I Kissed The Boy Next Door (2 page)

But I shrugged. “Luck of the draw.”

His eyes said he didn’t believe me. They also said he was funning with me. “So you would have kissed Owen if they said so?”

Well, kissing
Owen wouldn’t have been so bad. O and I were good friends.

“Sure.”

“Francisco?”

I squirmed a bit. Francisco would have been harder to do. He was … pudgy, then and now.
“Listen, this is uncomfortable,” I said, “Why don’t you come out and we’ll talk proper.”

He nodded and closed the window. I walked around the side of the house,
coming to the stoop right as he exited.

“When’d you get so tall?” I asked. He was about six-foot-three.

“When’d you get so curvy?” he replied.

I made a face. “
You weren’t supposed to see that.”

He waved his hand toward an old porch swing that hung on one end. I waited until he was seated to be sure it wouldn’t cave in on us. It gave a groan, and I cast my gaze upward. He followed the motion.

“If it falls, we fall together,” he said.

I brought my eyes back to his face. “What brings your family back to town?” I asked.

His expression changed then, his eyes darkening. “Long story.”

I studied him for a minute. He was obviously unhappy about it. Why?

“I’ve got time,” I said.

He smiled half-hearted. “I always liked you,” he said, “Shame we couldn’t talk after.”

I knew what he meant – after I kissed him. I also saw he’d avoided my question. I wouldn’t push it. “Well, we
were
fourteen, and you had your reputation to protect.”

He tilted his head.
He seemed surprised by that. “My reputation? What’s your excuse?”

“Embarrassment.”
I stated it plain as day. I was so embarrassed after. Esther had said I could brag about it, yet I’d never told a soul. What girl kisses a boy on a dare?

“You shouldn’t have been embarrassed,” he said. “I wanted you to talk to me.”

This was an interesting admission. Jackson Phillips wanted to talk to me?

“Whatever for?”
I asked.

The smile returned to his face. I liked that much better.

“I thought you were pretty.”

That took the words right out of me, and I wasn’t often without something to say. I ran a hand down my ponytail to straighten it.

He stared at my fingers. “Does that bother you?”

No, I
was more surprised. Also, a tingling heat was lighting up somewhere deep inside.

“
I’m speechless,” I said.

His smile broadened. “Why do I think that’s an unusual occurrence?”

“Because it is.”

He chuckled then, and the sound rippled through me.
He had the nicest laugh.

“So you really live next door?” I said.

He shifted and the swing jiggled funny. I gripped the wooden arm, paint chips digging into my fingernails.

“
Yep,” he said. “So I guess we’ll be seeing a lot of each other.”

I narrowed my gaze.
“Yet maybe not so much.”

And throwing his head back, he began to laugh.

CHAPTER 2

Lucy McKinsey. He hadn’t thought of her much in the last three years. Yet looking out his bedroom window and seeing her in all her glory shot all those moments from summer camp back into his thinking.

If she was pretty then, she was marvelous now.

She was spunky too, and he liked that. He didn’t know her, not really, but it seemed something she would do to come over and accuse him of peeping. He wasn’t peeping, more staring, and the image he saw wouldn’t leave his mind anytime soon.

Maybe having her next door would make this
easier, give him something to look forward to besides the next awful meal, the next argument with his dad, the next reminder of why they’d moved.

His mother would have said God planned it, that God put
Lucy McKinsey next door so he’d have a reason to wake up in the morning. But then his mother was thousands of miles away, and he reckoned God didn’t make Lucy pose there with her shirt off.

Holy cow, she’d looked good.

He watched her walk to her front door, admiring the sway of her hips and her nice rear-end, then re-entered the disheveled house. Furniture sat every which way, boxes on top of boxes. He worked his way through the trail back to his bedroom.

H
is bed was the only thing properly set up. The dresser drawers were stacked on the floor. His suitcase and a dozen more boxes sat in the corner. He sighed and glanced once more toward Lucy’s room.

She waved at him from her window, then with a smirk, pulled the drapes closed. He sat down on the bed, half tempted to bury his head in his hands and cry. But then he was all cried out at this point
.

“
Should’ve gotten her cell number.” This thought stuck in his head, and he glanced back at the window.

Well,
he
could
get it. She was only right over there.

Reopening his
window, he pushed out the screen and climbed through. Then scooting across the short piece of lawn, he knocked on her window. The drapes parted and her face appeared in the slit.

She held up one finger and
disappeared. A minute later, the window opened.

“Didn’t I just leave you over there?” she asked.

Her hair was down. Strawberry-blonde strands framed her face.

Now,
he
was speechless.

She placed a hand on her hip. “Well?”

He coughed. “Yes, you did, but I was thinking we should exchange numbers.”

She brushed her hair from her face. He drank in the slim line of her throat and the upward push of her breasts.

“Up here,” she said, motioning upward.

He grinned crookedly and moved his gaze to her face. “I did say you were curvy.”

“You did, and I am. Thanks for noticing.” She reached behind her and produced her phone from the corner of her bed. She handed it to him. “Put your number in there, and I’ll send you a text.”

He did as he was told and handed her phone back to her. His rang a moment later. He saved her number to his contacts.

“Now,” she said, “as if seeing me next door isn’t enough, you can text me too. But how about you wait ten minutes so I can finally get my bath.”

At the mention of “bath” and the thought of her in it, his mind took a swerve.
She solved this by pulling the window closed and the drapes shut.

Awakened from his mini-daydream, he returned to his bedroom, but left the screen outside on the ground.
The task before him stared back at him again. Unpack. Unfold. But doing that meant admitting he was here, admitting his family had fallen apart, and he wasn’t ready to admit that yet.

He lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling. Three years ago life had been great. His mom and dad sent him to summer camp where he’d whiled away the hours playing basketball, canoeing,
swimming, sitting around the camp fire, and wondering why a very pretty girl kissed him. However, the bubble burst when he came home.

“We’re moving to Texas,” his dad had announced.

Texas. Dry. Hot. Dusty. He hadn’t found anything he liked about Texas, and he didn’t fit in there from day one. It was just as well because the only purpose of going there seemed to be for his parents’ marriage to crumble.

N
ow what? Now, he was here with dumb ol’ dad because Mom didn’t have her life together yet.

“I can barely support myself,” she’d said, “much less you and your sister. Go with your father. Your old friends are there, and the town you remember. Play basketball and enjoy your senior year. Maybe by the time you graduate, I’ll be better situated.”

Yeah right. And maybe by then she won’t want him any more than she does now.

He picked up his cell pho
ne and typed in a text. He attached Lucy’s number to it.
U good at unpacking?

His phone lit a minute later.
Need me 2 do your dirty work?

Unashamed he sent his reply.
Yes.

A thump at the window brought him up from the bed. He stared into her face
through the glass. Her hair was damp and stuck to her cheeks, and her face was flushed. He pushed up the sash. She extended her hand through the opening, and taking hold, he hauled her inside.

“I can see we’re going to make a habit of this,” she said.
She scanned the boxes in the corner. “You have any idea what’s in what box?”

He shook his head. “No, my sister packed it all.”

She leveled her gaze at him. “Your
little
sister? Isn’t she here?” Her look said and-she-could-do-this.

“My
‘little sister’ is fifteen,” he replied, “and no, she’s staying with our aunt for the summer. She wanted to help with the move, but I told her not to bother. So it’s just me and dad.”

“
Dad? Where’s your mom?” She turned her back to him and yanking the tape from the flaps of the top box, pulled it open. She then eyed the dresser drawers.

“Texas. They’re divorced.”

She stopped in place. “Oh. I’m sorry. I …”

He waved his hand. “Forget it. You didn’t know.”
And you would have found out anyhow.
He held the thought in.

“Well,” she said, “I won’t ask, but you know, it’ll be a long summer if you think on it too much.”

Leaning back on the headboard of his bed, he folded his hands behind his head. “How about you take my mind off of it?”

She pursed her lips and crossed her arms over her chest, an action which thrust her breasts higher, a not too unpleasing effect.

“How exactly am I to do that?”

“Well, what were your plans for the summer?”

She apparently noticed the direction of his gaze because she lowered her arms. “I’m not sure I had any plans past the usual – sleep in, watch TV, maybe go swimming.”

“Aw, c’mon,” he said, “Boys aren’t knocking down your door? You don’t have three dates lined up already?”

He found it hard to believe she didn’t. Were the guys in this town blind?

She placed one hand on the bedpost, seem
ing to pause and think because her brow wrinkled and her eyebrows drew together. “No one’s knocking down my door. But there
was
a boy who I caught watching me from his window.”

He grinned. “Oh?
And what did you think of that?”

“I thought he looked familiar, yet he didn’
t,” she said.

Jackson
traced the curve of her waist with his eyes. “What wasn’t familiar about him?”

“He’s older, more serious,
and super tall.”

His pulse th
robbed steady in his fingertips. “And what
was
familiar?”

She approached him, and he gazed up at her.
“He has beautiful eyes and great lips.”

At that,
Jackson peeled himself from the bed, standing so close the heat from her still damp skin kissed his. “Why do I think this will be the best summer ever?” he asked. “At least, the best since a pretty girl kissed me.”

She licked her lips, and he followed the flick of her tongue.

“And why,” she began, “do I feel like I’m going to really like the boy next door?”

CHAPTER 3

When
Jackson sent his third text and received no response, he rechecked the time. What was she doing? Pocketing his phone, he climbed out the window and crossed the lawn, the dewy grass moistening his feet.

He stopped at the base of her window.
Her drapes were drawn. Maybe she wasn’t in her room. She could be somewhere else. But if that was the case, why was she ignoring his texts?

He gave a peremptory knock on the glass and
after a few minutes, the drapes quivered and the window slid up.

Lucy
covered a yawn with her hand.

“You’re sleeping?” he asked.
She’d definitely been sleeping. Her hair was mussed and a red mark trailed down her left cheek.

She blinked
through sleep-thickened lashes. “Yes, I was.”

“But it’s nine o’clock.”

Nine o’clock, and he’d been up since six. He’d waited until eight to text her.

She stared at him,
her mind evidently befuddled, then a sudden light came to her pupils. “Didn’t I say my summer plans involved sleeping in?”

“Yes,” he said. “B
ut I’m bored.”

“Bored.”
Repeating the word, she gathered her hair in her right hand and lifted it off her neck. The edge of her pajama top rose in his view.