Disclamer: I don't own Sky High.

Ch. 1: Heat Wave

The first thing Warren Peace noticed when he arrived at work were the wilted plants. He sighed. That meant one of two things. Mrs. Chang's flowers weren't holding up in this drought as well as he thought, or there was a sad Layla Willams nearby. And lo and behold, there she was, looking overly depressed and taking all of Mrs. Chang's flowers with her.

"Hey, Hippie, could you kill the long face? I don't want to have to replant all the flowers you're about to kill."

Laya looked up. "Oh! Sorry!" She forced a smile and the flowers returned to their normal state.

"What's up? You look down." He asked.

Layla shook her head. "It's nothing—I should go…" Warren opened the door to the Paper Lantern before she could finish.

"You almost killing all of Mrs. Chang's plants isn't nothing. It's cooler inside, we can talk in there."

"Okay." Layla agreed, following him inside.

Swinging himself into an empty booth, Warren put on his best psychiatrist face and prepared himself for the onslaught of girlish angst that was about to come.

"What are you making that face for?" Layla asked.

Warren dropped it and snorted. "I was just channeling my inner psychiatrist, that's all. So what's the problem?"

Layla took a deep breath. "You're gonna think this is stupid but, I've been feeling really lonely lately, and summer's just begun…"

Warren stopped her. "Wait, where's everybody else?"

"Will's training with his parents in Nevada or Australia or somewhere, Ethan's at an MIT summer camp, Zach's on vacation with his family in the Bahamas, and Magenta's stowed away in order to escape her family reunion."

"Magenta stowed away on Zach's vacation?"

"Yep. He's gonna be pretty surprised when he finds her in his luggage. So anyway, I decided to come here since you were the only person I knew that was still in town, and you've been working so much I knew I'd find you here…."

That stung. How stupid was he, not even knowing that everyone else had left? Sure he tended to work a lot more during the summer, but had he really been that unreachable? He rolled his eyes. He was definitely going soft.

"….and I thought we could, you know, hang out if you weren't busy?" Layla finished.

"What? Oh, sure. Tomorrow though, I gotta get started on setting this place up now. That cool?"

Layla perked up, and Warren was sure he saw every plant in the restaurant bloom. Thank goodness for the power of multitasking, or else he would have been in huge trouble.

"Do you wanna stay for lunch?" he asked.

"Lunch?" Layla repeated. "Uh, no. I gotta get home, but I'll see you tomorrow. Thanks anyway, Warren." And with that the hippie skipped out the door.

Warren shook his head and started towards the kitchen. He was never going to understand women.