Notes: (Previous notes on the chapter when it was first posted...) Alright, apparently some of you liked it! I had a very big conflict this chapter because I was pondering either to make it twice as long as the last chapter and have Damian and Cameron meet by the third chapter, or just keep the writing length semi-consistent.

This would've been eight pages long if I decided on the former, so this is gonna be a really long beginning, sorry guys. I'll try to make up for it!…Somehow. Also: there's going to be many Celtic Thunder cameos in this fic (mentioning right now because the first one makes his appearance in this chappie) and the song Cameron sings is "Your Song". Very much well-known, I know, but I might as well put it in here.


It was a typical family breakfast in the McGinty household. Damian, his mom, and his dad were sitting at a table much too big for just the three of them and the lack of conversation seemed to stretch throughout the entire dining room. His mother was humming some sort of morning tune to start off the day as she ate, and his father was leaning back in his chair, reading the paper.

Damian grabbed a piece of bacon off of his plate and chewed on it lazily. Just like any other morning.

And also like any other morning, it felt as though talking was forbidden at the table.

Suddenly his father whipped his paper down in front of him, making both Damian and his mom look up at the noise. He looked between the two of them and said in a business-like tone, "We have an engagement tomorrow night. I've set up a dinner party."

Damian resisted the urge to roll his eyes at this and tried to maintain an interested front. "Engagement" was his least favorite word to come out of his dad's mouth. It almost always winded down to, "Make a good impression otherwise you've screwed over the family for the next four generations."

"Damian, I'll be sending you to the tailor later today. I want you to look extra special tomorrow," he father said, folding the paper to look at another section.

Damian raised an eyebrow at this. His father look up at him and smiled, taking his curiosity as eagerness. "There are people we're going to meet tonight."

"Who?" his mother asked. Damian could hear the apprehensive tinge in her voice, though his father didn't seem to notice.

"The Knight's," he said. The name made Damian sit up straighter in his seat and his eyes widen, surprise evident. The Knight family owned a multi-billion dollar company, specializing in banking and business. Their company was more than twice as big than his father's own advertisement company.

And Damian liked to think that his dad's company was pretty huge.

The name made his mother react strongly as well. Her jaw dropped and she stared at his father in disbelief. His father seemed happy at the immediate reaction his family gave.

"Yep!" he said in response to the unasked question. "The Knight's. I'm going to be discussing business terms with Mr. Knight, and Damian, they have a daughter around your age as well. I thought you two might get along with each other."

Damian slowly looked down at the table, trying to hide his very obvious displeasure and discomfort at this. Fortunately, no matter how obvious it was, his dad didn't notice it in the slightest.

His mother suddenly nudged him with her elbow. He looked over and she whispered, "Bride's parents get to pay for the wedding, we have nothing to worry about."

Damian chuckled. His father frowned and looked sharply at them, making them both quickly straighten up and look back at him with rapt attention.

"This is serious, you two," he said sternly. "The Knight's are a very prominent and successful family here in California. It would be very beneficial of the company for me to make friends with Mr. Knight."

Damian bit the inside of his cheek, suddenly feeling uncomfortable and already having a good guess of what the next topic of conversation would. He dropped his fork onto his plate with a loud "clank", capturing the attention of both his parents.

"I'll clean up," he said, getting up and starting to pick up the dishes. He had to get out of the room fast, lest he be subject for another lengthy lecture about the "absolute importance of the company to this family".

"Oh Damian, don't be silly, you don't have to do that," his father said, trying to wave him off.

Damian looked at him with his arms full of plates and he smiled. "I insist."

Before he could hear anymore protests, Damian hurriedly walked across the hard-wood floors of the dining room and through the swinging doors of the kitchen. A feeling of accomplishment washed over him, as if he had just beaten a hard level in a video game.

However, as the door swished shut, he overheard his father say to his mom, "The boy has got to stop living like he's poverty, I'm tellin' you—"

"Aaron!"

Damian pretended he didn't hear it as he set the plates down beside the large sink.

At the counter opposite of the sink, the cook had been brushing off a few missed food trimmings. When he heard the clattering of the plates, he looked over his shoulder in surprise but smiled when he saw Damian there.

The cook himself was actually very young, with longer-than-average blond hair and a little scruff on his chin. He looked more like a guy you'd see at rave parties in the middle of the night rather than working as a cook in Beverly Hills.

"Morning Keith," Damian said listlessly as he dropped a plate into the sink and turned on the water.

"Well, fancy pajamas," he said teasingly, turning back around to the counter. "Decided to come down to the working class again, I see."

Damian turned and leaned back against the counter with an unamused look on his face. Keith didn't seem fazed, as he copied the action and looked at Damian with a smug grin on his face. After about five seconds into this, Damian gave up and turned back around. However, he still said over his shoulder, "You have a funny hat."

The smile on Keith's face turned into one of concern as he walked over to the sink alongside Damian. "Something the matter, buddy?" he asked, putting his hands in the sink to run them under the hot water.

Damian didn't answer, instead opting to just continue washing the dish he had in his hands. Keith looked at him for a moment before abruptly slinging an arm over his shoulder, his hand still dripping wet. Damian looked down at it as he felt the water start to soak through to his shoulder. He sighed and set down the dish.

Not bothering to look over at Keith, he said somberly, "Dad's planned a party, tomorrow night…"


"And you can tell everybody, this is your song,

It may be quite simple but, now that it's done…

I hope you don't mind,

I hope you don't—"

"Cam? Cameron." A string on the guitar twanged as Cameron messed up on a chord to look down at the barista who had interrupted. She handed him a note and gestured toward the mic. He nodded in understanding and she smiled and turned to go back behind the counter.

Unfolding the note, he leaned forward towards the microphone and announced, "Excuse me everyone, may I have your attention please."

As usual, there weren't that many people there, however the few that were there turned their heads towards him. He looked down at the note and read, "To the person with the black scooter, your vehicle is getting towed."

He paused as his eyes darted around the restaurant. Nobody got up. "The owner of a black scooter, your vehicle is getting towed," he repeated, a little louder.

He paused again as he stared back at the note in puzzlement. Something suddenly clicked in his head and he practically threw his guitar onto the floor as he jumped off of the stool.

"Oh crap that's mine!" he yelled loudly enough for the entire café to hear even without the microphone.

He ran out the door just in time to see a white, burly man throw his scooter carelessly into the back of a rusting tow truck. Another man, African-American and just as burly as his friend, seemed to be writing something down on a notepad.

"Hey, hey, hey!" Cameron yelled, waving his arms to get there attention. The white one didn't seem to pay him any mind as he opened the driver's side door of the car. Cameron quickly walked over to the one writing on the notepad. He looked up at him for a second, uninterested. That didn't matter to Cameron as he asked angrily, "Why are you taking my scooter?"

"It was parked by an empty meter," the man said, flipping the notepad closed and paying all of his attention to Cameron. Cameron looked over to where he had parked his scooter that morning and, sure enough, there was a shiny parking meter right there.

"When did they install that?" he asked exasperatedly. "I park here everyday!"

"Just last night," the other man replied simply, turning around and walking towards the passenger's side of the truck. Cameron ran in front of him, holding up his hands to get him to stop.

"Wait! J-Just, wait," he said. He let his hands fall to his sides and looked at the man who seemed irritated at more of his time being wasted. "I can't walk home, you have got to give me a break!"

"You know what helps you get places quicker?" the man said, pointing a finger a Cameron. "A car."

He walked right past him and slid into the passenger seat of the tow truck. Cameron got out of the way and stared in disbelief as they drove away with his only source of transportation.

"Well maybe I'd have a car if my job didn't suck so much!" he yelled after them as the truck began to round a corner. "And scooters are better for the environment!"

Later on, that evening, Cameron was sitting at an empty table just as the place was beginning to close. He already felt pretty low, but he didn't let that make him quit halfway through his work day. He'd need the money now to buy his towed scooter. It was fine, he'd just have to carpool for the next couple of weeks to and from work.

"Hey there kiddo, how you doin'?" Cameron looked up from the table to see his boss, Mr. Baum, the owner of Baumer's. He was a very short man, with a balding, sunspot-covered head and squinty little eyes. He pretended to be very nice and intelligent, but as anyone who had ever worked for him would tell you, that wasn't what he was really like at all. He was very cheap, often made very bad business decisions, and was a fan of passive-aggressive comments towards every person who worked under him.

Cameron often wondered at what point at in his life had he sunk so low as to have this man as his boss.

"I'm doing alright, I guess," he said, quirking a little half-smile up at his boss. Mr. Baum nodded for a moment before taking the chair across from Cameron.

"Look, Cam, you know I love you…" his boss started. Cameron's face dropped like a stone. "But, the place isn't doin' too good, y'know, and the recession just makes things so much harder to pay off…"

Mr. Baum shrugged. "We decided to spice the place up a bit. We're puttin' up a karaoke machine on the stage tomorrow."

Cameron looked at Mr. Baum for a moment before laughing like it was a practical joke. "Mr. Baum, that's crazy. Where would I play?"

"That's the part I was getting to," the older man said, shaking his finger at Cameron. He folded his hands in front of him and paused for a moment. "We've…decided to let you go, Cam. I mean, we can't afford to pay for you anymore—"

"You barely pay me in the first place!" Cameron suddenly shouted, standing up abruptly from the table. Mr. Baum held up his hands.

"Now there's no need to get upset—"

"Upset? Upset? Of course I'm gonna be upset, you're firing me right now!"

"Actually it's more like a lay-off—"

"I need this job!" Cameron said desperately, leaning forward on the table. He held up his hands and began counting off his reasons. "I-I have student loans to pay, apartment rent, a girlfriend. My scooter just got towed, you saw that, didn't you?"

"Ain't it about time you got a car anyway?" he asked. Cameron ignored him. He leaned even more over the table and looked right into his boss' eyes.

"Can't you see how much I need this?"

Five minutes later, Cameron stood dejectedly outside of Baumer's, minus a job. He pulled out his cellphone and pressed "4" on the speed dial.

"Cam?"

"Macy? …I need a ride home."


End notes: As I said before; be prepared for a very long beginning and sorry again for that! I swear there is a point to all of this exposition! I still feel iffy about how I'm writing the rest of Celtic Thunder, but I've made them a pretty important part of the story, so I guess there's no turning back. :/. And in this universe, parking meters can be built overnight :D. (Poetic license yay!)