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Chapter 1
GQ-Cub Scout
It was one summer. One. And somehow, Neil Summers had gone from Cub Scout to looking like he could’ve just stepped off a GQ shoot. If GQ was now featuring conservative, buttoned-up shirt, khaki wearing wholesome boys.
I couldn’t stop staring at him. Though I did hide it from behind the veil of my long, dark hair. No way was I going to let someone catch me gawking at him. Me, gawking at Neil Summers.
What a joke.
But there it was. Because I was actually gawking at him, wasn’t I?
It was just that something about him had definitely changed. And no, I wasn’t talking about the way he now filled in those khaki pants and that short-sleeved shirt, though that definitely,definitelyhelped. It was something else. Something I couldn’t put my finger on, and something that still had my eyes glued to him from across campus.
Was it his hair?It did look longer, cut and styled in a way I hadn’t seen on him before. Or maybe it was his smile. Less timid and more… confident? Sure of himself? Absolutely.
Still, that wasn’t it.
I sighed and redirected my attention to my group of friends huddled around me, sure I’d gotten away with my past few minutes of slipped judgment until my eyes landed on Sydney’s. Her lips were curled in that evil, smirking way of hers.
I one-upped her smirk with one of my own and raised an eyebrow, challenging her to say something. Sydney was my best friend. The kind of friend that drove me nuts, and I wanted to slap constantly, but I still couldn’t help but love.
She quickly backed down, hands thrown up in the air as if she was brushing it off and didn’t care, but I noted the curiosity in her eyes when they strayed back to Neil without her realizing it.
Something simmered inside me at that second look of hers. Something I shoved back down and refused to acknowledge.
This was Neil we were talking about.Neil.A place where proprietary feelings did not belong.
And besides, he wasn’t my type. Not even close.
I liked the dark, withdrawn, artsy emo boys who bled their feelings into art or music or whatever their jam was. The eyeliner-wearing, unstable, split-personality, asshole types who also happened to sometimes cry in bed after hooking up with you.
I wasn’t even sure Neil owned a single black piece of clothing.
And if I remembered correctly, he actually used tobea Cub Scout. Like, legit, selling multi-flavored popcorn in front of the local grocery store with his mother, kind of Cub Scout.
And then there was the whole Jesus thing, of course.
So, no. He was not my type. Not at all. But looking at him now, he was definitely doing things for me. His features had sharpened out, his arms looked thicker, and his entire appearance as a whole just seemed so… effortless. These were not regular descriptors I would’ve used to describe him, but there they were, lounging across the square from me, taunting and confusing and out of place.
He threw his head back, laughing at something one of his friends had just said as he thrust his face into the sun, andwhat in the ever-loving hell was happening to my heart?
It didn’t make sense. I’d known Neil for thirteen years and not once had a sexual thought about him. But right now? I felt the need to break something. To breakhim. I was ashamed to admit that, even to myself, because here was the thing about Neil:
He was a preacher’s son.
A good, wholesome, happy, law-abiding kind of citizen. And I, on the other hand, could’ve been described as the complete opposite. I didn’t follow a single rule if I could help it, I didn’t believe in God, and my mother would’ve been thrown out of church the second she walked in it… if she didn’t disintegrate into a pile of steaming ash first.
Not that I didn’t love the woman, or her crazy.
But Neil and me? We were polar opposites.
He was right side up, and I was upside down, and I didn’t want to live with two feet on the ground. I was happy in my chaos, and he was the straightest arrow I’d ever seen.
But it hadn’t always been that way, had it?
No. It hadn’t. Because at one point in time, we had actually been pretty close. (Shocker, I know. But I was full of surprises.)
“Shut up, Neil, or I’ll make you marry me,” an eight-year-old Olivia—me—said.