1 Chapter 1

My mom swears I can’t date until I turn sixteen, but I already have my first boyfriend picked out. Nate Bartlett is three years older than me and so cute. He’s my brother Bryan’s best friend—they’ve been buddies since kindergarten, and in all my memories growing up, Nate’s right there alongside Bryan. The two are inseparable. “Here comes trouble,” my dad says whenever the boys race into the house. If Nate isn’t spending the night over our place, then Bryan’s over his. Seriously, they’re alwaystogether.

I almost didn’t notice Nate at first. I mean, he’s practically family, you know? Like a cousin or something, always underfoot, eating at our place or watching TV in the den, or hanging out in our backyard with Bryan, up in the treehouse my dad built or on the skate ramp the boys set up when they got into boarding. Then I claimed the treehouse as mine, and I’d play dolls up there while listening to the constant hum of wheels on the ramp below. Once or twice I’d peek over the edge of the floor and look down at them, but really, what’s so fun about skateboarding? Most of the time, they fall off the things and laugh about it. I don’t get it.

But once, when I was nine years old, I was coming down out of the treehouse and one of the wooden slats my dad had hammered into the trunk like rungs on a ladder broke. It was near the bottom, so I didn’t fall far, but I landed on my butt with a hard thump!and knocked the wind out of me. For a moment I sat there, heart racing, unsure what had happened or what I should do next. Then I tried to breathe in and couldn’t.

I couldn’t.

Fear filled me and I looked around, terrified. My brother and Nate were nearby, but Bryan hadn’t noticed me—he was too busy popping wheels on his ramp. Nate glanced over and must’ve seen something in my face because he dropped his skateboard and hurried to my side. “Hey, Amber, you okay?”

I tried to hitch in a breath and couldn’t. Would I ever breathe again? Would I die like this, out here, gasping for air like a fish out of water? “Nate.”

He came closer, calling over his shoulder to my brother. “Bry, I think something’s wrong…”

Then his hand touched my arm and, for whatever reason, I felt my lungs expand. I gulped in sweet, cool autumn air. Even though I didn’t want to cry in front of Bryan—he’d laugh, I knew he would, he was twelve and way too big for crying, so he thought I should be, too—I couldn’t help it. The next breath I took came out in a loud wail. Nate’s hand tightened on my arm as he helped me stand, and in that instant, I loved him.

From a distance, I heard the screen door open and my mother call out, “What are you boys doing to her? Why’s she crying?”

Bryan told her I fell—thanks for helping me out,I thought bitterly, but it didn’t matter. Nate was there, his arm around my shoulders, and when I looked up at him through my tears, I swore to myself he’d be the first guy I dated when my mother said I could.

* * * *

Now I’m practically sixteen—okay, fifteen in a week, but still. It’s close enough. All the girls at school think my brother’s the hot one. I just don’t get it. “It’s his hair,” my best friend Shelley says, sighing whenever she sees Bryan in the hall between classes. “You just want to run your hands through it and pull.”

Funny—to me, it looks unwashed, but then again, I’ve seen Bryan roll out of bed in the mornings, so I know how little time he actually spends on his appearance. Besides, he’s my brother. Now Nate, on the other hand…

“Oh, he’s cute, too,” Shelley agrees. Now she’s talking sense. “You’re so lucky, Amber. You have two of the hottest seniors in school hanging around your house all the time. It’s like Hunk Central. You should, like, introduce me to Bryan, and we could double-date, you know?”

“He already knows you,” I remind her. Hello? She’s my BFF, of coursehe knows who she is. “Besides, my mom says I can’t date yet.”

“She also says you can’t wear makeup and you do,” Shelley points out.

True, but somehow I think hiding a living, breathing boyfriend would be a bit harder than hiding a tube of lipstick from the dollar store in my purse.

“We should totally hang out with them,” Shelley says. As if Bryan will go for that. “Neither of them has a girlfriend, right? So what’s the problem?”

The problem is Bryan isn’t about to pal around with his little sister. I know—it’s like pulling teeth to get him to take me anywhereif Nate’s around. And I’m not even talking about for fun, either. One day over the summer I ran out of maxi pads and I couldn’t wait until my mom came home to get more—I needed them now. I’m too young to drive, but Bryan’s eighteen and has a battered old pickup truck he bought with money he earned working for our dad. He likes to take it to the mall parking lot, where he and Nate take turns skateboarding off the bed of the truck. So I knew if they were going to go out later, I could bum a ride.