A/N: Thanks to Kristin, Pargoletta, bellafan123, and ummmhilol for reviewing! Enjoy!

Chapter Nine

DING. DING. DING

I crossed through the dimly lit kitchen to the front entryway. I opened the door to find Ryan standing on the other side of the threshold. He looks so hot! I thought looking at his denim jeans, his red t-shirt, and following the outline of his body all the way up to his shockingly blue eyes.

"Hey Justine." Ryan stepped just inside, allowing me to close the door behind him.

I smiled back, leading Ryan through the house- first through the kitchen, then through the dining room, and then finally into the living room. We both sat down on the dark green couch, and I noticed Ryan was looking around. He looked at the 48" TV across from the couch, and then moved onto the furniture outlining the room. There were two armchairs in the corners that matched the couch, and a wooden end table next to each of them.

"Nice house."

"Thanks, but it's not mine. It's my parents'." Oh god! Why did I just say that? I turned to face Ryan. "Can you explain logs to me again? I guess I don't remember them very well."

He nodded and moved closer to me. He opened his backpack, which he had brought in with him, and took out his math binder. "Okay, so first, a common log has a base of ten. So, log1000", Ryan explained writing the math problem down for me to see. "Would equal three, because ten has to be raised to the third power to equal a thousand. Does that make sense?"

"Yeah, I get that. I just don't get how you do them when there's an exponent."

"Okay, so let's take thirty to the x equals ten." He wrote it down, and showed me the paper. "What do you do?"

I stared at the piece of notebook paper that Ryan had placed on the coffee table in front of me. "Um… Yeah, I don't know."

Ryan laughed.

"What? You think it's funny that I'm stupid!"

Ryan continued to laugh, but shook his blond head. "No, you look so cute when you're concentrating."

I looked away for a second, hoping he didn't see me blush. I sighed turning back to face him and found him gazing at me. "Are you gonna teach me, or just stare at me?"

"Okay, I'm going to do this slowly, and I want you to watch closely. Okay?"

I nodded and watched as he re-wrote the problem to make it read xlog30 equals log10. Ryan then divided log10 by log30. "So," Ryan explained finishing the problem, "that means that x equals point-six-seven-seven."

I looked at Ryan and said, "Thanks, I understand it a lot better now... Do you want something to eat?"

Ryan nodded, so I got up and went into the kitchen. I came back a couple minutes later with a plate of chocolate chip cookies and two glasses of milk, which I placed on the coffee table in front of us. "These look amazing!"

"Yeah, they do," Ryan agreed. "But, you look ten-times better."

I felt myself blush as he leaned in and gave me a gentle kiss. I felt him ask for an opening, and gave it to him. His tongue touched mine for a couple seconds, and then Ryan stopped. "Why'd you stop?" I asked leaning in to give him an equally compelling kiss. Ryan opened his mouth for me and twirled my tongue with his. He removed his hands from my back, and gently laid me down on the couch.

"Yeah, it really looks like you're studying," Katie said coming into the living room.

"We-we were," I stammered, pulling my mouth away from Ryan's. "We were just taking a break." I gave Ryan a smile as I watched Katie walked into the kitchen.

"We probably should get back to those logarithms," Ryan suggested.


An hour later, my parents came home and saw Ryan and me sitting on the couch.

"--I got x equals three-point-eight-five."

"Right. That's what I got too."

"Hey honey," Martha greeted warmly, smiling first at me, and then Ryan. "Who's this?" She asked looking from his, now messy, hair to his old jeans. She raised her eyebrows and looked at me again.

"Uh. This is Ryan," I explained looking at him and smiling. "Marthello."

The smile on her face faded as she said, "Well. We'll be upstairs."

Once we were alone again, Ryan told me that he had to get going. He grabbed his math binder, and stuffed it into his backpack.

"Ryan. You don't have to go just because my parents are home."

He sighed. "Justine, I like you. A lot. But having our mothers hate each other just because they both went out with Staten is so stupid! So, I'm not just leaving because your parents are home. I'm leaving because I have a ten-thirty curfew on school nights."

I blushed feeling like an idiot. "Oh. Okay, sorry."

Ryan gave a gentle kiss. "Justine, don't say 'sorry' over every little thing. Because, honestly, you didn't do anything." Ryan gave me another kiss, and zipped up his backpack.

I walked him out to his sister's car. "So, thanks again for teaching me about logs," I said as he unlocked the door, and threw his bag into the backseat.

After he closed the door, he said, "You, Justine, are very welcome." Ryan took my hands in his, laced his fingers through mine, and then kissed my lips. He pressed me against the car, as our kiss got deeper. About a minute later we broke it off, and Ryan got in the vehicle and put the key into the ignition, and waved as he drove down the street.

(A/N: If you read this please review and tell me what you think! Reviews make me feel all warm and fuzzy inside!)