It Had to Be You Read online

  Like he was afraid of touching me!

  The nerve!

  He was acting like I had cooties. Or that I was germy!

  I snatched the plate out of his hands. As I did, I got a closer look at it, noticing the pat-tern “This is our pie plate,” I said. “Where did you get it?”

  “Your, um, mom sent it over yesterday with a blueberry pie. My family just moved into the house next door.”

  “The house next door?”

  The lightbulb went on over my head.

  The house next door!

  For years the old Victorian house next door had been empty. But earlier this spring it had been sold and renovations had been going on. According to the neighborhood gossip vine, a new family would be moving to the block.

  Apparently, they already had.

  This cutie was my new next-door neighbor and here I was looking like the Bride of Frankenstein!

  “I’m Emma Miller,” I said, trying to sound sweet and friendly. I needed to do some damage control! “I wasn’t home yesterday when you moved in, otherwise I would have come over to say hello. Welcome to the neighborhood.”

  Cute Guy gave me a look like he wasn’t sure if he wanted to stay in the neighborhood.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Kyle. Kyle O’Reilly.”

  “Nice to meet you, Kyle. Would you like to come in?” I held the front door open wider. “My brothers are in the family room watching a movie.”

  Kyle pointed behind his back with his thumb, stating to walk backward. As though he was afraid to turn his back on me! Who did he think I was? Medusa? Was Medusa the one you weren’t supposed to turn your back on otherwise you’d turn to stone, or was it some other Greek goddess?

  “Maybe another time. I’ve got to get home,” he said. “We’ve still got a lot of unpacking to do.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Maybe I’ll see you around?”

  If he could have run backward, he would have.

  “Maybe,” he said.

  “Okay,” I said, giving him a wave. “Bye.”

  I closed the front door just as Michael came out of the family room with an empty bowl of "What’s with the getup, Em? Early Halloween costume? What are you supposed to be? A zombie?”

  My second-oldest brother instantly realized he’d said the wrong thing as I opened my mouth and screamed, “You guys are so dead!” and raced back to my bedroom.

  Chapter Two

  I always dress to impress.

  Clothes matter.

  Clothes are important.

  At least they are to me!

  I don’t understand people who dress like slobs. Do they not look at themselves in the mirror before they leave their homes? And I’m not just talking about guys. Some of the girls I go to school with? Brrr! Their outfits give me nightmares. I’m not trying to be mean, it’s just that what you wear says something about who you are, so you should always pay attention to how you dress. In my opinion, anyway.

  I will admit that I did not look my best when I first met Kyle. Okay, okay, I looked like such a fashion mess I would have probably caused Miranda Priestly, the evil boss from The Devil Wears Prada, to go blind. But that wouldn’t be the case the next time I saw him.

  After warning my brothers that the next time the doorbell rang, I would not be answering it—of course, they ignored me, as they usually do, which made me only madder—I’d gone back upstairs to my bedroom. My relaxing day of beauty was over, so I scrubbed my face clean and then washed out my hair and blow-dried it before deciding I needed to do something fun.

  Which was why I was standing in front of my closet, trying to figure out what I was going to wear to the movies that night with Caitlyn.

  I have always loved clothes and I’m in awe of designers who can take bolts of fabric and turn them into wearable pieces of art.

  I always watch the MTV Music Awards, the MTV Video Awards, the VH-1 Awards, the Grammys, the Oscars, and any other awards show that I can find. I’m hooked on seeing what the celebrities are wearing.

  I have subscriptions to Vogue, Elle, and Cosmo Girl, as well as People, US Weekly, Entertainment Weekly, and In Touch. The pages of these magazines are always filled with celebrities wearing designer outfits. And I live for the Best Dressed/Worst Dressed issues.

  My brothers think I’m crazy, but what can you expect from three guys who think “dressing up” is wearing socks with their loafers and tucking in their shirts? Oh, and combing their hair! Rob’s gotten a little bit better since he started college—he combs his hair more often but I think that’s because he now has a semi-serious girlfriend, Cathy, who he’s been dating for almost a year and she makes him—but Michael and Aaron are still slobs.

  As much as I hate to admit this, my brothers are all kind of hotties, despite their slobbiness. They all have brown hair and brown eyes, but they don’t look identical. Each has his own style to match his interests.

  Rob’s the jock of the family. In high school he was the captain of the football and basketball teams. He also played tennis and ran track. He’s like six foot one and has broad shoulders. Rob mostly wears khakis and bright-colored polo shirts.

  Michael, on the other hand, is very laid back. He’s seventeen, loves music, and is always walking around with his iPod. He lives in baggy jeans and T-shirts. He collects vintage tees and some of his T-shirts go all the way back to the sixties and seventies when groups like The Doors and Led Zeppelin were big. His hair is way longer than Rob’s or Aaron’s and he wears it in a ponytail most days. He’s not as tall as Rob, just a little under six feet, but Dad keeps saying he’s going to catch up.

  Aaron, who’s fifteen, is a combination of Rob and Michael, but much shorter (right now he’s just five foot seven). His biggest fear is that he’s going to stop growing, but Dad keeps telling him he’s going to be just as tall as Rob someday. He’s not a jock at school, but he’ll watch any sports event on TV. He likes music, but he’s more into video games. Then again, they all like video games—they’re boys! When it comes to dressing, he really doesn’t have a personal style. Usually he’ll just wear jeans and a plaid shirt thrown over a T-shirt. I think he’s still trying to figure himself out. Or maybe he just doesn’t care what he looks like!

  Everyone assumes because I’m a girl and I’m the baby of the family that I have the biggest bedroom in our house, but I don’t. Rob, being the oldest, has the biggest bedroom. It used to be the attic but it was converted into a bedroom. Very Brady Bunch—I know! Michael and Aaron have the second-biggest bedroom because they share.

  I have the smallest bedroom.

  Which means I have the smallest closet.

  But it’s filled with the most clothes!

  My closet is a work of art. I don’t have just one rack to hang my clothes from, I have two, one on top of the other. Boxes of shoes line the floor of my closet and on the inside of the two doors, I have hooks for hangers. Besides my closet, I also have a dresser and a trunk at the foot of my bed to store my clothes.

  I surveyed the interior of my closet and began flipping through the hangers.

  Some of my clothes I love and I will wear them over and over again.

  Other outfits cause me to shake my head and ask myself, What was I thinking?! Why did I buy that?

  Decisions, decisions.

  I needed something comfy and casual to wear tonight.

  Cute but chic.

  Finally, I decided on a raspberry-colored skirt decorated with tiny white polka dots, a short-sleeved white cotton shirt with pink buttons at the top, and sandals to show off my Pink Lemonade toes (I’d repaired the damage after blow-drying my hair and the finished results were fab!). My jewelry would be minimal—just a charm bracelet on one wrist and my watch on the other—and I would wear my hair loose.

  I peeked outside my bedroom window at the house next door, hoping to get a glimpse of Kyle, but I didn’t see him. Rats! But maybe he’d be around tonight when I left to go to the movies and he’d do a double-take, w
ondering who the cute girl leaving my house was.

  That thought put a smile on my face.

  I didn’t have a smile on my face when I met Caitlyn for the movie.

  Kyle hadn’t seen me leave the house, so as far as he was concerned, I was still the She-Beast Who Lived Next Door.

  “Why so glum?” Caitlyn asked, giving me a hug as we walked up to the ticket window.

  “You will not believe what happened to me today!”

  As we waited in line to buy our tickets, I filled Caitlyn in on my encounter with Kyle. When I finished, I expected Caitlyn to start asking me questions.

  Well, she asked me a question, but it wasn’t the one I was expecting.

  “Was Aaron at home?”

  I sighed. Caitlyn’s latest crush is my brother Aaron. Since he’s only a year older than us, he’s always played the part of Annoying Older Brother, more so than Rob and Michael. I think it’s because we’re so close in age. When I was little, and Caitlyn used to come over to play with me, Aaron would snatch away our jacks or hide our jump ropes. He’d kidnap our dolls and hold them for ransom. When Caitlyn and I would have sleepovers, he’d never let us watch what we wanted on TV. Then he’d try to scare us in the middle of the night by pretending to be the boogeyman. (Caitlyn used to be afraid of the dark, so whenever she slept over, my mom kept a night-light on in my room. One time, Aaron hid under my bed and when we fell asleep, he turned off the night-light and then started moaning under my bed. Eventually Caitlyn woke up, saw the room was pitch-black, and heard the moans coming from under my bed. What really pushed her over the edge, though, and caused her to start screaming was when Aaron—in a disguised voice—said, “I’m sooo hungry. I think I’m going to eat a little girl named Caitlyn.” It took almost an hour for my parents to calm Caitlyn down. As for Aaron, his television privileges were taken away for a week.) At Halloween he’d steal our trick-or-treat bags and eat all the good candy bars like our Snickers and Mounds and leave only the crappy candy behind.

  Caitlyn has forgotten all that. It’s like she has amnesia. All of a sudden, she thinks Aaron is cute and wants to know if he thinks she’s cute, too.

  I’ve told Caitlyn that I’m not playing messenger. If she’s interested in Aaron, she should just tell him, but so far she’s refused to follow my advice.

  Instead, she acts like a giggling airhead whenever she’s over at my house and Aaron is in the same room with us. It’s starting to get annoying, and Aaron is so clueless. I don’t know how much longer I can take it.

  “Yes, Aaron was at home.”

  “Did he ask about me?”

  “Why would he ask about you?”

  This is a new thing with Caitlyn. She’s always asking me if Aaron has asked about her.

  She shrugged. “I don’t know. But did he?”

  “No, he didn’t,” I said, wanting to get back to my story about Kyle.

  “Oh.”

  Caitlyn looked so bummed that I decided to cheer her up. “You haven’t been over in a couple of days. Maybe that’s why he didn’t ask.”

  Caitlyn instantly smiled. “That’s right! I’ll have to come over this week.”

  After we got our tickets, we walked into the movie theater. The cool air-conditioning felt delicious after the sticky humidity outside.

  “Want to go to Jones Beach tomorrow?” Caitlyn asked as we found two seats in the middle of the theater. “My sister is going with her girlfriends. They could take us.”

  Caitlyn and I live on Long Island, outside of New York City. Jones Beach is the beach to go to, especially at night when they have all sorts of concerts. I haven’t been to a concert yet but my brothers have.

  “That sounds like fun.”

  “Make sure you wear your yellow one-piece.”

  “Why?”

  “So when you’re leaving the house, your next-door neighbor can see how great you look in it!”

  “I looked great tonight and he didn’t see me. What makes you think he’ll see me tomorrow morning?”

  “Good point.” Caitlyn was silent for a moment. “You know,” she said—somewhat perkily, I thought—“this situation will actually work to your advantage.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “Well, you looked pretty horrible, right?”

  “Don’t remind me,” I groaned, remembering the look of stunned horror on Kyle’s face.

  “The next time he sees you, you’re going to look gorgeous! You’ll be the complete opposite of what he remembers. Oooh! Wait, wait, wait!” Caitlyn clapped her hands excitedly. “I just came up with a brilliant idea. Why leave things to chance? Make yourself as gorgeous as possible and then you ring his doorbell!”

  It’s not often that I’m at a loss for words, but Caitlyn’s idea left me speechless. Why hadn’t I thought of it? It was the exact same kind of advice I would have given.

  “That could definitely work,” I said. “But what will I wear?”

  “Hello!” Caitlyn exclaimed. “Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten the huge sale at H.O.F.—it’s in two days!”

  H.O.F.—House of Fashion—was my favorite store at the mall. They had semi-designer brand names, as well as quality knockoffs at reasonable prices. Twice a year they had a big sale, marking down merchandise by as much as 75 percent, and this week would be their big summer clearance sale. I had been saving every penny I could get my hands on—babysitting money, birthday money, graduation money—for the big day. After all, I was going to be a freshman in September and I needed to supplement my wardrobe with some new purchases.

  “We’ll get you an outfit that will make Kyle stop in his tracks. And not from fright!”

  “Sounds like a plan!”

  “So is this movie supposed to be any good?”

  Caitlyn whispered as the lights started to dim and the previews began.

  “I don’t know,” I answered. “But it stars Lindsay Lohan.”

  Caitlyn rolled her eyes. “Ugh! Lindsay Lohan!”

  “Jealous much?” I teased.

  “You know it,” Caitlyn sighed. “The biggest movie star to ever come out of Long Island! Why can’t I be like her?”

  “Why can’t we all?”

  “All she has to do is wiggle her pinkie and all the guys come running,” Caitlyn said. “So what’s the plot of this movie?”

  “Lindsay’s an heiress but she doesn’t know it. Her grandfather disinherited her mother or something. Now her grandfather is dying and he doesn’t have anyone to leave his money to except Lindsay. But she doesn’t want his money.”

  “Is she nuts?”

  “Obviously.”

  “And then there’s this other guy who’s into her—I think it’s Jake Gyllenhaal. But she’s not sure if he only loves her for the millions she’s about to inherit. Meanwhile, the stable boy on her grandfather’s estate has a huge crush on her.”

  “So she’s got two guys fighting over her,” Caitlyn sighed. “I’d settle for just one guy.”

  So would I, I thought wistfully. When am I going to meet that one special guy and fall in love? Lindsay’s already been “in love” three times this year. I’ll settle for once! Isn’t it about time?

  As the opening credits for the movie started to appear, I decided I’d forget about my love life and focus on the one on the big screen.

  The following morning I was in the kitchen when my father asked, “Where do you think you’re going?”

  I turned around from the refrigerator, where I was tossing some peaches and plums into my beach bag.

  As per Caitlyn’s suggestion, I was wearing my yellow one-piece swimsuit. I had a huge straw hat on my head and a huge pair of sunglasses on my face (they were very Mary-Kate and Ashley). I had my blue-and-white striped beach bag tossed over my shoulder and flip-flops on my feet. Um, I was going to the beach. Wasn’t it obvious?

  My father had that “tone” in his voice. The tone that means even though he’s asked you a question, he already knows what he wants your answer to be. He’s a lawyer in
Manhattan and I know he’s used this tone when he’s in court. It’s why they call him The Shark.

  “Caitlyn and I made plans to go to the beach. You know, that place where there’s sand and swimming.” Suddenly I felt guilty, although I didn’t know why. What crime had I committed?

  My father shook his head as he sat down at the breakfast table and my mom poured him a cup of coffee. I couldn’t help but notice how elegant she looked. She was wearing a very chic gray business suit with her hair in an upsweep. Mom works as an editor at a publishing house in Manhattan and is always lunching or taking meetings with agents and authors.

  “No, you’re not,” he said.

  “I’m not? But Caitlyn and I made plans.”

  “You’ll have to make plans for another day.”

  “But Dad!”

  “No buts! At the beginning of the summer you promised that you were going to clean out the garage. Well, the summer is halfway over and we still have a garage filled with junk. I want you to get started on it today.”

  “Can’t I get started on it tomorrow?” I asked.

  “Dad says he wants you to do it today,” Aaron said with a smug smile as he poured some syrup over his pancakes.

  I shot a murderous glare at my brother. “I heard what Dad said.”

  “Then what’s the problem?” Michael chimed in. “Rob and I had to paint the house and we’re almost finished. Aaron has to mow the front and back lawn every week and he’s been doing it. You’re the only one who hasn’t done what Dad’s told you to do. We’ve been working like dogs and you’ve been sitting on your butt all summer long.”

  The murderous glare I had been giving Aaron shifted to Michael. Would it be possible for red lasers to shoot out of my eyes and turn him to dust? It had never happened before, but there’s always a first time for everything.

  “And I’ll bet you’ve already spent the money he gave you!” Rob added.

  “Yeah!” Aaron exclaimed.

  “Yeah!” Michael shouted, giving Rob a high five. “I forgot all about that.”