Page 28 of Things We Left Behind

Sloane brought a hand to her face, then sat there in stillness.

She moved suddenly, done with her own stillness. I watched captivated as she carefully worked her way to her feet before jumping clear of her snowy creation.

Hands on hips, she stared down at it and nodded. Then she looked up. Not at the sky, this time, but directly at me.

My desk light was off. There was no way she could see me in the window, I told myself as I pulled my hand away from the glass. Still, I stood in the shadows and watched her stare up at my window.

After an agonizing minute, she looked away and slowly made her way back to the house.

It wasn’t until she’d disappeared from view and the lights in her bedroom finally went out that I realized something.

She’d been wearing my coat.

5

Hot Guy in My Bedroom

Sloane

Twenty-­three years ago

Ishould have been finishing my trigonometry homework or at least showering after softball practice. But to be fair, I hated math, and I didn’t allow myself to shower until I’d finished my homework. So really my only option was to take a book break.

There was a tiny possibility that my frustrations might have been motivated by the fact that I was exactly one chapter away from thereallygood stuff in my pilfered copy of Kathleen E. Woodiwiss’sShanna.

It was my third reread of Mom’s tattered paperback, and I was besotted with the mercurial Ruark Beauchamp. Even though his—­and Shanna’s—­behavior would totally have been problematic in real life, I still liked the underlying idea that a secret torrid affair could somehow provide a safe space where you could be yourself.

I climbed onto the window seat cushion and built a mound of pillows behind me. A whiff of armpit caught me. I winced and shoved the middle window open to let in the fresh springair. My team was on track to make the district playoffs this year, and the coaches pushed us harder every practice. I wanted it. It was all part of Sloane’s Awesome Life Plan, which I was fully dedicated to. But right now, all I wanted to do was lose myself in a sexy Caribbean love story. In seconds, concerns about my dried sweat and lame homework disappeared, and I was transported into the book.

I was midway through the good stuff when my attention was ripped from the page by our next-­door neighbor Mr. Rollins reversing his pickup truck out of the driveway much too fast. He shifted gears, and the truck launched forward, spinning the tires as it accelerated out of view.

My stomach knotted. Things hadn’t been good next door since Mr. Rollins had lost his job a year ago. Dad said he’d been some kind of foreman at the chemical plant a few towns over. But the plant had closed. After that, Mr. Rollins stopped mowing the lawn. He didn’t grill burgers anymore either. Sometimes, if my bedroom window was open to the spring breeze, I could hear him yelling late at night.

My dad never yelled. Hesighed.

He didn’t get mad at me and Maeve. He gotdisappointed.

I wondered what Lucian did when his dad yelled.

A tiny thrill rolled through me just thinking abouthim.

Lucian Rollins was a junior and starting quarterback on the varsity football team. I liked to think the serious, dark-­haired boy who took out the trash shirtless was the reason for my teenage sexual awakening. I’d gone from thinking boys were gross—­which, at twelve and thirteen, was absolutely accurate—­to wondering what it would be like to be kissed by the bad boy next door.

Lucian was gorgeous, athletic, and popular.

I, on the other hand, was a four-­eyed, busty, almost sixteen-­year-­old who would rather spend a Friday night curled up with a good book than drink warm beer by a bonfire in the field known as Third Base. I wasnotin his league. That league was occupied by cheerleaders and class presidents andbeautiful teens who somehow escaped the desperate lack of self-­confidence that had been bestowed on the rest of us.

I excelled at a not-­sexy sport and had spent last week in detention thanks to my “strong objections” to dress code enforcement when my friend Sherry Salama Fiasco had gotten detention over a skirt that was one inch too short.

“Instead of policing the fashion choices of girls, why don’t you put that energy into teaching boys how to control themselves?”I’d argued. Loudly. I’d even earned some enthusiastic applause and a nod of approval from one of the senior cheerleaders in my study hall.

I didn’t hate the street cred. And my parents had refused to ground me for standing up for what was right.

I heard a creak and a slam next door. My book fell off my lap as I craned my neck for a better look.

My favorite thing about my room—­besides the fact that it had its own bathroom, library-­worthy bookshelves, and an awesome window seat for reading—­was the view. From my window seat, I could see the entire side of Lucian’s house, including hisbedroom window.

There he was.