The Secret (Boston's Best 1)

Chapter Nineteen

Maddie

I walk up to Matt's jeep and reach for the handle of the back of the car but Matt pulls my hand away. "You don't need to sit in the back. Yo, D, get out!"

"No, no, it's fine, I can sit in the back of a car."

Alex steps out of the driver's side –which I still haven't gotten used to being on the left– and opens the backdoor. He bows at me, "Well then, after you m'lady."

I laugh and bow my head at him, "Thank you, good sir."

I step up into the jeep and sit in the middle seat beside Felix and Alex hops in beside me. Matt gets into the driver's seat and Darius is sitting on the passenger side.

"Hey," I say to them.

Felix waves. "Bonjour."

"Howdy," Darius turns around. "How come Matt's giving you a ride?"

I turn to him. "I was about to be stranded there and he offered to drive me back."

"Would Brooke or Penelope not have been able to get you home?" Alex asks.

"It's complicated. Plus they were drinking so that's never good."

He nods, "Right."

We all sit in silence except for the late-night radio show in the background for a few minutes until I ask where we're going.

Matt answers, "It's late so I'm just gonna drop everyone home. Alex first because he's in West Roxbury, then we go across to Felix in the Seaport District, then across again for Darius in Beacon Hill, then myself in Charlestown." He looks back at me. "Where do you live again, so that I'm able to drop you off?"

"Oh, I'm in the West End."

"Okay, you last then."

"So, Maddie, you're still a mystery to us all. Tell us about yourself." Darius asks.

Alex jabs my side. "Yeah, leprechaun. Give us all your dirty little Irish secrets."

Dirty little secrets. That's hilariously accurate.

"Nope, none of them." I laugh, "But I guess, ehm...I play Gaelic football, soccer, and I draw a bit too I guess. I've gotten into MIT and I want to be a scientist. Nothing more to me, pretty boring."

"Wait, hold up. How come I didn't know you were super smart, like MIT smart? You've been holding out on me, Mads." Alex questions.

Felix shakes his head at him, "Hermano, she literally does all AP classes and her GPA is nearly 5. We've a;ready had a conversation about this. Are you seriously that dumb?"

He slowly nods his head, "Right. Of course. Still, MIT is for insanely smart people, like Evelyn."

"Oh, well Evelyn did get in actually. For an aerospace engineering course. And I for molecular genetics. And actually my best friend Aébhin got in too, for mechanical engineering."

Darius' eyebrows raise, "Jesus, and we all thought we were smart by getting into BC, and here y'all are gettin' into bloody MIT."

Alex scoffs, "Speak for yourself. I'm a Tufts man now."

"Oh, how fancy." I laugh.

We all talk and laugh for the next 10 minutes until the car pulls to a stop outside of a bungalow and Matt says, "Here we are Mr Walker. Your palace awaits you."

He jumps out of the jeep and I slide over to sit where he was. He grabs my hand and kisses the back of it. "T'was a pleasure, Your Majesty."

I hold back my laughter. "Thank you, dear peasant."