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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