Megan Meade's Guide to the McGowan Boys (27 page)

“Okay,” Megan said, standing. For the first time all day, she felt calm—certain. “I'll come back.”

“Thank
God
!” Doug said. “Let's get the hell outta this place.”

“Oh, wait! One more thing,” Megan said, stopping Doug in his tracks.

His shoulders slumped and he turned around. “What? You want my kidney?”

“I want in on the next ultimate Frisbee game,” Megan said.

Doug grinned. “You're playin' skins.”

Megan grinned back. “We'll see about that.”

 *  *  *

Megan leaned back into Sean as she gunned the engine on his Harley, racing up Oak Street. The wind pressed a couple of tears from her eyes as she whooped in total, unadulterated glee. She had almost forgotten how much she loved to ride. It was as if she had just regained a limb she had been missing for the past few weeks.

“All right! Let's take it home!” Sean yelled in her ear.

Megan slowed up and turned the bike into the McGowans' driveway. The ultimate Frisbee game on the front lawn was put on pause as Evan, Finn, Caleb, Ian, and Doug all stopped to watch. Megan climbed off the bike and pulled her helmet off, wiping at her face as she laughed.

“You're a natural,” Sean said giving her one of his rare grins.

“Thanks,” Megan replied.

“Next weekend we go get your Massachusetts permit,” he said. “I'll talk to my buddy Deke down at the junkyard and see if he can find you a bike.”

“Really?” Megan didn't know which bowled her over more—the offer or the number of words that had just been strung together.

“Heads up!”

Megan glanced left and snatched the Frisbee out of the air before it had a chance to take her eye out.

“Sorry!”

Evan lifted his hand in an apologetic wave before turning and heading for the porch to swig from a jug of water. It was the first acknowledgment Megan had gotten from him since his very awkward apology on Thursday night. He had come to her room after she and Doug had returned and told her he was sorry. Since then, he had avoided her like the plague.

Megan followed him with her eyes and saw that Aimee and Miller were sitting on the front steps next to the refreshments, watching the game. She launched the Frisbee back toward the other boys and waved at Aimee, who grinned and waved back.

“Miller and Aimee. Together on a weekend,” Megan said in awe.

“Yeah, that's just weird,” Sean remarked, stepping up next to her.

“Yo! You losers playing or what?” Doug shouted from the center of the yard.

“We're in!” Megan replied, jogging over to them.

“All right. It's you, me, and Finn against Evan, Sean, and the twits,” Doug said as Megan reached him.

“We're not twits!” Ian protested from a couple of feet away.

“Yeah, you just keep tellin' yourself that,” Doug said.

Megan leaned in to the huddle between Finn and Doug. “Do you guys even realize that you're not really playing ultimate?” Megan asked. “I looked it up online and you're doing it entirely wrong.”

“We're doing it McGowan style,” Doug replied with a knowing nod.

“What does that mean?” Megan asked.

“It's football with a Frisbee,” Finn told her. “And at the end of the game we like to high five a lot and make barking noises. No one knows why or when we started it; we just did.”

“Ah,” Megan said with a smile. It was nice to be near Finn again. It was nice that he was talking to her like a normal human being. Of course, it didn't stop her from wondering what he was thinking.

“So what's the play?” she asked, hoping to focus.

They huddled closer and her arm brushed Finn's and her pulse skittered ahead. They both looked at the spot where their skin had touched and inched away from each other. Megan held her breath.

“All right, I'm faking to Finn and throwing to Megan,” Doug said, oblivious. “Let's see what you can do,
Kicker
.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Megan said sarcastically.

They all clapped and walked over to the line. The second Doug got the Frisbee, Megan broke right, dodging Sean, and raced toward the driveway with Ian and Caleb hot on her heels. She turned around and saw Doug fake the throw to Finn. Evan jumped to block the Frisbee, but it wasn't there. It was rocketing right toward Megan.

She jumped up and grabbed the disk, but the second she came down, Ian and Caleb grasped onto her legs.

“Get 'em off me!” Megan shouted, struggling forward and laughing uncontrollably. “Get 'em off me!”

“Die, Kicker! Die!” Ian shouted, holding on for dear life.

Finn rushed over and Megan tried to toss the Frisbee to him.
He let it fly right past his face and instead grabbed Caleb, tickling him until he had to let go of Megan.

“Foul! No fair!” Ian shouted.

Caleb rolled on the ground, giggling, and Megan tripped over him and tumbled forward, taking Finn down with her. It was a huge mass of tangled arms and legs, but all Megan knew was that she was right on top of Finn, her chest pressed against his, his leg between her thighs, her wrist pinned under his neck. Someone—Ian—was on her back, holding her down, preventing her from extricating herself.

Not that she exactly wanted to.

“Well, this is awkward,” Finn said with a laugh, trying to sit up. “Ian! Get off her!”

“All right!” Ian said, rolling free. Ian snatched the Frisbee from the ground and he and Caleb took off across the yard, holding it high.

Finally Finn was able to sit and Megan rolled away from him, sitting in the dirt at his side. They both fought to catch their breath, though Megan's oxygen deprivation had nothing to do with the game.

“You okay?” Finn asked.

“Yeah, you?” she replied. Every inch of her body was throbbing to touch him again.

“Yeah,” he replied with a huge grin. He pushed himself around and got on all fours in front of her, pausing there with his face just inches from hers. “I'm glad you stayed,” he whispered his breath warm on her face.

Megan somehow managed to reply. “Me too.”

Then Finn pushed himself up and headed back toward the center of the yard. For a moment, Megan couldn't move. Then Doug walked over and offered his arm. Megan grasped it thankfully and he yanked her up to her shaky legs.

“Who's all in a twist now?” he asked with a smirk.

Megan laughed and shoved him from behind as they headed back to the line.

“Dude! I wanna trade!” Doug shouted. “Finn for Sean!”

“You got it,” Evan replied.

“Get your head in the game,” Doug said to Megan.

Megan shrugged him off and lined up, this time directly across from both Finn and Evan. Finn smiled openly at her and Megan grinned, her heart pounding. But when she looked at Evan, it stopped completely. He was staring at her with those intense eyes. Staring right into her. Just like he had in those couple of moments when she had thought, for a split second, that he wanted to kiss her.

Well, that's . . . interesting,
Megan thought.

Doug took the Frisbee. With a deep breath, Megan stood up and dodged right between Finn and Evan, racing upfield. They both took off after her. The Frisbee took flight, sailing in a perfect arc over the boys' heads. All three of them leapt into the air and reached for it, but it was Megan who outran them all and plucked it right out of the sky.

From: [email protected]

To: [email protected]

Subject: Boy Guide

Megan Meade's Guide to the McGowan Boys

Entry Thirteen

Observation #1:
Boys are unpredictable.

This may not be news, but I'm starting to think it's one of the best things about them.

KATE BRIAN
is the author of The
Princess & the Pauper
,
The Virginity Club
,
Lucky T
, and
Sweet 16
, as well as the hot new series Private and Privilege. She is both relieved and regretful that she's never lived with seven boys.

Check out Kate Brian's hot new series:

“It's not fair.”

It wasn't a whine or a complaint, just a statement. A statement of the obvious, as far as Ariana Osgood was concerned. As she stared out the window of the Brenda T. Trumbull Correctional Facility for Women, it was all she could think to say. Outside, the leaves on the trees swayed lazily in the warm summer breeze—a breeze she would be allowed to feel against her skin for exactly fifty-five minutes during midday recess.
Recess.
That was what the warden called it. Who ever heard of a teenage girl looking forward to recess?

“It's just not fair.”

Across the wide oak desk, her “therapist” smirked. Shifting in his seat, Dr. Meloni leaned back, forcing his expensive leather chair to let out the loud creak that he
knew
made Ariana's skin crawl. Just outside the fence that encircled the grounds, about a hundred yards from where Ariana now sat, Meloni's precious Doberman, Rambo,
barked nonstop, as always. The inmates of the Brenda T. listened to that damn dog bark all day long, every day. It was as if Meloni was trying to remind them that he was always there, always watching, even when they weren't in session with him. The man also couldn't be away from the dog for more than two hours at a time. He was always going out there and feeding him treats, cooing to the animal like it was a newborn baby and the apple of its father's eye. Revolting. Someone should have been analyzing
him
.

“What's not fair?” he asked.

Ariana flicked a glance at Dr. Victor Meloni, sitting there in front of his elaborately framed diplomas from Johns Hopkins and Stanford. Thick, leather-bound books sat on the shelves to his right, most of which she was sure he hadn't even opened, let alone read. Her lip curled at the sight of his fake tan. His overly gelled salt-and-pepper hair. His heavily starched blue shirt. His capped teeth.

Two hundred dollars a tooth, but can't spring for a pair of shoes with leather soles.
Ariana could ascertain everything she needed to know about a person through his or her footwear. In the sixteen months she had been in residence at Brenda T. Trumbull just outside Washington, D.C., she had only seen Dr. Meloni wear two different pairs of shoes. The same exact style, one pair in black, one in brown. Clearly, the man thought that everyone he met would be so dazzled by the veneer of his face, they wouldn't take the time to notice his shoes.

But Ariana did. And they screamed white-trash-turned-scholarship-student-turned-poseur. He'd probably taken this job because it meant
he'd have the chance to torture the daughters of all the deep-pocketed classmates who had never accepted him into their inner sanctum. And torture them he did. He smiled when they cried. Laughed in the face of their desperation.

Smirked . . . all . . . the . . . time. “It's not fair, me being here for twenty years,” Ariana said slowly, stating the obvious. Stating the point she'd made four thousand times before.

“Twenty years to life,” he corrected, his blue eyes taunting. “I don't think about that,” Ariana said, averting her gaze again. Outside the window, the lake glinted in the summer sun. A lone sailboat sliced across the window frame and disappeared.

“About what?” he asked. “The life part?”

He sat forward now. Interested. “Yes,” Ariana said. “It's unacceptable.”

That was when Dr. Meloni laughed. Not just his usual amused chuckle, but a big, hearty, guttural laugh. Ariana tried not to cringe. She reached up and casually ran both hands through her soft, chin-length blond hair, securing it to the nape of her neck with an alligator barrette. She waited patiently for him to stop, curling her toes inside her state-issue white sneakers. It used to be that she would grab her own arm when she was tense, letting her fingernails cut into the flesh. Then one day last year Dr. Meloni had noticed this habit and pointed it out to her like he was oh so insightful. She hadn't done it in his presence since.

“Unacceptable,” he repeated.

She looked him in the eye, her gaze unwavering. “Yes.” “You do realize you killed someone,” Dr. Meloni said, in the tone adults use when scolding naughty children.

Ariana blinked, just barely betraying her internal flinch.

Thomas's blood. Thomas's blood. Thomas's blood.
Just like that, she saw it on her hands. Under her fingernails. In her hair. She had made them chop it all off when she was waiting for trial and hadn't let it grow past her chin since. All that blood . . .

No.
She mentally wiped it away. Gone. Back to the present. She focused in on Meloni's quote-of-the-day calendar. Today, for the twenty-ninth of June, was a Molière quote: “The greater the obstacle, the more the glory in overcoming it.” Not a bad point.

“Yes. I do realize I killed someone,” Ariana said, in a tone
she
reserved for idiots.