“Thank you all so much for offering. We really appreciate it and look forward to seeing you all again.”

“Absolutely, we’ll do a barbecue or something soon. You boys come on over anytime. We have a pool that’s nice for when it starts gettin’ too hot.”

I watched Kyle’s head turn to Billy, his face a silent threat. Twisting to look at Billy, I saw his eyes gleaming. Apparently it didn’t take knowing my middle brother to know what he was picturing in his dirty mind.

Ace fell in the middle of her siblings as they headed toward the door. Muriel took up the rear as they filed outside.

“It was lovely meeting y’all,” she said, producing another large smile as she turned to face us again.

“You too. Thanks again for stopping by,” my mom said, smiling in return.

That was my first interaction with the Bosse girls, and one of the last. My brothers and I never took them up on going over there, but living next door I saw them frequently, constantly connected to one another like Legos, interchanging different blond heads. Occasionally I encountered them, at the bus stop, or through the halls at school over the years, but I never made any effort to return their smiles or friendly greetings.

Billy loved to tease me about Kendall since we had quickly discovered she was the same age as me, but my attention never stayed with her long. She was attractive, but her correction to my mom about David’s name was not the only the time I saw her bossy attitude. I encountered it a million times more over the following year when we had several classes together. She wasn’t just assertive; she was a perfectionist. Annoyingly so, and she had a swarm of boys chasing her from the first day of school. I had no interest in competing with any of them, especially when my experience with girls up to that point had been nonexistent.

Hank and Billy were both disappointed to learn that Kyle was family by association because he was dating Mindi. Both of them had thought she was hot, and therefore hated Kyle instantly. We saw her the least. She moved out the following year with Kyle.

Savannah was the next in line, and for a while I think Billy was pretty interested in her, but he never pursed it and she never needed to seek attention. She left for Chapman University the year after we moved in and became a shadow, returning and spending her time following along with her sisters.

Hank decided to forgo returning to Arizona for college that fall with the excuse that he wanted to make sure mom was settled. After some strongly advised encouragement that sounded a lot more like threats from our mom, he enrolled at a local community college. He met a girl there that he dated off and on, and lived with us two years longer than he’d originally planned. Then he went home to visit a friend in Arizona and met Sarah. It took him six months to come home and gather his things before permanently moving back to Arizona.

We all returned a year later for their wedding, marking the third time that my Grandma Miller cried.

None of the Bosse girls paid much attention to me other than the occasional polite greeting they gave to everyone, but they didn’t need to. They had a double-digit line of guys that happily worked to pursue them. The summer before I started high school, I thought Kendall or Ace was trying to catch my attention, but was pretty certain they were just trying to get a reaction out of me, or wanted me to join the hordes of guys fawning over them. I wasn’t about to sign up for that shit.

I saw Kendall the most since we had multiple classes together and occasionally crossed paths within our friend circles. When we got to high school, she and Jenny both seemed to have a full-fledged parade of girls behind them everywhere they went. I wanted to hate them, but I never did see or hear any of them being rude to anyone. It was like people were just innately drawn to them and their beauty.

Jenny got pregnant my freshman year, which shocked the entire school and put a slight damper on her popularity. Kendall had instantly ditched her usual crowd of cajoling monkeys to be with her at every break and lunch. At home the two were usually connected as well. However, it was Ace that Kendall was inseparable from since the day we’d moved in.

Over the years Ace seemed to grow into herself, becoming more confident, and smiling and conversing more freely. She caused the biggest stir of the Bosse girls; the day she started high school the entire locker room was abuzz as guys talked about her, placing bets on who would be the first to date her and successfully mark her. Javier reminded us all of the Bosse rule that prevented any of the girls from dating until they were sixteen. Many of the guys disregarded the warning, swearing they’d be able to manage the task. She was followed by swarms of them as they tried to get close to her. Each was filed away to the friend zone and heckled relentlessly by the others that were willing to wait.

By the time she was sixteen, it didn’t take long before she was on the arm of multiple guys, never spending much time on any one before moving on to the next, providing me with another reason to avoid her. Guys that found out I was neighbors with the Bosses begged for me to invite them over, which quickly became one of my biggest pet peeves.

One day, my junior year, I was passing the soccer field to reach the parking lot and heard someone call my name. I looked up to see who it was and watched Ace kick a goal in from centerfield. Baseball had always been my sport, but watching her and the focus on her face as she began dribbling a new ball the coach passed her was one of the hottest things I’d ever seen.

Maddie Simmons waved to me a few feet to the left, and I watched as other girls got distracted as more guys from baseball streamed by, but Ace didn’t turn her attention from the ball as she continued down the field. In that single moment, she began stalking my thoughts and continued to do so for years.

By that time I had my own admirers and I was happy to distract my wandering thoughts. I quickly learned there was a good number of girls that were just as anxious to have no-strings-attached relationships. I didn’t look down at them for it or consider them skanks. They wanted to experiment with their sexuality … with me. There wasn’t a lot to complain about.

I went through a short line of them before my mom came home early one day and interrupted one of the sexual experiments we were conducting in my room. It was one of the most horribly awkward moments of my seventeen years. She kicked the girl out then sat me down and made me learn about every STD out there, showing me graphic images and talking to me about parenting and the responsibilities that it carried. It worked for a while. Then I started bringing girls home after a few months of remaining dateless and completely celibate. It was too easy with only having one parent that often worked long hours. But my mother’s words had become emblazoned on my mind, often stopping me from doing much more than making out and feeling them up, and occasionally earning a hand job in return.

I knew most of the school thought I’d been laid by half of the female class—or classes—and although it was a far stretch, I never made any attempt to correct them. Apparently the girls that were rumored to have slept with me rarely made an attempt to correct the rumors either.

David remained a friendly figure, always making a point of greeting me and talking to me as though he knew who I was and cared to. He continued to invite me over to see his Chevelle and would talk sports with me, not seeming to mind that I kept conversations short.

“Max, you need to figure things out. I refuse to have you continue down this path of self-destruction. A pretty face will only get you so far. You’re not going to be able to charm or fight yourself out of every situation. You’re eighteen. People can press charges now. I can’t continue to promise the Mr. Mitchells of the world that this is going to stop. Talk to me. Talk to Hank. Hell, talk to anyone.”