Free The Boys Next Door by Jennifer Echols Page A

high chain-link fence. “Interested, but not manic.”
    “How do I do that? I don’t know how to do that!”
    “Go hug him hello.”
    Just then a breeze kissed the back of my neck under my ponytail, reminding me how hot the night was, and how heavily I’d exerted myself chasing Tammy’s serves. “I’m sweaty.”
    “If he likes you, he won’t mind.” She led the way through the gate and headed for McGillicuddy’s side of the truck to distract him for me.
    As I walked toward Sean’s side, Sean opened the door and started to get out. I had to walk all the way around the big, heavy door to hug— “Adam!”
    He looked down at me, arms open wide for me because I’d been holding mine out. He dropped his arms when he saw the look on my face. “Nice to see you, too,” he said grumpily.
    I patted him lightly on one cheek—the cheek opposite the one with the blue bruise under his eye. The pats got harder until I was pretty much slapping him. “Why can’t you be Sean? Oh, God.” I knew almost before I’d gotten the words out that Adam didn’t deserve that. I stood on my tiptoes and slid my arms around him. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean it.”
    He didn’t say anything. But he did put his arms around my waist.
    I looked up at him. “It’s just…. Why are you driving Sean’s truck?”
    “It’s my truck.”
    Sean must have gotten a new truck for graduation, just like Cameron. And now Adam was driving the pink truck, because—crap. “Oh, Adam, I forgot your sixteenth birthday!”
    “I know.”
    Those two words told me he’d already thought everything I was thinking. Our birthdays were three weeks apart. We’d had a few birthday parties together when we were little. How could I have forgotten his freaking birthday? “I was preoccupied with finals,” I gasped, “and summer coming up, and—”
    “Sean. I know.”
    “Oh, I’m so sorry,” I said sincerely. I hugged him as hard as I could, then started to pull back.
    His hands didn’t leave my waist. “I’m still kind of mad,” he said.
    Laughing, I tightened my hold on him. I felt him bend down and put his chin on my shoulder.
    On the other side of the truck, talking with McGillicuddy, Tammy raised one eyebrow at me.
    That’s when I had an Idea.
    I ran my hand down Adam’s side until I found his hand. “Let’s talk privately.”
    He looked down at his hand in mine like he couldn’t quite believe this was happening. I couldn’t either. “Okay,” he told our hands.
    I called across the hood of the truck, “Adam and I will be right back. We’re going to talk privately.”
    Tammy and McGillicuddy stared at us, then each other, then us again. Finally I pulled Adam away, swinging his hand like holding hands with him wasn’t the weirdest thing ever. We walked down the sidewalk, around the corner of the fence to the side of the tennis courts that faced the road. The very edge of the pool of light from the tennis courts touched us, so we could be seen from the road: very important to the plan.
    I backed him against the fence. I didn’t shove him or anything, but I’m sure he felt trapped against the chain links because I stood so close to him, and the determined expression on my face was so frightening.
    I squeezed his hand. “I still think Sean and Rachel’s little fling is fake. Sean’s trying to get revenge on you, and Rachel’s trying to make you jealous. She wants to heat up your romance for the summer. In two weeks, by the Crappy Festival, it’ll be over with Sean, and things will be back to normal.” And Sean would be free again. “But you need to up the stakes to keep her interested. To make sure she comes back and never leaves you. To teach her a lesson.”
    Adam breathed faster. His blue eyes widened as it dawned on him what I was going to suggest. In fact, he looked close to panic. I almost backed down. I’d be pretty embarrassed if he ran screaming away and hitchhiked with someone on the road just to escape from me. But I