(What follows was first sent to newsletter subscribers in the spring of 2019.)
It’s hard to believe it’s been so long since Not If I Save You First was released and you all met Logan and Maddie! (I heart them so much.)
Well, needless to say, as soon as readers got their hands on a book about the president’s son I started getting questions about whether it was Logan’s dad who beat out Preston’s dad in the presidential race in Don’t Judge a Girl By Her Cover.
Sure, I thought! Absolutely. Yes.
Then I threw down a challenge on my Twitter and Instagram pages: if Not If I Save You First could get to X number of reviews on Amazon and Barnes & Noble (the number of reviews a book has really helps people find it) then l would write a crossover scene where the Gallagher Girls meet Maddie and Logan.
Then…life happened. Or, more specifically, my new book happened (more on that coming soon), and I’m just now getting around to writing it.
Why was it so hard? Well…
I don’t remember exactly what happened in Don’t Judge a Girl By Her Cover. Or, heck, even Not If I Save You First. And to fit everything into the same timeline and keep everything consistent I’d really need to re-read everything and do a lot of work, and I just didn’t have time.
And then I said to heck with that. I’m just going to write it for fun!
A DISCLAIMER: the following IS NOT CANNON.
It probably won’t make sense if you think about it too hard and long.
It’s probably full of typos.
But it will hopefully be fun for you anyway.
COVERT OPERATIONS REPORT
At the start of her Junior year at the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women, Operative McHenry was locked on a roof, tossed down an elevator shaft, and almost kidnapped.
She was also super annoyed about all of the above things.
As a result, Operatives Sutton, Baxter, and Morgan vowed to never let Operative McHenry out of their sights and began a three-person rotating surveillance operation that, unfortunately, wasn’t exactly “Secret Service Sanctioned.”
The Operatives were informed that “the Secret Service and didn’t need their help.”
The Operatives were also fairly certain that the Secret Service was wrong.
“Peacock is moving.”
I heard my aunt’s words and watched the way her eyes scanned the hallways and corridors. I felt the air change as we moved farther from the open doors and the crisp autumn air and deeper into the bowels of the student union of this midwestern college. I went to one of the most exclusive schools in the world, and—not to brag—subterranean tunnels and I were super well acquainted, but that place felt different.
Maybe it was the people flanking us in dark suits.
Maybe it was the political-consultant-approved blue dress that Macey was wearing under protest.
But more than likely it was the memory of the last time Macey had been in a place like this, surrounded by people like this. It had ended with a broken arm (her’s), a concussion (mine), and about a billion questions that even the best spies in the world didn’t quite know how to answer.
“You’re fine,” Aunt Abby whispered. “The good thing about this new ‘Two on Two’ debate is that there are four Secret Service details here tonight, Cam. No one’s trying anything here.” She gave a meaningful look at the back of Macey’s head as she walked ten feet ahead of us, too-stiff beside Mrs. McHenry. “If we can keep her from killing her mother, we’re golden.”
It was supposed to be a joke, but I didn’t much feel like laughing.
“Well, I suppose this is where I leave you,” Macey’s mother was saying when Abby and I caught up. Two agents were up ahead, ready to lead Mrs. McHenry to the audience and the cameras and the spotlight. “You stay here. They’ll bring you on stage afterward.”
“I know,” Macey muttered.
Her mother adjusted the scarf Macey was using as a sling for her broken arm. “Yes. Good. But…maybe we should have gone with the red. We want it to pop on camera. Intern!” her mother cried and a harried-looking young woman stumbled forward. “We need—”
“The scarf is fine, Mother. I don’t even need a sling anymore. Or a cast.”
But her mother gasped as if Macey’s healing arm was the most top-secret thing in a world that I knew for a fact was full of top-secret things.
“The cast polls, Macey McHenry. The cast stays. At least until after the debates.”
Then Mrs. McHenry turned and left us alone. Or so I thought. I was wrong.
“Macey!” I turned at the sound of the familiar voice. “And Cammie! Hey!” Preston pulled me into a hug then awkwardly reached for Macey which was double-awkward because 1. Scarf Sling and 2. Pretty much everything Preston Winters did was awkward.
“Hi,” Macey said, pushing into the room full of couches and bad food and bottled water. A long row of televisions showed the empty stage and the various talking heads from the news channels covering the debates.
“How are you, Preston?” I asked. He looked at Macey’s arm.
“Better. Okay. Good.” He blushed a little. “Come in. Welcome to the daycare.”
“What do you—”
“He’s talking about us. Aren’t you, Preston? He’s funny,” a little voice said then I saw the girl attached to it. “You’re funny,” she told Preston then studied Macey and me. Her mouth fell open. She actually gasped. “You were on the girls on the roof!”
In all the coverage after the attack in Boston, there were only ever vague references to a roof and there were never any references to me.
“Mad Dog!” a man barked from the doorway.
The little girl spun to look at the man who was tall and lean and had a Joe Solomon-esque presence about him. “Yeah, Dad?”
“Leave Miss McHenry alone. I’m sure she and her friend don’t want to talk about Boston.”
She saluted. “Copy that.” Which kind of sounded like Joe Solomon. Which was kind of hilarious considering she was wearing sequined Mary Janes and couldn’t have been over four and half feet tall.
“You good, Rascal?” the man called, and for the first time I realized there was a boy on the sofa behind us.
“Yes, sir,” Rascal said and the Secret Service agent slipped away.
The little girl, however, kept staring at me.
“Who are you?” She had big eyes and curly hair and she was looking at me like she didn’t know that I was the girl people were supposed to not notice. If anything, this little girl looked like she noticed everything.
“Hi. I’m Cammie. I go to school with Macey.”
“I’m Maddie Rose Manchester and you should put baby powder on your feet when you wear new shoes–keeps them from blistering.”
“How’d you know my feet are blistered?” I asked.
“I dunno. Just do. Have you met Logan?”
I knew who the little boy was—the other party’s Preston. One way or the other, one of them was going to be First Son when this thing was over, but they both slumped on the couch, awkward and alone, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that neither wanted the job.
“Hi, Logan,” Macey said to the boy, who stood and shook her hand like he was a boy-shaped man. It made me like him.
“Hello. I hope you’re feeling better.”
“I am,” Macey said.
“This is Cammie,” the little girl—Maddie—told him. “She’s Macey’s friend and she has new shoes and she’s related to one of Macey’s agent’s just like I’m related to one of yours.”
I spun on her. “How did you know that?”
She shrugged again. “I dunno. The lady with the dark hair, is she your mom?”
“My aunt,” I said.
“Cool. Ooh. Tiny cheese cubes,” Maddie said and then got distracted by the table of food.
Macey and I watched her go, amused and a little bit intrigued, so we followed.
“Hey, Maddie,” Macey asked, “do you know what room number this is?”
“Thirty-seven S, but the S stands for sublevel, not for South.”
“When you came in, do you remember what turns you took?” I asked.
She plopped a piece of cheese in her mouth. “Left. Right. Right. Down six steps. Immediate left.”
“Which member of Rascal’s detail is left handed?” Macey asked.
“Charlie,” Maddie said. “He used to be on your detail. Until Boston. But he’s okay now. Still left handed, though,” she finished with a laugh.
For a moment, Macey and I stood, a little breathless, wondering if someone had shrunk Joe Solomon and put him in a wig and shiny shoes.
“What’s your boyfriend’s name?” Maddie said, looking up at me.
“I don’t have a boyfriend,” I said. Maybe just a touch too quickly.
“You’re lying,” the girl said, grinning.
“No I’m not,” I blurted which, okay, wasn’t the most covert move in the world, but there was something about the way she looked at me. Like she wasn’t looking—she was seeing. It’s a difference every spy lives and dies by—something the Gallagher Academy spent years teaching and perfecting and honing to a high gloss by the time we turn eighteen.
But this little girl…
“How old are you?” Macey asked.
“Nine and three quarters.”
This little girl was a natural.
“Where do you go to school?” I asked. Might as well do a little recruiting while I was at it.
“With Logan,” she said.
“I think maybe my aunt needs to talk to your dad about sending you to our school when you’re a little older,” I said.
“I can’t do that.” For the first time, she sounded flustered. “I go to school with Logan. He’s my friend.”
“You’d make so many new friends at our school,” Macey said, but Maddie looked up at her, big sad eyes that saw too much.
“Logan wouldn’t.”
Then we looked back at the boy on the sofa. His dark hair was still wet and the part was too straight—like someone had taken a scalpel to his hair but his hair was rebelling, trying to break free.
He and Preston had a deck of cards and when Logan tried to shuffle the cards flew loose and free and everywhere.
She looked at me like I was the one who hadn’t really understood. And I hadn’t. Not until she said, “I’m with Logan. Whatever school he goes to, I go to.”
“So you’re his one-woman Secret Service detail, is that it?”
“No. I’m his everything.” She gave a little shrug. “He just doesn’t know it yet.”
So we ate cheese and played cards and when the debate was over someone came and dragged Macey, Preston, and Logan on stage and Maddie and I watched from the wings.
After the waving was over, her father came to lead Logan and Maddie away, but I couldn’t stop from calling out, “Hey, Mad?”
“Yeah, Cam?”
“The Gallagher Academy. Roseville, Virginia. There might come a day when you need me. If that happens, go there. Tell them you’re a walk in.”
And for the first time she looked at me like maybe she didn’t already see everything.
“Gallagher Academy. Roseville, Virginia. Walk in.”
And then she walked back down those dark, twisty tunnels and out into the cool night and I wondered if I’d ever see her again, but I didn’t wonder if she’d be okay.
Maddie Rose Manchester might never go to the Gallagher Academy for Exceptional Young Women, but she was one of us. And whatever life might throw at her, there wasn’t a doubt in my mind, she’d be ready.
