500 words before she took a break.
But she couldn’t forget the eyes that had just met hers. Heat curled through her body that had nothing to do with embarrassment.
Shaking her head, she closed her laptop. How pathetic could she get? Saturday afternoon, sunshine so gorgeous it hurt, and she was alone in the house withHamletand her half-written paper for company, ignoring her friends’ texts because schoolwork came first, while her parents spent the weekend at the beach with Mr. and Mrs. O’Brian, and the twins, home from UConn for the summer, took advantage of having the house to themselves. Themselves, and thirty other people.
Diana could hear her mother’s excited voice in her head: “When you go away to Yale, the twins will practically be your neighbors again! It’ll be almost as good as having them next door. You can go cheer for them at their basketball games, and they can get you settled into campus life.”
Diana didn’t have the heart to remind her mother that their schools were an hour apart, and no one would be cheering or helping anyone get settled — except in their parents’ imaginations.
She sighed, taking a long swig of the watery iced coffee on her desk and rubbing the condensation over her face and neck. It hadn’t always been like this. Ten years ago, she’d been the one splashing in the pool with the twins or playing basketball with them in their driveway while Brendan gave her encouraging tips and Ian teased her mercilessly about her lack of skills. Growing up, they’d been in and out of each others’ houses all the time.
Two years older than she was, the twins had always looked eerily identical, with wavy brown hair, bright hazel eyes, broad dimpled grins —and wildly different personalities.
Brendan had been friendly and easygoing. Diana smiled, remembering how he’d taken the time to explain the rules of any game they were playing with total patience.
Ian, on the other hand, had pelted her relentlessly with water balloons during the hot summers, dumped ice down her shirt at family picnics, and put fake spiders in her bed when she’d slept over while her parents were out of town, the summer before third grade.
She’d quickly learned that with Ian, survival meant one thing:fight back, fight harder.If he dumped ice down her shirt, she’d dump it down his pants. Spiders in her bed? She retaliated with a caterpillar in his cereal bowl — a live one. And even though she’d been scared of Ian, she’d worshiped both the twins when she was little.
Diana kicked at her sheets restlessly, running her fingers through her sweaty dark hair and pulling it off her neck. She could pinpoint exactly when things had changed: the summer before sixth grade, when her parents had unexpectedly announced, in August, that her dad was taking a year-long teaching job in another state. Days before school started, her family had picked up and moved.
Her first day at her new school, she’d already been wound up in a ball. Right away, she caught people whispering and staring — staring at her chest. She’d blossomed over the summer, and the change was awkward, but exciting. She knew she looked older. But that summer, she’d been too busy being a kid to think about it.
Then, half an hour into the morning, her homeroom teacher told an older boy to walk Diana to the office so she could drop off a form. Instead, he took her around the back of the school to give her a “tour.”
Diana shook her head, remembering how trustingly she’d followed him past all the classrooms. She’d laughed at his jokes and shyly tried a few of her own. He was cute. He’d reminded her of the twins, just a little, and it was enough to reassure her.
That reassurance had lasted about five minutes. Right up to the point when, outside the art and band rooms, he’d tried to stick his hand down her shirt.
Shocked, flashing back on all the times Ian had teased her and she’d returned the favor twice as good, Diana gave the boy an instinctive knee to the crotch. Then she raced back to class, leaving him groaning on the ground.
Two hours later, she was called into the principal’s office. Still stunned, too embarrassed to tell the whole story to the principal or her parents, she resolved to keep her head down. The day would be over soon, right? She just needed to survive.
But she hadn’t counted on the boy talking, or what he’d say about her. By the end of the day, everyone knew what had happened with the new girl. And the rumor was that she’d started it. Wherever she turned, people were pointing, giggling, and mouthing names that made her turn red.