The Boys Next Door (The Boys Next Door 1)

I popped into the air, gasping. Sean put his arms around me again and held my head above the water so I could breathe. The thought crossed my mind of rejecting a boy’s help and resisting the damsel-in-distress role, but really it was a little thought that had no effect on letting Sean help me breathe. The more I breathed, the harder my head throbbed, so I also had a little thought that MTV would never invite me to dance on stage during one of their Spring Break specials now that I looked like the Elephant Man.

And a little thought that I had been wrong about Sean. Mom had sent me a sign. She’d sent Sean to save my life. Maybe he was worth a faked injury, after all.

Of course, there was also McGillicuddy down at my feet, and the fact that the motorboat had been only twenty yards away from me when I went down, so maybe it wasn’t Mom’s doing. God, my head hurt like a mother.

McGillicuddy got me loose from the wakeboard. Sean held me up to Cameron in the boat, who grabbed me under the arms and lifted me in. Immediately Sean climbed the ladder and came to me. He pulled me out of the life vest, then eased me down and cradled my head in his lap.

Just like in my dream, he looked down at me with eyes lighter than the deep blue sky behind him. The sunlight turned his hair and shoulders and broad chest gold as he pressed both hands to my head.

Unlike in my dream, he dripped water and tears on my face, stinging my eyes. The blood didn’t help either. Oozing from under Sean’s hand, it crawled like mosquitoes on my skin. I felt pretty.

“Calm down,” McGillicuddy said. “Calm down. For God’s sake, would you calm down?”

“I’m fine,” I said between heaving coughs. “At least I can move my toes, so I won’t have to ride the short bus.”

“I meant Adam.”

I stared past the pain in my head, upward at Adam’s chin. Adam held me, not Sean. I hadn’t recognized him upside down, without the skull and crossbones.

“Sean,” Cameron called. “We’ve got her. Let’s go.”

The engine started, and the boat lurched into high speed. Down in Adam’s lap, below the sides of the boat, the motor sounded muffled, more a buzz than a roar. Without Nickelback blaring, for once.

“Let me see,” McGillicuddy said, bending next to Adam.

I cringed and closed my eyes and tried to go to a different place, away from the pain, as they fumbled on my forehead. Poked at my forehead. I came back from that different place and said, “DON’T TOUCH IT.”

“It’s going to need stitches,” McGillicuddy said. “They might have to shave your hair a little. But if they do, I’ll shave mine too. So will Adam. Right, Adam?”

“It’s a wonder you weren’t killed,” Adam cried. “It’s a wonder you didn’t at least put your eye out.”

McGillicuddy said, “Adam, would you calm down?”

I squeezed my eyes more tightly shut.

“I can’t believe you actually did it,” Adam said. “I can’t believe you’re that stupid.”

“I didn’t,” I mouthed. That’s all I could do. Sean and Adam had been my whole life for the last couple of weeks, but it was surprising how little I cared about them when I suddenly had a throbbing headache the size of the lake. Even if I’d wanted to, I didn’t have the strength to fight. Adam wouldn’t have believed me, anyway.

At first, all five Vaders plus McGillicuddy crowded into the emergency room with me. The nurses kicked everyone out except Mrs. Vader. They must have mistaken her for someone motherly and soothing. She barked at people and insisted on seeing their credentials before she’d let them touch me. Then Cameron came back and said Adam had taken a swing at Sean and gotten them all kicked out of the waiting room. So Mrs. Vader herded them all home where they could beat the hell out of each other in peace. She sent McGillicuddy in to sit with me.

I didn’t have a concussion, and they didn’t shave my head or anything traumatic like that. After the first prick of anesthetic, my head didn’t even hurt much. Which was a good thing, because McGillicuddy went to buy himself some Pop-Tarts out of the snack machine. I lay there by myself on the hospital bed and stared at the water-stained ceiling while the doc stitched me up, scolded me, and left to find me some pain pills for when the anesthetic wore off. I felt very sorry for myself and very alone until Dad showed up, with Frances.

Dad grasped my hand in both of his. “Lori. Oh, my Lori.” He started to cry softly.

“Dad, I’m okay.” I patted his arm: there there.

“Trevor,” said Frances. Her hand was on Dad’s back. “Deep breaths.”

Dad sniffed a deep breath through his nose while Frances held his gaze and moved her hands in circles in the air in front of her, encouraging him to breathe therapeutically. The way they were acting, people at the hospital who didn’t know them might mistake them for a couple. A very odd couple, with Frances in her tie-dyed hippie costume and Dad in his lawyer costume from the office.

“Here,” I said, easing off the bed. “Lie down, Dad.”

He switched places with me, never loosening his grip on my hand. “I don’t want you to be scared because of this.”

“She won’t,” Frances said.

“I won’t,” I said.

“I want you out there wakeboarding again tomorrow,” he sobbed.

“I can’t, Dad. The doc said I’m not supposed to go swimming until my stitches come out in a few days.”

“Then I want you wakeboarding the day they come out. And do exactly what you were doing when you got hurt.”

I thought about this. “It would be difficult to replicate.”

“Do you understand me?” he said, still crying.

“Shhh,” Frances said, patting his shoulder.

“Yeah, Dad,” I said, looking toward McGillicuddy in the doorway. He munched his Pop-Tart. I twirled my finger beside my ear: crazy. McGillicuddy nodded. At least I wasn’t the only sane person around here.

A nurse brought me some pills, which I took gladly because I didn’t want my brain to hurt like that again, ever. They weren’t supposed to be strong enough to put me to sleep, but they did. Or it was the medicine combined with the adrenaline draining away. The fatigue from nearly drowning, touching bryozoa, being sobbed over by a couple of he-men, etc. I’d had such a busy day.

All I knew for sure was that I stretched out on the backseat of Dad’s car and slept on the way home. When we got there, I wasn’t moving. They prodded me, but I could not see myself climbing the stairs to my room. I did not see why they couldn’t let me sleep in the car parked in the garage. The backseat felt delicious.

McGillicuddy carried me up the stairs, and Dad tucked me into bed. Ahhhhhhh, bed had never been such a relief. Dad and McGillicuddy spoke softly in the doorway.

Dad: “She didn’t even wake up. You be sure and come get her if there’s a fire.”

McGillicuddy: “A fire. Right, Dad.”

I laughed myself back to sleep. A fire. Really! In the last twenty-four hours, I’d been through everything bad I could imagine. What else could possibly happen?

17

“Lori, when we’re old enough, I want you to be my girlfriend.” Sean kissed me. With his mouth still on my mouth, he pulled me off the bow seat and down into the floorboard of the boat, out of the wind.

I broke the kiss to say, “I guess this means we’re old enou—”

He cut me off by kissing me. His tongue circled deep inside my mouth, and I opened for more. When I got bored with this (the idea of getting bored with making out still caused me to laugh, ho ho), I lifted my chin so he could kiss my neck. Then I turned my head so he could kiss my ear. Wow, this was the best dream ever, and so long! Suddenly anxious, I peered into the back of the boat to see whether the other boys were watching us. The boat was empty.

“Who’s driving?” I gasped.

“You are,” Sean said.

“Oh.” This made me a little nervous, but not nervous enough to wake up or anything. I turned my head so he could kiss my other ear.

“Listen,” he breathed. “What’s that?”

“The boat motor,” I murmured without thinking. “And Nickelback.”

He propped himself up on his forearms and cocked his head to hear better. “Actually, I think it’s JoJo.” The skull and crossbones dangled above my eyes.

“Adam!” I cried, sitting bolt upright in my bed. I peered over at the clock blaring “Too Little, Too Late.” No wonder the dream had lasted so long! My alarm had gone off, but I’d slept right through fifteen minutes of radio. The photo of my mother lay flat on the bedside table. McGillicuddy must have knocked it over by accident last night when he put me in bed.

“Stupid subconscious!” I slapped myself in the back of the head. “Ow!” The shock of the slap rippled through my brain and into the gash on my forehead. I cupped my hand over the stitches.

A soft knock sounded at the door. McGillicuddy leaned in without waiting for an answer. He glanced at the clock, then at me. “Breakfast is being served to the psych ward in the dining hall. You want me to send up an orderly to help you get out of bed?”

I stuck out my tongue at him. I didn’t mind psych ward jokes from McGillicuddy. He was the only one who understood. Except—

“Adam came to see you.”

I took in a sharp breath. “When?”

“Last night, and again this morning.”

“Why didn’t you wake me up?” I wailed.

“Because any other time in the history of your life, you would have snuck in my room and rearranged my sock drawer in revenge for waking you up. You know I need the argyles in the front.”

“Well, what’d he say?”

McGillicuddy gathered a year’s worth of wakeboarding mags and his copy of The Right Stuff and stacked them neatly on the floor so he could sit on the edge of my bed. “Last night he was just checking on you. This morning he came over to say he’s taking the day off work. But he wanted you to know, he’s through.”

“He’s through? With what?” With Sean? Fighting with Sean?

“With you.”

Of course he was through with me. He’d told me as much while I bled in his lap yesterday. As long as I heard it with my own ears, I could hope I’d misread the whole situation. Hearing it from McGillicuddy made it real. Almost. “Are you making this up?”

“No. He’s really mad at you. I’ve never seen him this mad. Not even at Sean.” McGillicuddy thumbed through The Right Stuff to make sure I hadn’t gotten marshmallow on it. “But I want you to know some good will come out of your crash. It’s inspired me to do something I’ve wanted to do for a long time.”

“Remove your own appendix?”

“Ask Tammy out.”

My head hurt. “Tammy? Why?”

“I think she’s been coming to the Vaders’ parties to see me. I know, I know, this seems as impossible to me as it does to you, but I really think she likes me.”

I grunted a little with the increasing pain in my head. I didn’t want to tell him this, but it might save him some humiliation later. “McGillicuddy, you’re wrong. She’s been coming to the Vaders’ parties to see me. We’re friends.”

He squinted at me. “Why do you think so?”

“She told me so.”

“Couldn’t it be one of those schemes, like you and Adam are pulling on Sean? She’s pretending to be your friend so she can see me without admitting that’s why she’s at the party.”

“Tammy wouldn’t do that to me,” I said. My pulse began to race, and my head throbbed harder with every heartbeat. “What do you mean, one of those schemes like Adam and I are pulling on Sean?”

“I figure if you can brain yourself on a pontoon boat just to get a boy to ask you out, I can ask a girl out and brave a little rejection.”

Now I winced against the throbbing in my head. “Adam told you I crashed just to get Sean to ask me out?”

“Yeah. He told me you’ve faked going out from the beginning. He’s really mad about you crashing.” McGillicuddy leaned across the bed and nabbed his copy of The Hunt for Red October, which I’d been telling him since last summer I did not borrow, when in actuality I had lost it under some (clean!) laundry and didn’t come across it until last week. “Adam and Sean have always fought,” McGillicuddy said, tucking the book under his arm for safekeeping. “But you’ve made it a million times worse. Can you imagine the five of us wakeboarding together for the rest of the summer?”

“No,” I admitted. It sounded about as fun as getting a tooth pulled every afternoon. “But I didn’t start this in the first place. Sean did. Sean stole Rachel from Adam.”

“Adam never liked Rachel anyway,” McGillicuddy said. “He was madder about the insult than the girl. He was in love with you. If it hadn’t been for you wanting to fool Sean, Adam would have simmered down eventually and let Sean have Rachel. We’d be back to normal by now.”

“Reverse, please,” I said. “Adam was in love with—”

“You. Where did I go wrong? I raised a little brother, not a femme fatale.”

I didn’t quite get it. Could Adam have been telling me the truth about his plot? It seemed too good to be true, and too awful if I had screwed this up. “Did Adam say he’s in love with me?”

“Was in love with you. Yes, that’s what he said. How the hell else would I know? I wish I didn’t. This place is getting to be like that awful girls’ reality show, what’s it called? The chicks in my dorm call dibs on the TV in the rec center and won’t let us watch basketball.”