Hey everyone, welcome back to the story! I hope you enjoy this chapter!

As ever, I do not own Austin and Ally or anything you recognise from the show in any way, shape or form, nor do I own any recognisable brands, songs or lyrics within them.

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Chapter Nine: Popularity (Part 1 of 2)

Ally's POV

It seems I forgot to close my curtains when I went to bed last night, because I wake up with the sun pounding strongly on my forehead, accompanied by a painful headache. What a great way to start my day.

I do my usual morning routine and get dressed into a red and white striped long sleeved top with a black skirt and black leggings, with my red flats. I pull my hair into a tight high ponytail and curl the ends of my hair gently, before applying light make-up to complete the look.

I grab an apple on my wait out the door and meet Trish like usual. "Hey Trish." I greet with a grin as I take another bite of my apple.

"Hey Ally." She replies. "Sorry I didn't come see you at Sonic Boom last night."

"No problem, it was pretty busy anyway so I wouldn't have had much of a chance to talk to you anyway." I reply. "Okay, what was all that about with you and Dez yesterday?" I ask, thinking back to yesterday's argument after school.

"Ugh, it's nothing really, that carrot-top just really knows how to push my buttons." She replies.

"You said it started when you were dance partners in freshman year…" I prompt her, wanting to learn more about this rivalry between them. "What happened?"

"Let's just say that he and I had more than a few 'creative differences' when it came to dancing. I mean I know I'm not an amazing dancer or anything but when I had to work with him it was like nothing could ever go right. We just kept stepping on each other's toes… literally!" She explained.

"What, and you've just hated each other ever since?" I ask.

"Pretty much, yeah."

"Well, maybe we can try and change that. I mean if me and Austin have become friends then I'm sure you can do the same with Dez." I say optimistically, hoping she'll agree to at least try. Dez seemed, to me at least, like a nice guy, after all.

"We'll see. But speaking of, you still haven't told me everything – how and why are you now friends with Blondie!?" She says with a small amount of disgust in her voice.

"I told you Trish, Austin's actually a nice guy. All those rumours about him aren't true! He's just a nice guy who dreams of being a rock star."

"And he just told you all this?"

"Well he tried, but at first I didn't believe him either. I thought he was just faking to try and make himself look better, and like you I couldn't believe that he would be anything other than a monster based on his reputation. But in music class, remember how I told you we had a project about our dreams?"

Trish nods.

"Well his performance was just… special. He wrote a song about how he's determined to follow his dreams no matter what people think of him or how much they don't believe in him, and it was just so beautiful, so genuine." I smile as I think back to his song. "Trust me Trish, if you were in the room when he performed you would be the same as me."

I can tell Trish isn't really too impressed by my explanation. "Yeah… well, unfortunately, I wasn't there to hear his 'amazing performance', so until he can prove otherwise to me, I'm still keeping my guard up around him."

"Fair enough." I reply, as I take the last bite of my apple and throw it into the nearby trash can, just as we arrive at the school.

"Oh look, there's your new bestie now." Trish says in a slightly sarcastic voice, pointing to where Austin is stood by the steps with Dez and two other guys I don't recognise.

Austin looks over one of the guys' shoulders and sees me and Trish. He smiles and waves us over, so I drag Trish with me in his direction, despite her complaints about wanting to go and find the girls instead.

. . . . .

Austin's POV

"Good morning Ally. Good morning Trish." I say brightly to each of the girls respectively as they reach me and the guys. Ally responds with an equally bright smile and a small wave, whilst Trish just looks uninterested and inspects her nails, although I do see her sneakily send Dez dagger eyes.

"Girls, meet the guys." I say. "This is Elliot and Alex, and you know Dez already." I hear Trish mutter 'unfortunately' after that last part. I'm just praying there isn't another argument, like yesterday.

"Hey, nice to meet you." Ally says to the two guys.

"Nice to meet you too." Elliot says, shaking her hand.

"'Sup." Is all Alex says, ignoring Ally's outstretched hand and looking over his shoulder. Man, I sometimes forget how much his attitude can stink sometimes. Come to think of it, he's been like this for the last couple of days. I wonder why…

"Okayyyy…" I say when the silence gets a little awkward. "So, as you can tell these guys are my real friends, not the jocks and definitely not the popular girls." I explain. "Although these three do like to constantly taunt me and laugh whenever the she-devils decided it's time to fling themselves at me." I say and they all give a small smile and nod slightly, even Alex.

"Well it is kinda funny to see." Ally comments.

"See, she's with us!" Elliot exclaims happily, as if he had come up with a new theory of relativity that had just been proven. Ally just laughs at him – understandably, he's almost as stupid as Dez sometimes. Speaking of…

"Hey Ally, you wanna hear about the time my turtle flew a rocket to the moon?" Dez asks enthusiastically.

Ally looks at me over his shoulder, and I frantically send her signals telling her to say no.

"Uhh… sure?" She replies, and Alex, Elliot and I all face-palm and groan slightly in annoyance.

And that's how we spent the next thirty minutes listening to Dez's story. That I'd already heard at least a hundred times. And it wasn't even a good story the first time.

By the end Alex has his head leaned back against the wall, eyes closed, clearly in pain from every word, Elliot's lost in a world of his own and Trish is slowly jabbing herself in the arm with her recently sharpened nail. Finger nail, that is. She's not some psycho lunatic who brings an actual nail into school with her – at least I don't think so. Ally is just sat there with a completely dead look on her face (but she still looks beautiful to me – I know, I'm cute). I'm slightly concerned that she's not actually breathing anymore, until she slowly shakes her head and just mutters. "Wow."

I think she learned her lesson. 'I told you!' I mouth to her when she looks my way, and she just smiles.

Mercifully, before Dez can tell another of his stories the bell rings and we have to go inside. I walk to homeroom with Ally and Trish, and sit with them this time instead of on my own at the back like normal. A few people give weird looks over at us – I guess it must be a little weird for them to see the most popular guy at school sitting with a shy nerd and her friend – but I couldn't care less.

I find myself easily talking to Ally all the way through homeroom, there are never any silences, awkward or otherwise, and it's great. I just feel so comfortable around her, like I did in the car yesterday, and I'm just falling for her harder and harder with every second.

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Ally's POV

It was morning break. Trish went and spent it with the girls, as I'd expected she would, but I stayed with Austin and Dez – Elliot and Alex weren't with us, but I don't know where they were. But quite frankly, I didn't particularly care.

Dez is so sweet. Yes, he is incredibly thick and probably genuinely crazy, but he's lovely and kind and funny too. I can already tell that I'll never be bored when I'm around Dez; he always finds a way to make you laugh or just bring some sort of energy to the situation.

And Austin has completely lived up to my expectations, he really is the opposite of the person the rumours make him out to be. He has been nothing but kind, sweet and courteous to me, and we get along like a house on fire. Which is a weird expression, because a house on fire is pretty much always a bad thing, yet it's used to describe a good thing? Whatever, it works.

After break is mine and Austin's free period, but it's raining today so we can't go outside like we normally would. Instead, we head over to the common room, which is a large room that is basically just an area to hang out and do whatever. It's quite nice in there, there are loads of comfy chairs and bean bags and a few bookshelves lining the walls.

Not many people tend to really use it, but it's busier on days like today when the weather's not nice enough for everyone to go outside. There are quite a few people scattered around inside, but no one I really know that well, if at all.

We walk over and sit on one of the sofas in the far corner of the room to talk. I can feel everyone's eyes on us as we make our way across the centre of the room, but I don't care. I know the real Austin, and that's who I'm friends with, and that's all that matters to me.

"Your song in music yesterday was incredible." I say as we sit down on the sofa together. "Where did you get your inspiration for it?"

"Well it's exactly like I told you when we were outside the other day. My parents don't support music as my choice of career, but I don't want to let that get in the way of my dreams. When I was writing the song, I was just thinking about everything they'd ever said to try and convince me that it was stupid." He explains, and I remember our previous discussion like he mentioned. Wow, back then I still didn't believe that he wasn't a jerk. That feels like years ago, when in fact it was only a couple of days.

"Have you ever tried anything aside from music? Like, taken their advice?" I ask, curious.

"No, not really." He replies. "I mean, there have been plenty of times when I've believed them and started to think myself that I'd never be successful or happy. That's where the first half of the chorus comes from – tell me I've got it wrong, tell me everything will be okay, before I fall. That's basically me hoping that I'm wrong for thinking that it'll all go horribly wrong and I'll be a failure."

"Yeah, I sort of noticed that when you were singing it, but to be honest I think I was too lost in your voice to properly think about and understand the lyrics." I say with a small chuckle. "You're a lot more sensitive than your reputation makes us believe."

"That's what you're learning by being my friend, Ally. Most of the things my reputation says about me aren't true."

"Yeah, I can already tell. I mean I never truly believed all of them, some of them are just so insane."

"Oh yeah, what's the worst or weirdest rumour you've heard about me?" He asks with a smirk and a chuckle.

"Oh, so many to choose from." I say, thinking about it for a minute. "Well the worst one I've heard is that you got a girl in England pregnant and then just left never to speak to her again…"

"WHAT!?" He says loudly, and a few people turn to look but he just smiles and apologises to them.

"And the weirdest one I've heard is that you wanted to have sex with a girl but didn't have a condom so you used an empty Doritos bag."

"WHAT!?" He yelled, and even more people turned around. Again he apologised and they turned away again. "Ally, you know neither of those are true, right?" He asks, a hint of desperation in his voice.

"I don't knooooow," I say, joking with him. "I mean apparently you've been with so many girls then anything could have happened really."

"Ally, I haven't 'been with so many girls'. I'm a virgin!" He says quietly, looking me dead in the eyes.

"Really?" I ask, shocked.

"Why so surprised?" He asks with a smile.

"Well, I mean, I don't know…" I stammer. "I mean it's fairly obvious that you're not exactly ugly."

His smile grows bigger and brighter. "I know right." He says cockily, and I groan in annoyance at his ego. He laughs. "I'm just kidding with you, Als, I'm not that arrogant person really."

I smile when he calls me Als, that's a cute nickname and nobody's ever called me that before. Als. I like it.

"Is it alright if I call you Als, by the way?" He asks quickly. I smile at the hint of nervousness on his face.

"Sure, it's cute." I reply. "But I don't think either of us will mind if I don't call you Austy." I joke, and we both shudder slightly as even hearing the word 'Austy' makes us think of the popular girls all over him. I don't know why that makes me shudder, but it does.

"No, please don't." He says before we both start laughing a little. "So, how is the love life of Miss Ally Dawson?" He asks with a slight smirk.

I can feel myself blush and I look down at my hands, which are suddenly very interesting to me. "Non-existent." I say quietly. But he hears.

"What do you mean, non-existent?" He asks.

"Exactly that. I have no love life. I've never had a boyfriend before." I look up as I say this, and I catch a strange glint in his eye… is it joy? Happiness? Hope? That's weird.

"What, never?" He asks and I shake my head. "So you've never been on a date?" I again shake my head. "Never been kissed?" Another head shake. "Wow, well why not?" He asks.

"Because no one's ever liked me, I guess." I say, a little sadly. I don't really like talking about this stuff, but I feel comfortable discussing it with Austin. "I mean it's not like I've purposefully tried to avoid it. I guess guys just aren't interested in short, non-cheerleading nerdy introverts." I say with a sigh, looking back down at my hands.

We're both silent for a few seconds and it feels like it should be awkward, but for some reason it's not. Then I feel a warm hand placed gently under my chin. "Hey, look at me." Austin's voice is gentle, and I do as he asks and look up. "I think you're a beautiful, talented, awesome girl and any guy would be lucky to have you as his girlfriend."

I'm in shock – no guy has ever said something that nice about me before, and now Austin is saying it! Could it be at all possible that… no, no that's crazy! There's no way in hell Austin would actually like me, right?

And yet the look in his eyes when he said that to me seemed to be leading me to believe otherwise… no, get that out of your head, Ally!

"Uh… thanks, Austin. That's sweet. You're a great friend." I say before giving him a hug. Yeah, a great friend. Friend.

. . . . .

Austin's POV

A great friend. A great friend. I'm a great friend. Whoop-de-doo. Friend. I mean I don't know what I was expecting Ally to say after I said all that to her, which probably hinted quite strongly at the fact that I may have feelings for her.

Maybe that's why she said it. She knew that I like her but she doesn't feel the same way, so she said I was a great friend to try and shut it down. Well isn't this great.

I hold her extra tight as she hugs me, savouring the moment. If I'm only going to be her friend, I'm at least going to make the most of the times when I can allow myself to imagine even for a second that we're more than that. And this is one of those times.

"No problem, Als, it's the truth." I say in her ear as we continue to hug. I'm just praying that what I said won't make this awkward or anything.

I feel her start to pull away from the hug, and my first instinct is to pull her back in and hold her tighter, but I know that would be creepy and awkward so I just let go and pull back too. We smile at each other, but mine is more of a sad smile that I'm trying desperately to make seem happy.

We talk casually for the rest of the free period, and I really do enjoy spending this time with her. She's amazing, and it's just annoying that she doesn't really know it herself.

When the bell goes for the end of the free period we walk to Chemistry together. The lesson again passes by quickly, and once again we nail the experiment.

At lunch Ally decides to go and sit with Trish and some other girls who I don't know, and I sit with Dez, Alex and Elliot like normal.

"Hey guys." I say as I sit down, doing my 'what-up' handshake with Dez that we've done since we were kids.

We talk as we eat, like normal. The rain's stopped by now, so we go outside.

"So, Ally seems really nice." Elliot pipes up as we walk through the doors.

"Yeah, agreed." Dez adds.

Alex just nods and looks straight ahead.

"Yeah she is, I'm sure you'll all get along with her great. And her friend, Trish, although she's a little… feisty."

"Ha, feisty is an understatement." Dez says. "The girl's insane."

"Anyway, never mind that." I interrupt, before Dez can get into one of his rants.

"Hey, Austin, me and Elliot are going to the football try-outs tonight. You gonna come too?" Alex says, still just looking straight ahead.

"Nah, man, I think I'll pass. You know I don't even really like football anyway. In fact, I'm kinda surprised you two are, you never have before. Why now?" I reply. It's true; none of us four have ever really been too interested in football before.

"It's junior year, bro. We've only got two years left here, I figured I might as well give it a go and see what happens before it's too late." He replies.

"Alright, cool, have fun with that. Just don't become one of those stupid, mindless bullying jocks, you're better than that."

Alex doesn't respond to that, instead just announcing that he's going for a smoke and practically dragging Elliot with him off towards the area round the back.

"Hey Dez have you noticed that Alex has been acting a bit strange lately?" I ask him as we continue to walk.

"No, not really, have you?" He replies.

"Yeah, I have. He hasn't been talking as much, he hasn't been joining in with the normal jokes we have, he's just seemed more distant and moody."

"Hmm, it's probably nothing. He's most likely just tired and a little stressed; it is the start of junior year."

"Yeah, I guess you're right." I reply. I hope he's right, Alex is a good guy, and I don't want him to change.

. . . . .

Ally's POV

I sit with the girls and Trish at lunch, because I didn't at morning break. The first five minutes or so are just business as usual, even though Brooke does give me a bit of a dirty look when she sits down a few minutes after we get there.

"So, Ally, word on the wire is you're now friends with Austin." Piper says before putting a fork of pasta into her mouth.

As soon as she says that I hear Brooke's own fork slammed down on the table, and look up to see her trying to kill me with her eyes. What's her problem? I turn back to Piper to answer her.

"Uh, yeah, I guess we kinda are." I say meekly. I take another split-second glance over at Brooke, who is still glaring at me.

"Just friends?" Cassidy asks, wiggling her eyebrows, and Brooke looks like she's gonna lose it any second. "It's about time you got your move on, girl." She adds with a smile.

"Yes, Cassidy, just friends." I reply firmly. Brooke shoots me a look that says 'it had better be just friends'.

"Are you suuure?" Trish joins in. Thanks Trish. I need to remember to talk to her about this later.

"Of course she's sure!" Brooke finally speaks up. "I mean why would Austin date her? We went over this yesterday!"

"Oh shut up Brooke!" Piper snaps back. "Ally has just as much chance of being with Austin as you do." Wow, nobody's ever really stood up for me like that before.

"Ugh!" Brooke groans, before standing up and flouncing out of the room. Again.

"Thanks for having my back there, Piper." I say timidly.

"No problem, Brooke can be a real bitch sometimes, especially if it's anything Austin-related. She worships that guy, it's borderline creepy." She says with a gentle laugh.

It's great that Piper supported me, but she didn't say that what she said to Brooke was true. So was it?

. . . . .

Austin's POV

It's the end of the day and I drive home as normal. Surprisingly, both my parents are in when I get home, for a change. They told me they closed the store a little earlier today and decided to just come home.

They seemed to be getting along better, which was a relief, but part of me also thought it wouldn't last very long, and that was proved right when an hour later I heard them shouting at each other downstairs. Which, let me tell you, is very distracting when you're trying to write a French essay.

When all my work is done I grab my electric guitar (the one that looks like an A, remember?) and start to strum on it gently. But I guess I get a little too into it as I end up breaking one of the strings. Great, now I have to go and buy a new one.

I go back out and get in my car and drive to the mall. I'm pretty sure I saw a music store somewhere in there.

I walk around the mall for about five minutes until I find the store I'm looking for: Sonic Boom. I've only been once, a few years ago, when I needed a new cymbal for my drum kit.

I walk through the doors and find the shop is empty, there's not a single customer inside. But there is someone stood behind the counter. "Ally?" I say, and she looks up, beaming at me.

"Hey Austin, what are you doing here?" She says happily. Well, at least she's glad to see me.

"Ally, you work here? In a music store?" I ask in disbelief. That's like my dream job!

"Yeah, my dad owns this place." She replies.

"Why didn't you tell me? This is awesome!" I say enthusiastically as I look around.

"I'm sorry, I guess it just never came up. Now, what can I do for you?" She asks, suddenly going all professional.

"Oh I just need a new guitar string, I sorta broke one on my electric guitar by accident." I say sheepishly. I look up, and hanging on the wall is my idea of perfection. "Woah!" I say, running over to the bright yellow electric guitar on display. Yellow's my favourite colour.

"You like it?" She asks with a small giggle. "And I'll be right back with your guitar string." She says before walking into some back room which I'm guessing is like a store cupboard.

"Like it? I love it, it's perfect!" I call out as I stare at it, wishing I had the money to buy it.

"Here you go." She says as she walks back out of the room and over to me, handing me a small cardboard box.

"Great, thanks, how much is it?" I ask as I start to get out my wallet.

"Oh don't worry, you can have that one on me." She says with a smile.

"Really? Are you sure?" I ask, returning the smile.

"Yeah, as a thank you for visiting me. It gets kinda boring in here when there's no customers, like now."

"Yeah, I bet. What do you do to keep yourself entertained?" I ask.

"It depends. Sometimes I do homework, sometimes I read a book, sometimes I write a song…"

"Hey, I have an idea." I say. "Both our songs in music absolutely kicked butt. Why don't we try writing one together?"

She smiles brightly. "Yeah, that could be fun. Hold on a sec." She walks over to the door and changes the sign from open to closed, before turning to face me. "It's gonna be quiet anyway, might as well close up the shop so we can work in peace." She explains. "Follow me." She says before walking over to the staircase.

I follow her up the stairs and she leads me over to a door. "Ta-da!" She says as she opens it, revealing a room with a large grand piano, a sofa, beanbags and a mini-fridge, with a big 'A' on the wall. "This is my practice room, where I just chill out during my breaks and after school before my shift properly begins. It's like my second home." She says as I look around.

"It's awesome!" I reply.

She walks over and sits on the piano stool, patting the spot next to her indicating that I should sit there, which of course I don't hesitate to do. I like sitting this close to her; I can feel our shoulders brushing slightly.

"Okay, so, what should the song be about?" She asks.

"Hmmm… well, it needs to be something relatable." I say. "Something that teenagers today really care about…"

"Yeah, definitely… something that people seem to define their life by and care a lot about, teenagers especially."

"How about popularity?" I suggest.

. . . . .

There you go! I hope you enjoyed chapter nine and if you did make sure to leave a review!

So Austin and Ally have decided to write a song together, and their friendship is going well, all things considered. But Brooke is definitely still not happy, and it seems neither is Alex.

Please remember to follow, favourite, review, and leave suggestions and questions! It means a lot to me!

Catch you later! :)