Two girls, cheerleaders, spin around from the table in front of us. They flash toothpaste-commercial-quality smiles and toss their curled hair over their shoulders like they share a brain.

“Hi, Jensen,” the brunette says. “I’m Claire Fahnlander, and this is Harper Griffin.”

Jensen offers an off-center smile, one that makes him look drunk and cocky all at the same time. I’m rolling my eyes—on the inside, of course.

“We’re glad to have you, Jensen. You can partner up with Waverly today. Her usual lab partner is out sick. Okay, safety kits out.” Mrs. Davenport turns to the white board, writing today’s lesson plan on the board as we retrieve our goggles and lab coats.

Claire and Harper giggle and snap selfies behind Mrs. Davenport’s back, making goofy faces through their goggles and flashing peace signs with fish-lipped pouts. Jensen watches them. Errant heat sears through my belly, tingling and evaporating as a tiny part of me hates that they’re earning his attention.

“Do you have an extra beaker we can borrow?” Claire says to Jensen, batting her lashes. She sticks a finger in her mouth and bites the tip of her long, pink nail as she winks. Harper giggles.

“Probably shouldn’t put your finger in your mouth,” Jensen says, avoiding her gaze. “You’re in a chem lab.”

Claire blushes and spins around. Harper is still giggling, leaning her head on Claire’s narrow shoulder. I have to give Jensen credit for not falling for that like every other guy in school does. She’s eager to make him hers before anyone else has a chance to. Claire is the alpha female of a catty group of senior girls who rule the school with iron-clad, manicured fists.

They infuriate me, especially when I’m the target of their mean-girl giggles, but I never let it show. It’s not worth it. In just a few short months, I’ll be trekking all over a college campus, my English lit books in hand, with a group of collegiate peers with more important things to discuss besides who’s dating whom.

The period ends before we know it. I don’t remember much of it. Jensen did most of the work, which is unlike me, but my thoughts were jumbled all morning. I chalk it up to being thrown off my routine that morning and promise to do better the next day.

“You need me to show you your locker?” I ask as we file out of the classroom.

“Nah, just point me there. I can find it.” His independence very well might be his only redeemable quality.

“South hall. Red lockers.”

He pats me on the back like I’m an old pal and gives a quick nod before disappearing into a sea of students without so much as a “see you later.” I wouldn’t say I miss him, but his sudden absence is noticeable.

“Hey, Waverly.” I spin around to see Cade Corbin, the guy who’s been relentlessly pursuing me since middle school. His perennial tan, cleft chin, and deep blue eyes always seem to work in tandem to try and melt my resolve, but I’ve stayed strong. “What are you doing this weekend?”

“Cade.” I fight a grin and shake my head as we trudge ahead. Every week he asks me this. He knows I’m not allowed to have a boyfriend. He knows I can’t date. He refuses to give up. I’m quite positive he only wants me because he can’t have me. “Who’s that guy you walked in with this morning?”

“A family friend.”

Cade slips his arm around my shoulders as he walks me to History. He’s tall and lanky, star of our cross-country team. The space around him is scented with clean shampoo and fabric softener, and there’s a hint of peppermint on his breath as he talks.

“Family friend,” he repeats, drawing out each syllable as his eyes crinkle.

I resist the urge to apologize or explain. I’m not dating Cade, and Jensen is… Jensen.

We stop outside my classroom and Cade brushes my arm as he tells me goodbye. He’s sweet, and I’m sure if my family met him, they’d love him. It’d be nice to be able to date. To be kissed. To experience the highs and lows of teenage love like the rest of my classmates.

I think about dating all the time. Sometimes, in my daydreams, I’m someone else. I’m not AUB. I’m a “normal” teenage girl. I date and drive fast and break into liquor cabinets and stay out late and flirt and attend parties. It’s my super-secret second life, lived out only in my fantasies.

And as much as Jensen grates on my nerves, and despite the fact that he’s part of the family, I thought about him last night. I fell asleep imagining the way his lips would feel against mine, and the way his body could pin me against the bed and make me his in all sorts of ways. I pulled out the old Harlequin novel stashed between my mattress and box springs and flipped to page one-seventy-six, reading the steamiest scene in the book and pretending it was us.

I shake my head and snap out of it, take my seat in the front row, and flip my notebook open. I can’t think about him. And it’s all kinds of wrong. He’s my brother now, and that will never change. Our parents are eternally sealed to one another.

CHAPTER 5

JENSEN

“You can drop me off at A1 Auto Repair.” I climb into Waverly’s car after school gets out. She’s been waiting a good twenty minutes, and she’s clearly pissed. I can’t help that I got cornered on my way out by a whole gaggle of junior girls trying to flirt with me. They couldn’t flirt their way out of a paper bag, but that’s neither here nor there. “You know where that is?”

“For future reference, my schedule will not revolve around your social life.” Her eyes dart to the clock on her dash before she slams her car into drive. I haven’t had a chance to buckle up. “Where were you the last block? I thought we had AP English together?”

“I swapped English out for another art class.” I roll down the window. It might be April and sixty degrees outside, but her car is a fucking sauna. What is it with girls claiming they’re freezing all the time?

“Don’t you need English to graduate?” Her words are fast and choppy, as if she is personally offended I dropped that class. That or she’s still mega-pissed about having to wait on me.

“Nope.” I take in a sharp breath of heated air that glazes my lungs with a soup-like coating. “Just needed chemistry. Everything else is elective. Plus, I took AP English last year.”

She snaps her gaze toward me and then returns to the road. I know what people see when they look at me. My outside and insides contrast. I throw people for a loop. I’m smart, and I’m a smartass. It works for me.

“Oh,” she says. She squints into the afternoon sun, then snaps the visor down and grips the steering wheel.

“You okay? You seem kind of…”

I don’t know what she seems like. I’ve known her for all of a couple of days. All I know is she walks around with a holier-than-though attitude, and when she’s not busy prancing around as Mark Miller’s golden child, she’s huffing and sighing and keeping her opinions to herself like she’s forbidden to speak them.

“It’s not good to keep things in.” I stretch my arm across her small car, hooking it behind the driver’s seat.

“I’m not keeping anything in. I’m dealing with everything in my own way. Thank you for your concern.”

It sounds like a canned response, and I don’t buy it. “You’re an angry girl.”

More like sexually frustrated.

“How would you know?” She spits her words with a wrinkled nose.

“Told you earlier. I’m smarter than everybody else.”

“Hate to break it to you, Jensen, but you’re not.”

“Ouch.” I clap my hand across my chest as if she’s just aimed and shot at me. “I doubt you’ll be calling me stupid when I’m tutoring you for your calculus final.”

“How do you know I’m taking calc?”

“I know everything about everything, kid. Tried to warn you. I’m all-knowing and all-powerful. Omnipotent. O-m-n-i-p—”

She jabs an elbow into my side and retrieves it just as quickly, which tells me she’s not a girl used to being physical with anybody. This girl has a shit ton of pent up anger and frustration. If she needs to take it out on me, I’ll gladly be her human punching bag. I don’t mind when it’s going toward a good cause.