Demanding Ransom by Megan Squires Read Free Book Online

Anthro 101 course, he’d
give me a passing grade, despite my extended absence. My other professors
weren’t so generous, and I had to drop the rest of the courses two months ago
when the accident happened. But I’m grateful to at least have one college
course on my records. It makes this past quarter—and my life in general
lately—seem like less of a monumental waste.
    Mikey mutes the football game blasting
throughout the house, and I hear the front door click open. After a murmured
exchange, Mikey bellows, “It’s for you, Mags!” down the length of the hall.
    Cora texted ten minutes ago saying she’ll head
over in three hours, so I can’t imagine she switched plans without updating me.
She texts me when she changes her nail polish color. If she decided to show up
earlier, I’m sure I’d get a text detailing her change in agenda.
    I slam the lid to the washer and pull at my
ponytail to tighten the rubber band. I probably should have streaked some
makeup across my face this morning, but I never have company. Brian was the
only one to ever show up unannounced, and he’s seen me in a lot less flattering
instances than today’s.
    Like when we decided to test out the college
scene last spring and snuck into a party at the frat house Brian hoped to rush
in the fall. I’d never had anything to drink before that night and haven’t had
the stomach for anything since. I didn’t know that the apparent goal was to get
the underclass girls completely wasted. And since I wasn’t even an
underclassman, more like an under -underclassmen,
I think that rule was doubled for me. At least the two-day headache and
eight-hour toilet bowl worship seemed to indicate that to be the case.
    Brian was a great boyfriend at the time. He did
the whole holding my hair back thing while I purged my body of the ten shots of
liquid that had tasted like motor oil and gasoline going down, and just about
the same coming back up. He was sympathetic: stroking my back to work out the
kinks earned from hunching over the toilet for so long, placing the damp cloth
on my forehead when I started to sweat profusely, and helping me stretch out on
the cool tile floor to lower my feverish body temperature. Brian was always
such a caretaker. Unfortunately, while he did a decent job taking care of my
stomach that night, my heart was one thing he was much less cautious with.
    When he slept with his organic chemistry lab
partner the first week into college, he’d shattered it completely. Like the
past three years together were an obvious exchange for a one-night stand with
the beautifully blonde sorority pledge. She hooked up with his frat brother the
next day, so it didn’t last between them, but I don’t think that’s what he
wanted, anyway. I just think he didn’t want me anymore.
    “Maggie!” Mikey shouts again, this time above
the blast of helmets and pads crashing against one another, the television’s
volume cranked to full power.
    “Coming!”
    I jog down the hall toward the entryway and
pull on the front door, half expecting to see Cora, half deluding myself into
believing it might actually be Brian, but completely unprepared for the
tattoo-clad, motorcycle-helmet wearing body standing before me.
    Ran.
    He lifts his helmet off and shakes out his
hair, tucking the helmet under the crook of his arm at the same time he thrusts
a bouquet of yellow gerbera daisies my direction.
    “Ran?” I mutter, completely baffled by his
presence—albeit incredibly attractive presence—on my doorstep.
“What are you doing here?”
    “I owed you a gift.” Ran waves the flowers
toward me. “You gave me another compliment the other night in the ambulance,”
he smirks, making my already unsteady knees soften. “And like before, this one
can double as makeshift room décor, too.”
    I pull the flowers from his hand, still
speechless, because searching for some sort of appropriate reply is a more
daunting task than the research paper I need to complete this