zach was ridiculously fun to write :) he's more articulate than he was in books, mind you, but i'm trying to write him so he maintains his air of enigma? oh and thank you so much for your reviews :) and i'm sooooorry for the wait!

and i've decided to change 'tony' to dillon, so he's not an OC.

[ - macey & cammie's dorm; before the party - ]

"Preston, what honestly made you think green went with orange?" Cammie sighed, shaking her head at the global disaster that was her best friend. "Look at you. You're Times freaking Square. Why do you even own an orange tie?" She stared at the skinny piece of fluorescent fabric hanging around his neck.

Macey overtly snorted as she read a magazine, her sharp eyes occasionally peeking over the edge to look at Preston's ridiculous get-up.

This caused Preston to spaz, and he ungracefully stuttered, "I— well—I mean—I dunno—it was the only tie I had that wasn't part of our uniform!" He started to chew on his lip until Cammie flicked his forehead. "And you know I have red-green colorblindness." This statement made Macey snicker again, and Preston blushed.

"Well, without the tie, I think it looks..." Cammie trailed off. "Um. Passable."

Macey remarked, "That's one word for it." Preston blushed even more, and gave Cammie a pleading look, but Macey stopped paying attention to Preston and glanced at the gold watch around her slender wrist. "It's almost eight, should we go?"

Preston looked miserable.

[ - the 'abandoned' barn; the party - ]

Fact: Gallagher used to be an actual mansion, owned by the woman who invented the word 'femme fatale' - Gillian Gallagher.

Fallacy: Students at Gallagher actually care about the history of their school.

Fact: They do, however, care about the numerous secret passages (the one and only fornication location!), wine cellars (for all your quick-stashing needs), and abandoned barns (where all the good stuff happens). Sure, it's a bit unglamorous, especially considering every civilian within a hundred mile radius considers Gallagher to be full of lazy, bored rich kids, but they try and make with what they have. And if the only near-by, quiet, and rarely used facility on campus is an abandoned barn, then of course on-site parties would be held there.

In fact, if one plays music loud enough, drinks enough alcohol and brings minimal lighting, the abandoned barn almost looks nice.

Hey, spies have to be resourceful.

—

As expected, the second Cammie and Preston entered the barn, Preston turned to Cammie and remarked, "This music sucks." Macey had already left, so he had relaxed and was passing lots of judgments on the party. "Pop rock remixes haven't been cool since, well, ever."

"And you'd obviously know a lot about being cool, right, Preston?" Cammie asked.

"Screw you," Preston retorted maturely.

A huge shadow crossed their paths. "About time, Winters," Dillon said, his greasy voice causing the hairs on the back of Cammie's neck to stand. "How long have you been friends with Morgan, anyway?"

"Too long," Preston mumbled.

Dillon chuckled. "Can I get you a drink?" He asked, this time only speaking to Cammie.

"No," Cammie said. "But you can get out of my way." He laughed again, and graciously stepped off to the side, probably finding some other poor girl to harass. Cammie looked towards Preston. "Pres, alert the media, we've just found the missing link."

"I'd rather alert the media that I can see your new boyfriend helping himself to some punch," Preston grinned, nodding his head towards a few crates on the left side of the barn wall. A bowl and a stack of cups were sitting atop the wooden boxes. Preston waited, and when Cammie didn't reply, he said in an uncharacteristically confident manner, "You should go talk to him."

"I should, shouldn't I?" Cammie said thoughtfully. "And you should take off your shirt in front of Macey, she'd really appreciate that."

Macey had joined Zach at the punch bowl. Preston's eyes darkened with worry. "Or we could go and request some music?" Preston suggested, his voice growing higher with each word, even as Macey walked away, draining her entire punch cup.

Cammie smiled and patted Preston on the back. "I'm so going to win this year," she sighed, before meandering through a crowd of bodies away from Preston, leaving him spluttering and nervous. She strode over to the crates, where the air was incredibly breathable, and a slight breeze floated through a crack in the back door.

Then, she tried to think about how she would approach this. She could say something clever and funny, but she couldn't think of anything to say, and he had already noticed her; his posture was a little tenser than it had been a second ago. She could ask for a cup of the punch, but that was kind of stupid. Finally, Cammie decided to stop 'fluffing around', as her father would say, and take this bull by the horns.

Not that Zach was a bull with horns or anything.

"I'm Cameron," she introduced herself bluntly.

He cast her a sideways look. "I know," he said. He handed her a plastic cup filled with cold red liquid, and Cammie wasn't sure if he was waiting for a reply or not. "We've been in the same classes since the eighth grade."

"Right," she murmured. "So I suppose we can assume I know your name and move on to more intriguing conversation?"

He turned towards her. "That's a bit of an oxymoron," he remarked.

"Which part?"

"Intriguing conversation."

"What do you mean?"

"Conversation doesn't hold a lot of intrigue."

"You're not a big talker."

"We can talk."

There was a silence. Cammie took a sip of the punch and tried to observe Zach covertly, but there wasn't much to observe. He looked the same as usual, except in a gray jacket and jeans instead of the school uniform. He was looking at her expectantly, but all of the sudden she couldn't think of any 'intriguing' conversation topics. In the end, she settled with, "The weather was nice today."

There was another silence, but Zach's eyebrows knitted together a bit, and Cammie figured he was trying to figure out if she was joking or not. Finally, he remarked, "I gave you a full eighty-three seconds to let you deliberate over which subject you were going to induct into our conversation, and you settled with the weather?"

Cammie nodded. "Well, yeah," she replied, setting her red plastic cup down on a weary wooden crate and leaning against the rough wall behind her. "It's a simple psychological manipulation. You expect something from me but I know I can never meet up to those expectations, so I give you the exact opposite of what you think I'm aiming for. Now anything moderately interesting I have to say is going to impress you more than it would have, had I not brought up the weather."

"And your goal here was to impress me?" Zach asked, looking amused as he imitated her movements, setting down his cup and leaning against a thick pole and facing her, a hint of a smirk appearing on his lips.

Cammie grinned; he had asked a question. She answered, "To a certain extent." Then, with the smallest of smiles, "Would you consider me successful?"

The music, previously white noise in the background, seemed to grow louder as he made eye contact with her, his gray-green eyes trying to figure out what she was playing at, and how to play it back. Finally, after a few seconds that seemed like eras, he simply responded, "Very."

At this point, Cammie had to hand it to him. Nearly everything he said made her want to deliberate over her response for hours on end, but he said it in a way where she knew if she did deliberate over her response for more than a few seconds, he would get bored, leave, and never speak to her again. Or something.

However, her only plan for that night had been to have a proper conversation with him, and her mission was done. Reluctantly breaking off the gaze his irises – which reminded her of sea storms – had been boring into her, she lowered her eyelids and looked down at the ground as she picked up her red plastic cup, still nearly full with punch, and straightened.

"Well," she said carefully, flicking a glance back over at Zach to see if he'd try to stop her from going, "I wouldn't want to press my luck, and I really love this song, so I'd best be leaving." She looked at him again, hoping he'd say something, but as expected, he didn't. He was impressed with her, not 'in love' her. (Yet.)

She leaves and does her best not to look back.

that's zach :) please leave a review and tell me what you think of him, do you think we can reach 55?