Title: Black Diamonds

Summary: Ryan makes friends with an African-American student at Harbor.

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to The O.C..

Author's Notes: OK -- apparently I wasn't clear and gave everybody the wrong impression. Sam is not a teen Dad. Maggie is not Sam's baby. Maggie is Sam and Angela's little sister, like I was trying to say in chapter 5. Sam left his old school for the reason that he told Ryan and Seth in chapter 2. I came up with this story long before Ryan was revealed to be a possible teenage father at the end of Season 1. In this chapter you get to meet Maggie, the little sister. I hope everyone is not all disappointed.

Chapter 6

After they finished their snacks in Sam's bedroom, Sam and Ryan took the empty plate and their empty bottles of ice tea and headed downstairs to the kitchen. Sam put the plate in the dishwasher and rinsed out both bottles and put them into the recycle bin.

As they were leaving the kitchen, Ryan heard the little girl before he saw her. This could be none other than the famous Maggie. She was squealing and giggling. He finally layed eyes on her as they turned the corner. She was squirming on her big sister's lap on the couch in the den. It looked like Angela was tickling her.

Ryan wondered where she came from, since obviously Mr. and Mrs. Reese weren't home yet. They didn't for example pick her up at daycare on their way home. He guessed that maybe someone dropped her off while he and Sam were upstairs.

When Ryan and Sam came into sight, Maggie immediately jumped off of Angela's lap and ran over to her brother. "Sammy! Sammy! Sammy!"

Sam laughed and bent down to catch her. "There's my little munchkin!"

He picked her up and spun her around and tossed her in the air. She was laughing and squealing the entire time. Ryan couldn't help but smile. She was the cutest little thing, with her little pigtails flying out on either side of her head.

After a few minutes, Sam plopped himself down on the couch, breathing hard. He pulled his little sister onto his lap and turned her to face Ryan.

"Hey, munchkin, I've got someone for you to meet." He pointed to Ryan.

The girl looked at Ryan with her eyes wide. Sam looked over at Ryan as well. "Hey, man, sit down."

Ryan sat down in the chair next to the couch.

Sam looked back down at his sister. "That's my friend Ryan. Can you tell him your name?"

"I'm Maggie!" She said in a very loud voice for such a little thing.

"And how old are you?"

She held up her hand with her pinky and two middle fingers up. "I'm three!"

Sam tickled her. "That's right, munchkin. Very good!" Maggie giggled.

With a little encouragement, Maggie wiggled off her brother's lap and went over to the chair and stopped in front of Ryan. She just looked at him. Ryan threw a confused look over at Sam.

"She wants you to play with her. You know, like I did."

Ryan looked at Maggie, then back at Sam. "I don't know..."

Angela encouraged him. "Go ahead. It'll be fun."

Ryan shrugged and stood up. He caught hold of Maggie under her arms, like Sam did, and spun her around. She squealed like before. Ryan smiled. Hey, this was pretty fun. He stopped and tossed her up in the air. More giggles and laughter. Ryan found after a few minutes of this, he was out of breath, too. He put Maggie down and dropped back down into the chair.

Angela came over and got Maggie from Ryan, giving him quick sidelong glances, then quickly looking away. Ryan sighed quietly. She still had that crush thing going.

Angela sat back down on the couch, with Maggie in her lap. She started to tickle her. Maggie giggled. "How about that, Maggie! Looks like you've got a new big brother!"

"Angela!"

Ryan didn't understand why Sam was yelling at Angela for that. He got his answer when Maggie looked over at him and started chanting, "My new big brother! My new big brother!"

Sam groaned. Ryan looked over at him. Sam explained, "She's never going to drop that now. She does that -- picks up on something someone says and doesn't let go of it. Watch, from now on, every time you come over, she's going to call you her brother."

Ryan nodded. He thought about what Sam said. Every time you come over. He smiled to himself. That sounded kind of nice, actually. He liked this family. Then he remembered that he hadn't met the parents yet and that sobered him up. He'd have to see how that went before he knew if he'd be coming back.

Ryan hung out with Sam and Angela in the den as they played with Maggie until their parents came home. During this time, the housekeeper Manuela left, telling Sam and Angela that the dinner was ready and warming in the oven.

Sam's parents arrived home together. Ryan wondered if Mrs. Reese still worked at her husband's family business. Probably.

When the teenagers heard the front door, they all got up. Ryan heard a deep male voice coming from the foyer.

"Where are my beautiful children?"

Maggie jumped up and ran down the hallway into her father's arms. "Daddy! Daddy! Daddy!"

Ryan saw Mrs. Reese walking down the hallway towards the den ahead of her husband. They were both dressed in suits.

Sam's mother was a small woman, not much different in size from Summer. In contast to his wife, Mr. Reese was a fairly large man, not huge, not fat, but above average in height and looked to be in good physical shape for his age. Both of them looked older than the other parents that Ryan had seen in Newport. They looked closer to 50 than 40 and Mr. Reese looked like he was several years older than his wife.

When she got to the den, Mrs. Reese approached Ryan. She smiled at him. He found himself smiling back. She had a very nice smile. "You must be Ryan. I'm Gwen Reese. Nice to meet you."

Mr. Reese held out his hand to Ryan. "And I'm Henry Reese. I've heard a lot about you."

As Ryan shook Mr. Reese's hand, he tried to figure out whether there was any hidden meaning in his words. Or if they were supposed to be an insult, like when Julie Cooper said pretty much the same thing when they were introduced before the set up for casino night. But Mr. Reese was smiling, and didn't look like he was trying to insult Ryan, so he decided just to take the words at face value and smile back at the man.

As Sam's mother headed into the kitchen, she asked her teenage children, "Is the dinner ready yet?"

Angela answered, "Manuela left it warming in the oven."

"Great. Thank you, honey. Could you please get Maggie ready? And Sam, could you set the table?"

Angela took Maggie from her father, and Sam started to set the table. Sam's mother took the food out of the oven. Sam's father took off his jacket and tie and got to work moving the chairs around the table to make room for six.

Sam watched Ryan stand aside. He looked a little overwhelmed at all of the activity, but Sam could also see a little smile on his face. He was glad that Ryan was getting along so well with his family. Maggie liked him, Angela liked him -- OK, a little too much. She was still shamelessly flirting with him. Sam was relieved to see that Ryan didn't seem interested. Maybe this friendship thing would work out after all. He was beginning to be glad that his parents suggested he go to Harbor with Angela.

Sam's parents had already told him that they were going to approve him and Ryan being friends, but they hadn't wanted him to tell Ryan because they wanted to do it themselves. The plan was for Sam's Dad to talk to Ryan alone before dinner, then they could have a relaxing dinner. But, looking around, it didn't look like his father was planning on talking to Ryan right away.

Sam hurried to finish setting the table. When he was done, he went over to his father and pulled him aside. "Aren't you going to talk to Ryan now?"

"There's no time. The dinner's ready and we're all hungry. I'll do it after dinner."

"But -- he'll have to go through the entire dinner not knowing. Let me tell him now."

"No, Sam, I'm going to talk to him. After dinner." Sam knew when his father used that tone, it meant to stop arguing with him. So Sam gave up.

When the dinner was all ready to go, it was time to take a seat around the table. Sam's parents were at the ends and Maggie was in her special chair next to their mother. The other three spots were up for grabs for the three teens. Sam looked at Angela and knew what she was thinking. She wanted to be next to Ryan. Sam wanted to avoid that at all costs.

"Angela - why don't you sit next to Maggie? You know she likes it when you reach over and tickle her neck."

Angela glared at him. Sam knew that she caught his threat. Stay away from Ryan or I'll tell Mom you got her necklace out. It worked. she sat down next to Maggie, which left the two chairs on the other side of the table for Ryan and him.

So they all sat down and dug into their dinners. Sam's parents had promised that they wouldn't talk about anything that would make Ryan uncomfortable at dinner, like his past. So they fell into the normal family dinnertime smalltalk -- about their classes and soccer and so on.

Near the end of dinner, Sam's father let Ryan know about their nightly family dinner tradition. "Every night at dinner, we go around the table and each of us says one thing that was interesting or exciting or different that happened that day, or something that he or she learned that day. You don't have to participate if you don't want to, Ryan. It's your choice. All right?"

Ryan nodded.

"OK, why don't we start with Maggie tonight?" At hearing her name, Maggie looked over at her Dad. He spoke gently to her, with a babytalk type of voice. "Honey? What happened today? Did you play? Did you have fun?"

"I got a new big brother!" Maggie pointed at Ryan and giggled.

Sam could see that both of his parents were confused. "It was something Angela said. Ryan was swinging Maggie around like I do. It was a joke. But you know Maggie --"

Both of his parents nodded and laughed a little. Yes, they knew Maggie.

Angela spoke up. "I'm next. The interesting thing that happened today is that Ryan came to dinner!"

Angela gave Ryan a huge smile. She was beaming at him. Ryan blushed a little and looked uncomfortable. Sam scolded her, "Angela!" Maggie laughed.

Sam's father stepped in. "OK, everybody. I think for today, we can all agree that having Ryan over for dinner was everybody's interesting thing of the day. All right?"

Everyone nodded and murmured their agreement.

To Be Continued