Authors Note—

I know I SAID that this wasn't going to up for awhile but… here it is! I know it's short but I'm on spring break so more of this story and others (I'm working on RS, WP and TUP currently) so more will come soon!

Oh. I'm changing ages AGAIN because it works better this way for the story. Ty: senior (in TP he was a junior) and Amy is a junior in this one. Sorry for the confusion but I won't change them again!! And I'm too lazy to see if I gave Brad's law firm a name in TP so it's getting one here.

Aaaaaaaaannnnndddd… this chapter is for Kels for being awesome… alright, and for agreeing to update Snapshot if I started the sequel… :) love ya!!

SO…. REVIEW!!

-Steph

Disclaimer: honestly, I didn't own TP. So put two and two together and I don't own the sequel either! If you want cold, hard proof that I don't own it though go read Beyond the Horizon… actually, save your time… read this instead! Just know I don't own the characters or whatever Lauren Brooke owns.

THE RIDGE

Chapter 1: Prisoner

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

"I don't know what to tell you anymore, Ty," Coach Andrews said with a shake of his balding head.

Ty stared at his coach from his careless position in the chair opposite the coach's desk in the back of the locker rooms. "Hmm," he said in a bored voice.

"The team really benefited from your leadership last season," Coach Andrews continued, "but you have not shown up for practice in the past two weeks. Your attendance has been spotty at the best all year. You've even missed a couple games. Ty, if you can't commit yourself to this team then I need to know now," the middle aged coach said seriously.

Ty blinked once and shook his hair out of his eyes. "Then count me off," he said in the same bored tone.

Coach Andrews sighed and leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest. "Are you sure this is what you want, Ty?"

"Yes."

Coach Andrews sighed again, his mind scrambling for something that would convince the boy in front of him to stay on the team. But one look at the bored look on Ty's face caused all such thoughts to vanish. "Alright," he said slowly. "I'm sorry it's has to come down to this, Ty."

"Uh huh."

"Well I suppose you can go then, Ty," Coach Andrews said rather sullenly.

Ty slowly got out of the chair and lazily began to walk to the door. Coach Andrews watched the retreating form of his previous quarterback and thought of one last thing that might convince Ty against the decision he had just made clear to the coach.

"Oh, Ty, hold on a moment."

Ty stopped and turned back around to look at Coach Andrews. "Yeah?"

"You know I'll have to be letting the recruitment offices at Arizona State know you're not playing anymore."

"Yeah," Ty said without a pause.

"You won't get the scholarship," Coach Andrews pointed out patiently.

"Yeah," Ty said again.

"You have a great opportunity to go to a highly regarded school and to play college football on a very good team."

"Yeah."

Coach Andrews nodded, finally seeing that he wasn't getting through to Ty. "Well, I'm sorry, Ty."

"Yeah," Ty said once again, edging towards the door once more.

"Bye, Ty," Coach Andrews said.

"Yeah, bye," Ty said and this time he couldn't get out of the office fast enough.

--

-

--

-

--

Saturday, May 26, 2007

Ty had had better days.

He should have been having a great day. He was eighteen which technically meant that he could do whatever he wanted since he was now an adult. Unfortunately, his parents seemed to have other ideas. Brad and Jane believed that while Ty still lived in their house that he would be treated like a child and not an adult. Perhaps if he had acted more like an adult, they had reasoned, they could treat him like one.

Ever since he had dropped off of the football team at Scottsdale Academy in the fall and the partial scholarship he'd had to attend ASU in the coming fall had fallen through, his parents had stuffed him into Brad's law firm everyday after school.

It was his ninth month on the job and he'd been ready to leave after the first hour. He wasn't into photocopying papers and running messages around from one side of the building to another like some of the other interns were. He wasn't even an intern. Ty liked to figure himself more as a prisoner. Though, he never did lose the joy he felt at tormenting the three nerdy interns that worked with him.

They made it seem as though hand carrying a note to a lawyer on the fifth floor was an honor equivalent with the same glory as carrying the Olympic Torch.

The interns were John, Mary and Katherine. He didn't quite know which one irritated him more. Was it John and his plastic pocket protector? Mary and her chewing gum? Or Katherine and her incessant hair flipping?

The phone on Ty's right rang and he fixed his emerald eyed glare on it. He let it ring three times (two more rings then it was supposed to have) before he answered it. "Baldwin and Schuller Law," he drawled out.

"Oh yes," an elderly woman's voice came through the receiver and Ty rolled his eyes and sighed as the woman paused too long. "Oh, is Margerie Holten in? This is Henri—"

"One moment," Ty interrupted the woman and pressed the button on the phone that would transfer the call before dropping the phone back on its cradle.

"That was very rude," Mary's snotty, know-it-all voice reached Ty's ears.

"I'll let you know when I care," he said with a concealed sigh. He ran a finger over the blade of a letter opener and contemplated how much damage it could do if it was—

"You shouldn't—" Mary started to continue but Ty stopped her, the letter opener held in his hand.

"Okay, look," he said, pointing the letter opener at Mary like a sword. "Apparently you haven't gotten it yet, but I don't want to be here. I have three weeks left till I'm out of here forever so could you do me the favor and not talk for that long?"

"These are your father's offices," Mary continued, her dull brown eyes wide.

"Fancy that," Ty snorted and threw the letter opener onto the table top.

"You should be honored to be here," John joined the conversation. John's nasally voice had Ty mentally hitting his head on the table in front of him.

"You three seem to cover that role sufficiently enough," he said.

"You know what your problem is, Ty?" Katherine and her psychologists' voice said next.

"Please, enlighten me," Ty swiveled around on his chair and fixed the girl with a glare.

"You have such a negative approach to everything," she said too calmly for Ty's liking.

"She's right," John said.

"Yes," Katherine continued. "If you would just be more open minded about the things around you and not take all of the opportunities you get for granted you could be—"

"You know," Ty interrupted her, his glare now fixed on John once again. He reached across the desk and picked up the letter opened again. He taped the weak blade against the wooden tabletop and seemed deep in though. "I wonder how far this," he held up the letter opener, "could be shoved up your stuck-up ass."

John looked shocked and, with a brightly flushed face, turned back to the notebook he had been writing in and started scribbling furiously in it. Ty chuckled at the reaction he'd gotten from John.

"You know, Ty," Mary said in what she hoped was a calmly indifferent voice, "it's no wonder you don't have a girlfriend."

"Wrong again," Ty grinned. "I do have a girlfriend, not that it's really any of your business."

"Latest fuck at a party?" Mary wrote something down on the work she had in front of her.

"And wrong again," Ty grinned wider.

"Am I?" Mary sounded doubtful but still didn't look up at Ty.

"Yes. Very."

"How long has this one been around?" John decided it was time to redeem himself. "A week? Less?"

Ty, getting tired of the conversation, glared at John once again and John, though slightly older than Ty, looked back down at his notebook. "Not that it's any of your concern, but about a year actually." Ty stood up and started towards the doors.

"Where are you going?" Mary's shrill voice quipped. "It's not time to leave for another two hours!"

"I have plans, something you three probably don't know the meaning of." With that, Ty left.

He did have plans and he didn't quite feel like canceling them. His parents would be after him later, he knew, but he didn't care. He'd just tell them exactly what they could do with their letter openers.

a/n: rather sucky but that's life. Sorry for the shortness but it IS just to introduce Ty again. Next chapter will have a more detailed and prepared version of the excerpt that was in TP. REVIEW!! -Steph