Perfectly Oblivious (The Perfect Series Book 1) Read online

  by Robin Daniels

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  Copyright © 2017 by Robin Daniels

  Edition 1.1

  Edited by Jennifer Henkes (www.literallyjen.com)

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  For Alan - Because you kept telling me I should write a book...until I did.

  BIANCA

  Beginning of Freshman Year

  A new family was moving in across the street. The house next door to the Perkins’s had been vacant for over six months. The couple that lived there before had had no kids, were hardly ever home, and kept to themselves. So, when the house went up for sale, my heart wasn’t exactly broken. I sat in my bedroom window, watching the movers unload box after box, when a shiny black SUV pulled up in the driveway.

  A woman jumped out of the passenger seat and ran across the lawn. The movers were hauling an expensive-looking grandfather clock into the house. It was well wrapped, but she hovered behind the men anyway, as if her presence alone could lift the clock if they were clumsy enough to drop it. A man quickly climbed out of the driver’s seat and scolded the woman, telling her to let the movers do their job.

  “Great.” I sighed out loud. “Another lame yuppie couple.” I popped open a can of Diet Coke and wondered what the universe had against me. Was it too much to ask that someone with kids, preferably cool ones, moves in? We lived on a picture-perfect street in a middle-class neighborhood just outside of Orlando, Florida. I should have had loads of friends close by to hang out with. But sadly, my street was filled with yuppies and old people. Mr. and Mrs. Perkins had three kids, but their youngest had gone off to college last year, leaving my sister Beth and me the only youngsters on the block.

  Resigned to defeat, I stood to shut my blinds when the back door of the SUV opened. Well, well, well, what have we here? Out stepped a boy with headphones in his ears and a phone in his hand. He was tall, and it was hard to see what he looked like because he had a baseball cap pulled low over his face. If I had to guess, he seemed about my age, but I was too far away to tell.

  Since I’m nosy, I needed a closer look. I wasn’t going to get it peeping at him like a stalker from my bedroom window. I needed to stalk him from a more convenient location. The Perkinses had a basketball hoop hung over the garage, and Mrs. Perkins said I could use it anytime I wanted. So I grabbed my basketball, slipped on my flip-flops, and headed downstairs.

  I’d hoped to catch the new kid’s attention by shooting some hoops on the driveway next to his. But after five minutes of flawless shots, his face was still hiding under his hat and his eyes hadn’t left that stupid phone. I wasn’t desperate enough to go talk to him (Ok, I almost was) so I devised a plan to get his attention in a more subtle way.

  On my next shot, I intentionally hit the backboard so the ball would bounce off and roll toward him. If he’d seen that shot, I’d have been super embarrassed. I’d never want anyone to think I sucked that bad. But, as luck would have it, embarrassment was not in my cards. Mortification was a better word for what had happened. The missed shot that was supposed to bounce somewhere in his general vicinity was alarmingly accurate. It beaned him in the side of the head, knocking his cap off.

  “What the hell?” he grumbled as he rubbed his head and shot a dirty glance in my direction. Oops. Not quite the first impression I was hoping to make. So much for subtle.

  “Sorry.” I offered a quick apology, then ran to fetch my ball from the street. I made it back to the driveway, and he strolled over. Now that his baseball cap was off, I could see that he was pretty stinking cute. He had light-brown hair that was long enough to be messed up from wearing his hat but short enough not to stick out under the sides. His blue eyes sparkled (yes, I know how cheesy that sounds, but there is no other way to describe them), and he had a cute button nose. I must have admired him a little too long because he cleared his throat and smirked, revealing the most adorable dimples.

  Crap, crap, crappity-crap. He totally realized I was checking him out. Play it cool, Bianca, play it cool…

  “Hey,” was all I could manage. I gave him a head nod. Great; in my attempt not to look desperate, I managed to look like a loser instead.

  “You play ball?” he asked, a cocky smirk plastered to his face.

  “It would seem so. Seeing as I’m standing here, under a basketball hoop, holding a ball of the basket variety.” That’s good, Bianca; go for snarky. Maybe he’ll forget the moony eyes he caught you making at him.

  The new kid snorted. His cocky smirk morphed into a cocky smile. “Well then, I propose a deal. I challenge you to a game of PIG. If you can beat me, I promise to pretend that I don’t know you purposely tanked that shot as an excuse to talk to me.”

  My eyes bugged and my jaw dropped for a moment before I was able to regain my composure. So that’s how he was going to play it?

  “Hmmm…” I pretended to think as I brought my finger to my lips. “Then I guess if you win, I promise to forget that you’re a conceited ass.”

  No way I’d let him think he had the upper hand in this conversation. I was congratulating myself mentally on my awesome comeback when he swiped the ball out of my hands and dribbled it to the hoop, making a layup. He rebounded his ball and passed it to me. Well, Mr. Show Off, two can play that game. I duplicated his layup with ease and passed the ball back to him.

  He made his next basket from where the free throw line would have been. Again, I matched his shot. He looked at me, eyebrow raised, and took the ball to the far end of the driveway. He launched a three pointer, which he made with no problem. Judging by his expression, he figured this would be a tough shot for me. He didn’t know that I’d been playing point guard on both club and school basketball teams for the last three years. He passed me the ball and I strutted to the back end of the driveway. I sent off a perfect three-pointer. It cleared the rim as the net swished.

  I was enjoying his shock when the hovering woman from earlier stuck her head out of his front door. “Cam, honey. Time to come in and start hauling some of these boxes up to your room.”

  “Be right there!” he yelled back, never taking his eyes off me. “Guess we’ll have to finish this another time.”

  “Guess so,” I challenged.

  “I’m Cameron Bates, but most people just call me Cam.”

  “Bianca Barnes, but most people just call me Bea.”

  “Bee? As in Bumble Bee?”

  “Yes, you moron. My parents named me Bumble Bee.” I rolled my eyes. So he obviously wasn’t much older than me, or he wouldn’t have responded like a stupid middle-school boy.

  I corrected him. “B, as in the first letter of my name.”

  “What kind of a nickname is B? Sounds like something you’d call a crabby old lady.” The smirk was back. As adorable as it was, I wanted to smack it off his cute little face.

  “Well, since my name is Bianca, I�
��m guessing it was either call me Bea or call me Anca. Only a horrible parent would call their child Anca. I guess Bea was the better option.”

  Cam contemplated for a moment before responding. “I can’t play ball with a chick who’s named after an old lady. Guess I’ll have to come up with something else. I’m thinking Bebe…”

  “Bebe? What do I look like, a show poodle?”

  He grinned, knowing he’d ruffled my feathers. “I was actually thinking it sounded kind of hot cheerleader.”

  “Which isn’t much better than a show poodle.”

  “No, dork. Bebe, as in the first letter of your first name and the first letter of your last name.” He laughed, his smile turning wicked. “But, if you want to go with the show poodle theme, I could always call you Cece or Fifi?”

  “Sounds to me like you’re sticking with the hot cheerleader idea,” I grumbled.

  “Bebe it is, then.” Pleased with himself, he turned and walked toward his front door. “See you around, Bebe,” he mocked, closing the door before I could respond.

  I stood there for a moment, wondering how a simple snooping mission could have gone so wrong. Cam was cute and clever but definitely a pain in the ass. Of course, I was a pain in the ass, too, so I shouldn’t fault him for that. However, he was into basketball, which I could totally work with. I walked back across the street and plopped down on my front porch. Cameron Bates was my new neighbor. Maybe the universe didn’t hate me after all.

  BIANCA

  Beginning of Junior Year

  “Bea, time to get up.”

  “Go away, you wretched beast of a morning person,” I grumbled, pulling the covers up over my head as I heard my door fly open.

  “Get your cute butt up, and get ready for school. You don’t want to look like a slob on the first day. People will have the wrong impression about you for the rest of the year.” Beth looked around at the tornado of clothing and dozens of Diet Coke cans littering my bedroom floor.

  “Ok, maybe they’d be getting the right impression, but that isn’t the impression we want them to have.” She crinkled her nose. “I’m leaving for school in an hour, with or without you.” Her singsong voice made my eardrums hurt. How anyone could be so perky at six o’clock in the freaking morning was beyond me. But Beth was perky all the time, so I should have been used to it by now.

  Bethany was my twin, so to speak, my Irish Twin. But we looked nothing alike. Beth was tall, five-nine to my five-five. She had long legs and feminine curves, while I was petite and looked more like a twelve-year-old boy. Her full C cup made my barely B’s look pathetic. She had long, straight blonde hair and sun-tanned skin that glowed as if it’d been kissed by the gods. The only physical trait we shared was the same huge green eyes and long, dark eyelashes we inherited from our mother. Even her name was more beautiful. Bethany… It sounded like an angel or a mermaid or a mystical unicorn princess. Definitely something magical. The name Bianca just sounded like a cranky old lady, as Cameron so politely pointed out.

  I trudged over to my door and shut it, then locked it, so I wouldn’t be discovered participating in my morning ritual. I hurried over to my window and cracked the blinds ever so slightly. Damn, I missed him. I’d been spying on Cam (my neighbor across the street) daily since he moved in two years ago. Now that we were going to be juniors, he’d morphed from super-duper cute to amazingly hot.

  Both of our bedrooms were on the second story and faced the street. He lived kitty corner to me, but I still had a direct view into his bedroom. Normally I’d spy on him while he sat at his desk doing homework or playing video games. This summer, though, he started working out in his garage every morning. He wanted to be more ripped when basketball season started. Since he worked out shirtless most days, I religiously spent my summer perfecting my Peeping Tom skills. I guess even Cam wanted to look good on the first day of school, because he was nowhere to be found. Instead of getting my daily fix of shirtless Cam, I got in the shower, imagining shirtless Cam while I washed the sleep out of my eyes.

  Forty-five minutes later, I strolled into the kitchen, hoping I passed as acceptable by Beth’s standards. I’d tamed my long brown wavy hair, put on my cutest low-rise boot cut jeans (none of that skinny jeans crap for me) and a tight gray V-neck T-shirt. I’d even taken the time to apply light makeup, highlighting my faint smattering of freckles. Beth gave me the once-over, nodding with approval until she reached my feet. She stared at my well-worn red flip-flops and sighed but didn’t say anything. I learned long ago that if I kept my toenails painted she wouldn’t say anything about the flip-flops. Today, each big toe even had a shiny gem in the middle of a white flower. Sorry, Beth; that’s the best you’ll get from me.

  “Hurry and grab something if you want to eat; Cam will be here any second. I don’t want to be late on the first day,” Beth instructed.

  “Yes, Mother,” was my standard reply.

  Beth scowled at me and went back to eating her toast. She hated it when I called her Mother, because our mother died shortly after giving birth to me. Neither of us remembered her. It was sad but didn’t usually bring me to tears. Beth was different. She felt cheated. Our mother was the only topic that could sour her perpetually happy mood.

  My parents had tried for years to have children but couldn’t. The doctors weren’t sure why. Mom and Dad had given up hope when she got pregnant with Beth. After so many childless years, they’d been blessed with a beautiful baby girl. Imagine their surprise when they learned Mom was pregnant with me. Beth was only four months old at the time. I wasn’t planned, but my parents were ecstatic.

  During the second half of the pregnancy, my mom developed preeclampsia. At thirty-two weeks, her condition got worse and she went into organ failure. Dad rushed her to the hospital, where doctors delivered me eight weeks early. They couldn’t stop Mom’s kidneys and liver from shutting down, though, and she died the same day I was born.

  My dad always called me his miracle. That God had taken my mom but spared me was extremely unfair in my eyes. But my father had never counted it anything less than a blessing. Beth must have gotten her continual optimism from Dad. I think that gene skipped me.

  Being born at thirty-two weeks made Bethany and I just over eleven months apart, hence the Irish Twins. The school start cutoff is August 31. Since Beth’s birthday is September 15 and mine is August 20, we ended up in the same grade. When people who don’t know us see that we’re both juniors, they assume that we’re twins. It’s easier not to correct them.

  Beth is definitely the older sister, though, and it shows when she gets all motherly. I pretend to be annoyed by it, because that’s what any good little sister would do. Dad never remarried, so with no mother in the home, my sister is the closest thing I have. She loves to play the part, and most of the time, I don’t mind letting her.

  “Good morning to the most lovely non-twins I know.” Cam’s words startled me, and I dropped the toast I’d been buttering.

  Beth questioned his greeting. “I don’t know if that’s much of a compliment, considering we’re probably the only non-twins you know.” He wrapped her in a bear hug, lifting her in the air, and she giggled in response. Gag me.

  “My, aren’t we in a good mood this morning?” Beth asked him. “What could possibly have you all smiles and sunshine at this hour?”

  “Can’t a guy just be happy to be in the same room as two beautiful women?”

  I rolled my eyes. Cam was such a goober. He was a smartass extraordinaire when talking to me but sweet as syrup when he was around Bethany. I called him out on it once, and he told me that Beth was too angelic for him to be anything less than a gentleman around her. That response earned him a punch in the arm, to which he replied something about me being the evil twin.

  Cam walked around the island and grabbed my toast off the counter, inhaling half of it before I could stop him. “Hey, you jerk! I was going to eat that.”

  I slapped him on the shoulder as he walked by. He leaned toward me, speak
ing in a low voice. “Thanks for the breakfast, Bebe.” Then Cam poked me in the side, waggled his eyebrows, and headed out the side door to the car.

  I grabbed my other piece of toast and darted out past him, screaming, “Shotgun!” Just as I reached the passenger door, Cam hot on my heels, he picked me up and slung me over his shoulder like a caveman. I kicked and swore under my breath, secretly loving every minute of his closeness. Instead of putting me down on the ground, he sat me on the roof of the car.

  “Sorry, Bebe, you know the rules.” He slipped into the passenger seat, leaving me to find my own way down. I hopped off the car and took my usual seat in the back.

  “Stupid rules. I don’t know how these rules became official, considering I didn’t have a say in creating them,” I complained.

  Grumbling, I buckled my seat belt and slouched low. My knees were pressing hard into the back of Cam’s seat, which he’d conveniently pushed all the way back. He shot me a wicked grin in the rearview mirror but didn’t say anything. I stuck out my tongue at him, and he made a kissy face.

  Bethany opened the driver’s door and gingerly slid in behind the steering wheel. Even if she hadn’t been wearing a skirt, she would’ve never been rude enough to shove her knees into someone’s back. But Beth wasn’t as fun as I was, and Cam never tortured her the way he did me.

  “Bea, you know the rules,” Beth reminded me. “The person with the longest legs gets the front seat because it has the most room.” She lectured me on this regularly.

  “Well, I’d like to contest that rule,” I argued. “This is my car, too. I shouldn’t have to ride in the back all year because Jolly Green Giant up there doesn’t have one.”

  “And I think you lost the right to contest the rule when you got a speeding ticket only a week after you got your license,” Beth replied.

  Dad had grounded me from driving for a month after that. When the month was up, Bethany kept driving everywhere, and I kept letting her. I think I made her nervous. She’s a super cautious driver. I don’t mind letting her drive as long as I get to sit up front. But it seems I’ll be relegated to the backseat for the rest of the year. Lame.