Megan Meade's Guide to the McGowan Boys by Kate Brian

Megan and I are perfectly normal. So, Megan, do you want a bracelet? I just came up with a couple new styles.”
    â€œYeah, sure. I’d love one,” Megan said.
    â€œGreat!” Pearl reached past Jenna to drop the box of beads in front of her. “Pick some colors.”
    Megan laughed. “Okay. Can I do it after lunch?”
    â€œSure! Absolutely!” Pearl replied.
    â€œSo, Megan, let’s get down to it,” Ria said, leaning her elbows on the table. “How, exactly, did you end up bunking in boy heaven?”
    Megan took a bite of her sandwich. “I wouldn’t exactly call it heaven.”
    â€œOmigod, are you kidding? The McGowan boys?” Aimee said. “They’re like the hotness brigade.”
    Megan laughed and took a long slug of soda. “The hotness brigade?”
    â€œWhat? They are!” Aimee said. “I still can’t believe my sister is dating one of them.”
    â€œPlease. Once those two both won best looking in eighth grade, we all knew they were gonna be swapping saliva sooner or later,” Ria said, digging into her pasta.
    â€œRia!” her friends exclaimed.
    â€œEw,” Aimee added, sticking her finger down her throat.
    â€œSo . . . what?” Ria said to Megan, ignoring the others. “Did you win some contest or something?”
    â€œOur parents are old friends,” Megan explained, flushed over the image of Evan and Hailey swapping spit. “My dad got transferred overseas and I didn’t want to go, so the McGowans offered to let me stay with them.”
    â€œWow. So have you, like, seen any of them naked?” Ria asked.
    Jenna, Aimee, and Pearl were all rapt with attention.
    â€œNo, I have not seen any of them naked,” Megan replied. She looked around and leaned in toward the table. “But I have seen most of them in their boxers.”
    Jenna nearly swooned. “Omigosh. Evan McGowan in his boxers. What was it like?”
    Scary, Megan thought, recalling the major morning hard-on. “It was . . . interesting.”
    â€œEvan McGowan is so perfect,” Pearl said. She paused in her bracelet making and looked off dreamily. “I had my first ever sexual daydream about him.”
    â€œReally?” Megan asked.
    â€œI think most of us did,” Aimee replied. “How could you not? I mean, he’s such a flirt.”
    Megan’s body heat skyrocketed and she put her sandwich down in favor of her soda. “He is?”
    â€œWhat, you haven’t noticed?” Ria asked. “That boy will flirt with anyone, anywhere, anytime. Even the ugly girls.”
    â€œRia!” her friends shouted again.
    Megan forced herself to breathe. Of course he’s a huge flirt, she thought. Did you think you were somehow special? But even as she thought this, she realized that she had. She had thought that his comments and smiles meant something. That they had to mean something.
    â€œWhat? It’s a good thing!” Ria countered, eyes wide. “To have an Adonis like that flirting with the trolls? It’s gotta be good for the self-esteem.”
    Okay, I’m going to smack myself right here, right now, Megan thought.
    â€œSorry. Ria doesn’t realize that not all of us need attention from cute boys in order to have self-esteem,” Jenna said, pushing her glasses up on her nose.
    Megan recalled how giddy and confident she felt whenever Evan joked with her or called her Kicks and felt a wave of shame wash through her. Her feminist mother would be so appalled. But I don’t need his attention, she told herself. I just . . . like it.
    â€œWell, whatever,” Aimee said. “I wish he would quit it already. He’s gonna give Hailey an aneurysm and the rest of my family will suffer the consequences.”
    â€œShe doesn’t like it, huh?” Megan asked, swallowing hard.
    â€œHates it,” Aimee replied, spearing some lettuce out