"Ah, man. You missed a great day of fishing! How've you been? Doctor wouldn't let us see you when we came to visit," He smiled at me, and I almost jumped at him but decided against it. He didn't know I was running from my brother. "You alright, Blaise? You look kinda upset." I froze as a strong hand clamped down on my shoulder.

"I've been okay," I said softly. "You catch anything?"

"Couple of small ones, nothing special. How you been, Dodge?"

"Better," was his reply. I looked pleadingly at my best friend.

'Help,' I mouthed. 'Please.' He looked confused, but I'd gone to him for problems like this before.

"I was planning on going back out after lunch. You want to come, Blaise?"

"Yeah. I'd love to." Brandon smiled and walked towards the house. I yanked myself away from Dodger and followed him. Joey tailed behind us. "Thanks, Brandon. You saved my ass."

"Hey, man. Dodger can be a jerk, I understand that. And I'm always here for you. You just remember that."

"I will."

"Brand, can I go back with you?" Brandon looked over his brother's head; we both watched Dodger stomp off. "Brand?" He didn't answer as we sat down at the table. "Brandon." He shot Joey a look, and the kid shut his trap quickly. We listened until the rumble of the engine and the crunching of gravel had faded to answer him.

"I'm not going back out, Joey. Blaise just needed some help." Joey looked disappointed. He was the spitting image of Brandon, but his curly hair was a sandy blonde, and he had brown eyes, like Carolyn. And he was eight, but that wasn't really a factor in the image department. Brandon was fifteen like me, and his dark hair was a curly mess most of the time, but he didn't bother with it. You couldn't change it no matter what you did to it. His eyes were a medium sea blue and they were his lady killer. He was a little taller than me, but that didn't really make any difference.

"Can we go out tomorrow?"

"We have school tomorrow, Joe. Maybe over the weekend."

"I forgot we didn't have school partly this week…. And Thomas told me that I had to be in his office Monday morning…." I was chuckling to myself when Brandon ruined it.

"We only had today off, buddy." I shot him a glare.

"Oh, yeah, thanks a lot. Now you just reminded me that I have a whole week to make up on homework. You couldn't have been more supportive?!" I was a bit angry now, but I knew I wouldn't stay that way; I couldn't stay angry at Brandon. He smiled apologetically.

"Sorry, man." I shrugged it off sighing.

"No big deal, man."

I spent the rest of the afternoon with Brandon, Joey, and Carolyn. I was dreading going home, but I didn't have a choice. Their father, Cole, kicked me out. I made slow pace getting home. Bass slunk up beside me out of nowhere and I decided I wasn't going home. I wasn't going to get yelled at for being hurt.

a/n: sorry, this chapter is kind of short, and that I used the same word quite a few times (cough home cough, lol) but I didn't want to go into anything for the next chapter. Hope you enjoyed it. Oh, and sorry it took WAAAAAAAAAAYYYYY long to put this chapter up. I had writters block and school has been so demanding. Lots of homework, but today was the first day of spring break, so I have a week off, though I don't know how much I'll get up here. Hope you enjoyed it, and I'll try to get the next chapter up soon. Until then

Stephanie