Wicked Jealous: A Love Story by Robin Palmer

girls. And this is still an awesome opportunity to practice being around guys, so that when we finally get away from all these pod people and go to college, we know what we’re doing.” She looked at me. “Wait a minute—are you
scared
?”
    “No.”
    Her right eyebrow went up.
    “Yes,”
I admitted.
    “Why?”
    “Because! I don’t know how to talk to guys! Let alone live with them!”
    “But you have a brother.” She sighed. “A totally dreamy one.”
    “Yeah, but a brother is not a
guy
.”
    “This is why this is good! You’ll get one month’s worth of practice!” she cried. “And I’m telling you, you really should start a blog about it, because if you don’t, I will—”
    “But what about the whole farting/burping thing?” I demanded.
    She shrugged. “So? You’ll teach them to stop that. Like some sort of
My Fair Dude
thing.”
    “No—I meant
me
. It’s one thing to accidentally fart or burp in front of a boy you used to take baths with when you were little because you have the same DNA,” I explained. “It’s a whole other thing when there’s the risk that some guy not related to you hears you do it. Plus, while the whole veggie thing might be healthy, there
are
some . . . loud side effects.”
    “Hmm. That’s a good point,” she admitted. She shrugged. “So maybe they’ll teach
you
. You know, turn
you
into a lady.”
    I sighed. If I wanted to get anywhere with this, it was probably better if I just had a real heart-to-heart conversation with my brother. We were close. I could tell him how I was feeling, and he’d understand.

    “Okay, not to sound stupid or anything, Simmy, but you keep losing me,” Max said that night as we FaceTimed.
    “Oh. Sorry.” I held my iPad up to my face really close. “IS THIS BETTER?” I yelled.
    I saw him jump back. “No, I can
hear
you just fine. I meant, I don’t
understand
what you’re saying.”
    “What part don’t you understand?” I asked for the fourth time.
    “The part where you keep saying that you think you’ll feel weird around a bunch of strangers,” he said for the fifth. “Because, you know, they’re really not strangers.”
    “Do I know the guys? I didn’t recognize any of their names when you told me about them,” I said, confused.
    “That’s because you technically haven’t met them . . . yet. But that’s the thing—strangers are just friends you haven’t met yet!” he said all glass-three-quarters-full-like. “I saw that on a bumper sticker last week. It’s great, right?”
    I shook my head. Really? He and I came from the same gene pool?
    “Look, they’re all awesome guys,” he said. “I mean, we’re
artists
—we’re all sensitive and stuff. Plus, I really meant it when I said it would be like old times.” He gave me a sweet smile, the one that showed the slight gap between his two front teeth and had the power to make me forgive him no matter what sort of jerky thing he had done to me. Like the time he had erased this totally obscure François Truffaut movie I had DVR’d off IFC before I had a chance to watch it. “You know, back when the biggest problem we had with Dad was whether he was going to drop dead from a heart attack from working so hard rather than whether he was going to marry Hillary.” The smile got sweeter. “I miss you, Simmy.”
    I looked away. “Please don’t call me that.” He
knew
I had a soft spot for that nickname.
    “But I do! And I know you’ll like these guys. I wouldn’t have suggested it if you wouldn’t. Plus, do you really want to spend a month cooped up in a house with Hillary and have to watch her order people around in broken Italian?” He shook his head. “That woman is
evil
.”
    I had to say, I was glad that he finally came around and saw that when it came to her, the glass was pretty much empty.
    “Why don’t you talk to Dad,” he went on. “See what he says. Maybe if you get him alone, he’ll tell you that he really wants you to go on the