A/N: Just a one-shot I did in order to flesh out Kitty and Leah, who were introduced in my drabbles, as well as a few of their friends and bandmates. Centers around flute section leader Katharine "Kitty" Pennington, because apparently everyone wants her. ;)

Reason #7 – The Rebound Girl

"So I hear you're single."

Kitty rolled her eyes, slamming her locker shut and spinning on her heel. She walked briskly down the hall toward her next class, chemistry, hoping he'd get the message and leave her alone. Of course, that was too much to hope for. She heard his hurried footsteps as he rushed to catch up with her.

"And I hear you just got dumped by your girlfriend the other day," she shot over her shoulder, when it was obvious he wasn't giving up.

"So?"

"I'm not going to be your rebound girlfriend, Adam," Kitty said with a sigh, never breaking her stride. A couple people had to jump out of the way to avoid her – a difficult feat in the too-crowded halls of the new Southmore Hill High.

"I can't even get a pity date?" Adam asked, pouting.

"No." The chemistry room was in sight. Kitty sped up, walking at speeds she hadn't known were possible.

"Is it because I'm not in band?"

Safe! Kitty ducked into her classroom, poking her head out for just a moment. "Goodbye, Adam," she said decisively.

Reason #6 – Like a Brother

There were only a few friends Kitty had carried with her all the way through her school years. Most of her friends had, at some point, moved away or transferred school. Others had simply drifted in their own directions. At the beginning of her senior year, Kitty had just three of her kindergarten friends left: her best friend Leah, Leah's boyfriend Curtis, and Foster, the guy she loved – like a brother.

Yes, like a brother. The words every guy dreaded to hear. But it was true. Not having a brother of her own (she had a slew of sisters, and even a couple brother-in-laws, but no brothers), Kitty had always thought of Curtis and Foster as her brothers. She had always assumed that was the type of relationship they'd had. And she'd always been closer to Foster; especially after Curtis and Leah started dating way back at the end of eighth grade (had it really been that long?). But somewhere during their sophomore year of high school Foster's feelings for her had changed from strictly platonic to something else entirely. Not that he had said it in so many words, but his whole demeanor when he was around her changed. Leah and Curtis had noticed it too. He laughed a little too loudly at her jokes. He couldn't seem to stop touching her, whether it was something innocuous like a hand resting on her arm or something a little more intimate (he was fond of giving her backrubs). He always begged to sit next to her on the long, frequent bus rides their band took – and since Leah and Curtis always sat next to each other she didn't have much choice.

"Would it really be so bad?" Leah had asked once. "Dating Foster, that is?"

It wouldn't, Kitty supposed. Foster was a sweet kid. He'd never been anything but courteous to her, except for when he teased her about silly things as friends who had been friends too long often did. He was handsome enough; she knew there were other girls in the school with crushes on him. He was intelligent and funny. And, obviously, he cared about her. She could do far worse than Foster.

But there just wasn't that spark there that she had felt with other boys. He was like her brother.

And so, when he finally plucked up the courage to ask her to the first dance of the school year, she had to tell him no. She had honestly meant to end it there – to shoot him down so thoroughly that he would know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that they were just friends. The best of friends, of course, but nothing more. Never more.

The look on his face when she said no, though, broke her heart. As much as she wanted him to know she wasn't interested in dating him, she couldn't bear to hurt him more than was absolutely necessary. Instead of giving him the speech she had been planning out in her head all year, she mumbled an excuse about having prior plans to go visit her one of her sisters, who lived out of town. Then she rushed off, mentally kicking herself for leaving him with false hope for yet another day.

Reason #5 – That Lie You Told

With two days until the first dance of the year, the cafeteria was abuzz with gossip about who was taking who and who had turned down whom; standard high school fare, in other words. The freshmen were the most excited, it being their first high school dance ever. The seniors – such as Kitty and her friends, who had been through this three times already – were decidedly less so. The topics at their table were less gossipy and more mundane: classes, teachers, and the senior project they all had to pass.

At least, until the very cute (and very single) assistant percussion captain came along, practically shoving Foster out of the way in order to sit next to Kitty.

"Heya, Kitty," he said, ignoring Foster's protests.

"H-hi, Scott," she replied, tripping over her words in an effort to get them out quickly. She brushed a few strands of her long black hair out of her face.

"Listen, I know it's last-minute and all," Scott began nonchalantly, "but I heard you didn't have a date to the dance on Friday." He looked at her inquisitively; she nodded in confirmation. "Well, I happen to find myself dateless as well-" Kitty couldn't imagine why or how that happened; Scott seemed to have girls falling all over him, "-and so I was wondering if maybe you wouldn't mind if we were dateless together."

Kitty grinned, beaming. She felt a little lightheaded. Scotty King, asking me to the dance! Who would have thought? "Scott, I'd love to-"

"Aren't you going to your sister's this weekend?" Foster asked pointedly, poking his head out from behind Scott.

She came crashing abruptly back to earth. Of course. The excuse she had given Foster when she turned him down for the dance. There was no way she could accept Scott's invitation now – not without admitting to Foster she'd lied, anyway.

"That's what I was about to say," she said, her grin now feeling very forced. "I'd love to go with you, Scotty, but I'm going to be out of town this weekend visiting my sister."

"I already asked her," Foster added, giving Scott a dirty look. Thankfully, Scott was facing Kitty and didn't notice.

"Man, that's too bad," Scott said, ignoring Foster. He put his hand on her arm as he stood to leave. "Maybe next time, then."

"Yeah. Next time." She watched him leave, seething inwardly about both her own stupidity and Foster's obsession with her.

"I don't like him very much," Foster told Kitty as he scooted over to reclaim his spot next to her.

Kitty didn't like Foster much at that moment.

Reason #4 – We Already Tried That

Once you've been in band with the same people for years, you end up dating a lot of the eligible members, even in a band the size of the Forest Hill band. Kitty was no exception. She'd dated most of the (male) section leaders, both past and present; the majority of the (again, male) trombone players, both bassoonists, a few percussionists, and even the odd male clarinet. Of course, most of that had been during her freshman year, when "dating" meant holding hands and sitting next to each other on the band bus. Those relationships rarely lasted more than a week.

She was hoping that with the school expanding to take in the kids from Bishop Southmore that there might be an influx of new eligible guys. But Bishop Southmore had been a small school, and their band had been a small band. Most of the members kept to their groups of friends they had had before the merge, and her attempts to chat up some of the cuter guys hadn't gone over as well as she had initially hoped, leaving the pool of guys as small as ever. Unless, of course, she looked to the new freshmen – but what senior girl in their right mind dated a freshman?

Even more taboo than dating a freshman, though, was dating someone she had already dated. She had always shook her head in confusion at the couples who broke up and got back together and broke up and got back together and broke up and… well, you get the idea.

So when Ryan blocked her path after band one day, she just sighed, readying her response. She had "dated" Ryan early in her freshman year – he was one of the many trombone players that she had called boyfriend at one point or another.

"Hey Kitty, you're-"

"No, Ryan, sorry," she said, moving to step around him.

"You didn't even let me finish!" he said, indignant.

"I didn't need to. I have to get to class." Kitty tried to step around him again but he matched her moves.

"But I just wanted to ask you if you wanted to go to-"

"Ryan, what part of 'no' don't you understand?" she snapped.

"Can I at least get a reason why?"

"Because we already dated freshman year."

He stared at her, slack-jawed. She took that opportunity to maneuver around him and take off down the band hall.

"But that hardly even counted! It was only for a week!" he called after her, once his wits returned to him. It was too late. The door had already swung shut behind her.

Reason #3 – A Rivalry As Old As Time… Okay, Not Quite

"Don't look now, Kitty, but I think that guy over there is checking you out," her friend Gabrielle said, nudging Kitty with her elbow.

Kitty looked. "Which guy?"

"Yeah, which guy?" Foster echoed, looking around.

"Didn't I just say 'don't look?'" Gabrielle asked, amused. She pointed discreetly in the direction of one of the corner tables. Kitty turned in her seat, scanned the table… and sighed. She turned back to her friends without even bothering to figure out which guy was "checking her out," a look of annoyance on her face.

"What? I thought he was kind of cute," Gabrielle said with a shrug.

"It has nothing to do with how cute he is," Kitty said. She lowered her voice conspiratorially. "Those are the choir kids."

Half of her friends – Leah, Curtis, and Foster among them – got very somber-faced. The others just looked confused. "So?" Gabrielle asked, speaking for the confused half.

"Band kids don't date choir kids," Leah said matter-of-factly.

"It'd be like a cat dating a dog."

"A Husky fan dating a Cougar fan."

"A Hatfield dating a McCoy."

"Didn't that actually happen?" someone asked.

"Yeah, and then they all started killing each other."

"Point being," Curtis said, "band kids and choir kids are rivals. Period. End of story. Anyone who tries inter-dating is going to be in a world of trouble with both groups."

"You might want to tell him that, then." Gabrielle motioned to the table of choir kids. One of the guys had gotten up and was making a beeline for their table.

"He must be one of the new Bishop Southmore kids," Leah said.

"Don't care who he is, I'm out." Kitty stood, gathering her books and grabbing her tray, then ducking through the lunch crowd hoping to lose him. Gabrielle watched her go.

"You band kids are weird."

Reason #2 –Dating Your Underlings is Sort Of a No-No

Ever since the beginning of the year, the flute section hadn't been able to stop talking about one of their newest members. In the previous year, the Forest Hill band had had twenty flutes and piccolos. After the influx of new freshmen and the merge with Bishop Southmore (the school had burned down, displacing hundreds of students), the band had thirty-three flutes and piccolos. Out of those thirty-three students, one stood out as not only a curiosity but as the reason for the sharp spike in giggling among an already giggly section – a cute, straight, male flute player. He was a junior named Matthew and was one of the new students from Bishop Southmore. Nearly every single one of the flute players was madly in love with him.

Unfortunately for them, he only had eyes for Kitty. Unfortunately for him, Kitty didn't date her underlings.

Kitty was the flute section leader. In her years before being section leader, she had watched one too many section leader/subordinate relationships degenerate into full-out section warfare. It was always a terrible situation for everyone involved – the ex-couple, the section, the band. And so, when she was offered the sacred role of section leader (to the biggest section in the band, no less) she vowed to be responsible at all costs. Which meant not dating the other flute players; not that she had expected that to be a problem before Matthew came along.

And now that he had come along, she was finding it hard to want to keep that vow. He was cute and funny. He had great taste in movies – all four of the movies he had asked her to were movies she had been dying to see. He was obviously either very serious about dating her or just way too stubborn to admit a girl might not want to date him or both.

There were days when Kitty just wanted to drop the responsible act and say screw it all and accept one of his near-daily proposals. But of course, she couldn't let herself do that. Responsibility was her middle name, after all. (Well, actually, it was Renee, but that was hardly the point.) So Fun Kitty flirted with him and teased him and unintentionally led him on, but Responsible Kitty always turned him down.

Reason #1 – Two Words: Trumpet Ego

If Kitty had learned one thing for sure in her seventeen years of life, it was that male trumpet players thought way too highly of themselves. She could tell by the way they walked and talked and interacted with people that they were positive the sun revolved around them and that every girl they glanced at would fall helplessly at their feet.

Which would explain why the trumpet player she had just turned down was staring at her like she had just sprouted six new arms from her head or fit a whole watermelon into her mouth.

"But… why not?" he asked, sounding genuinely confused.

"Because I don't date people with egos so big they can't fit them in the state, Justin."

"But… but…." Justin seemed to really be at a loss for words. "I play trumpet!" He finally said, sounding triumphant.

"Yes, Justin, I know," Kitty told him, reaching up to pat his cheek. "And that's why it could never work between us."

Reason #0 – Throwing Reasons Out the Window

Sometimes, reason just doesn't do you any favors.

When a freshman boy had ended up, accidentally, at her lunch table one day, she had laughed and invited him to sit with them. She found out his name was Trent Wilson, and that he played French horn in the freshman band. (Kitty had always rather liked French horn players. They weren't nearly as egotistical as trumpet players, and their instruments sounded so mellow.) He was excitable and talked faster than anyone she'd ever met and he had them all in stitches by the time the bell rang to signal the end of lunch. The next day he was gone, eating lunch with his usual group, but the day after that he was waiting at their table when they got there. Trent alternated between the two tables for a couple weeks, until finally Kitty and Leah told him to just bring his friends to their table – they had plenty of room. The freshmen, with the exception of Trent, were all but silent the first week or so, intimidated by the seniors. But Trent's easy familiarity caused them to warm to the older students, and soon they were all chatting like old friends.

Trent was adorable, Kitty admitted to herself (and only to herself; she didn't need Leah or her other friends knowing she was a mental case). He had kind of floppy red hair that stuck out every which way and a face full of dark freckles. He was short for a guy, standing not much taller than Kitty – but then he probably hadn't hit his growth spurt yet. Foster had been shorter than Kitty for years and now he towered over her. He was also somewhere in between looking baby-faced and mature, an endearing combination.

She wasn't the only one charmed by him, she knew. It was obvious to her that one of the freshman girls he was friends with thought the world of him. She always sat on his other side (he had taken up sitting next to Kitty, for reasons she couldn't quite figure out) and was always sitting as close to him as she could. The girl, Mia, was very pretty, too – thin and willowy, with white-blonde hair and blue eyes and a dimpled smile. It didn't seem like Trent paid much attention to her, though; at least no more attention than he paid any of his other friends. He always seemed much more focused on Kitty, and she could never figure out why. Her darker features seemed rather plain next to the bright and attractive Mia.

It was Leah who first brought up the possibility that Trent had a crush on her. Kitty had practically laughed in her face. Leah had been annoyed. Hey, don't shoot the messenger. I'm just calling it like I see it. That kid's nuts about you.

Foster had brought it up next, but she just chalked it up to jealousy. He never did like it when a guy claimed more of her attention than he did, and Trent had definitely gotten her attention.

But when Curtis – Curtis, of all people – started teasing her about her "new boyfriend," she realized that somewhere along the line she must have missed something. Or maybe she just hadn't been looking hard enough to begin with. When she started looking, really looking, she couldn't understand how she had missed it. He was head over heels for her. And even more shocking – at least to Kitty – she felt the same way about him.

She had always thought it would be silly to date a freshman at her age. He was over three years younger than her. And what would happen when she went to college? But she was slowly realizing that all the rules and regulations she imposed on herself were getting her nowhere. She hadn't had a boyfriend or even gone on a date in over a year, despite being asked multiple times. All of her arbitrary guidelines hadn't done her any favors.

And so one day after lunch Kitty threw all her reasons to the wind (including the one about always making the boys do the asking) and dragged Trent down a side hall and asked him if he wanted to go see a movie that night. She was rewarded with a grin that split his face in two and lit up his hazel eyes. He let out an exuberant, "YESSSS!" before realizing that he was being asked out by an older girl and had to keep it cool or she'd change her mind. Trying his best to keep it cool, he asked if they could meet at the mall at five, and she nodded wordlessly. Then, before she could talk herself out of it, she gave him a quick kiss on the cheek and rushed off down the hallway – only to realize moments later that she was taking the equivalent of the scenic route to her calculus class.

At least it gave her time to get the giggles bubbling inside her under control before class started.

A/N: For the record, I love trumpet players. One my closest friends is a guy trumpet player and I love him to death; he's one of my favorite people ever. I was just playing on stereotypes a bit for the sake of the story. At midnight you start running out of reasons not to date someone. ;)