I look up at all of the childhood memories on Austin's ceiling. I smile.

"Hey, Als?" Austin asks. I didn't know he was awake. I've just been laying in his arms peacefully.

"Yeah, Austy?"

"You awake?"

"No, I'm sleep-talking."

"Since it's your last day here... and you're leaving tomorrow..." he hesitates. I look up at him. "Do you think we can just hang out around the house?" I nod.

"Of course we can," I tell him.

"No Mom. No Dad. No your Dad. No Dez. Just you and me."

"Just you and me," I confirm.

"No book?" he asks.

"No book?!"

"Please," he says. I swallow.

"N-no book," I tell him carefully. He smiles.

"Awesome," he says. We walk down to the kitchen. Everyone's already gone.

"Is everyone at work already?" I ask.

"Probably," Austin answers. We help ourselves to the leftover bacon and eggs. After it's all gone, I start to wash the dishes we'd used but Austin stops me.

"What?" I ask.

"Leave it for later," he tells me. I raise my eyebrows. "I wanna get started on having fun." I laugh and roll my eyes. We walk into the living room and Austin plops down on the couch. I sit down in his lap and he flips on the tv. He turns it to the Nick Jr. channel.

"Austin, why—?" I start but he shushes me.

"This is my favorite show," he whispers.

"You like..." I look at the screen. "Go, Diego, Go?"

"And you know what it's called so you have no room to talk," he snaps playfully. "Now, shh, I wanna see if they find Baby Jaguar's growl..." He goes deep into thought as he stares at the screen. I giggle a bit. After a few minutes of watching, he chuckles to himself.

"Silly bobos," he says quietly. I laugh at him many times throughout the episode. "Hey, they found his growl." He cuts off the tv and looks at me. "What's so funny?" he asks.

"You," I answer, still laughing. He pushes his eyebrows together in confusion. "This is a kids' show," I remind him.

"No, no, no, this is my show," he tells me with a smirk.

"I see," I say with a giggle. "So that's what you call fun, huh?" He nods excitedly. "So what do you wanna do now that your show has gone off?" He kisses me and I kiss back. My fingers entangle themselves in his hair and his arms tighten around my waist as he deepens the kiss. After a while, we finally have to break for air. I move a little.

"Aah!" I exclaim as I fall off the edge of the couch. We both laugh as Austin helps me up. Austin leads me to the dining room.

"What are we doing in here?" I ask. He peels back the table cloth and crawls under the table. I'm confused but I follow him nonetheless. He points to the underside of the table. I look up and see a few coloring books and crayons taped to it.

"Coloring?" I ask.

"You know how fun I am," he says, "psht." He takes everything down and hands me a coloring book along with a pack of crayons.

"Why are they under here?" I ask.

"My mom says I'm too old for coloring books and she found all my hiding places for them in my room. So I thought, 'She'll never think to check under the table!'" he exclaims.

"Uh, Austin?" I ask, pointing to a note directly above his head. He takes it down.

"'Dear Austin,'" he reads, "'I found your coloring book stash but I'll let you keep them since I'm a nice person and I love you. Love, Mommy.' Huh, I guess she does clean the floor under here sometimes..." I let out a laugh.

"Aw, your mommy woves you," I joke. I open the coloring book to a page of an uncolored rose. I pick up a red crayon and set to work. Once the petals are fully colored, I pick up a dark green crayon and color in the stem. Then I take a brownish-tannish crayon and fill in the thorns. I take out a lighter green crayon and color the bush leaves. Then I color the sky blue and the sun yellow and look up at Austin.

"What do you think?" I ask, showing it to him. He shakes his head wearily.

"Ally, Ally, Ally," he says as if he's very tired. "Have I taught you nothing? You have to color outside the lines." He reaches for the coloring book I'm holding and I snatch it away from him.

"You are not messing up this masterpiece," I snap. I tear the page out of the book. "I made it for you." He smiles at me.

"I'll put it on my wall. Put your name on it and the date," he tells me. I do as he says and hand it back to him. He sets it down beside him and looks up at me. "Now color another one and this time, color outside the lines." He stresses the last three words. I sigh.

"Fine," I mutter. I turn the page and see a picture of a clown. I color the spots all different colors. I show it to Austin. "See? I can color outside the lines." He chuckles.

"Where'd you color outside the lines?" he asks, raising an eyebrow. I point to the outside of the clown's left leg where I made a small, orange, stray mark. He laughs and grabs my hand, which still has a crayon in it. He makes scribbles all over the paper, using my own hand. "Who's outside of the lines now?" he jokes, roaring with laughter.

"No, Austin, stop!" I shriek. My orange crayon snaps in two but he continues to color messily. "You broke my crayon!" I wail. He continues laughing loudly. When he finally stops, you can't even see my beautiful clown... I do the same as I did with my other coloring and he takes it.

"And I'll put this one beside the even more beautifuler rose you colored," he says, resting it beside my rose.

"You made a grammatical mistake," I say, as if I can't believe it. "It's either more beautiful or beautifuler not even more beautiful. Psht." He rolls his eyes and holds up his own book.

"What do you think of mine?" he asks. I don't even know what I was but I still smile.

"It's awesome," I tell him. He writes his name and the date on it and I take it from him. "I'm gonna take it home to Miami and put it on my wall, right above my desk. I sit there everyday after school so everyday, I'll be forced to think of you. Well, I'll probably think of you anyway but—" I cut myself off as I see the frown on his face. "What's wrong?" He shakes his head and shrugs.

"Nothing," he says. I crawl over beside him and rest my head on his shoulder.

"We're not supposed to think about that. This day is about you and me," I say. "It's today. We'll wait until tomorrow to think about tomorrow, okay?"

"Okay," he finally says with a smile.

"You know what? I want to bake a cake for all the Moons."

"Ally, I don't think we have enough cake batter for all the moons..." he tells me.

"Are you thinking about the moons in the sky?" I ask.

"Maybe," he admits.

"No, silly, I'm talking about you. For you and your mom and your dad," I specify.

"But why?" he asks confused.

"For letting us stay here all summer," I tell him. "Thank you."

"Ally, come on. You're basically family. You don't have to thank us for letting you and your dad stay here. It's not like we were gonna make you stay at a hotel or something," he says.

"Well, I also kinda, specifically, wanna thank you," I say slowly.

"Me?" he asks. "For what?"

"For not being mad at me and—" I start.

"Ally, we talked about this. I don't care that you left me randomly," he cuts me off. His voice cracks on the last word. "All that matters is that you're here now. And yeah, I know you're leaving tomorrow. But this time, I know I'll see you again next summer." He smiles at me. "You're still making a cake, right?" he adds.

"Of course. Would you like to help me?" I ask. He hesitates.

"Uh... sure," he finally answers. We tape the coloring books and the crayons to the underside of the table again and put the pictures we made on the top. We walk to the kitchen.

"Actually..." A smirk spreads across my lips. "I'm gonna make you pancakes then we can make the cake later." I get out a mixing bowl and set it on the counter. "Okay, so we need eggs, milk, and butter, I think. There's something else too..." Austin grabs the mix and pours it all over his head.

"A little bit of Austin," he says.

"Yummy," I joke. We laugh. He looks at me and smiles. He wipes his face off, leans over, and kisses me. It takes me by surprise. My eyes widen then close and I kiss back. When he moves back, I smile. "Sugar!" I exclaim. "That's what we were missing." I take it down from the counter. "So Austin..." I say.

"Yes, Als?" he asks.

"Hi," I say.

"Hi?" he asks. I nod. He pushes his eyebrows together in confusion then he smiles. "You're so cute. I love you," he says. I lean up and kiss him gently.

"I love you too," I reply with a smile. "I just realized something..."

"What's that?" he asks.

"We've been standing here but we haven't even started mixing the pancakes," I say. We laughs.

"Probably because I poured the mix all over my head," he tells me, smiling and gesturing to his head which still has some mix in it.

"Yes, that may be a problem," I say, laughing again. He shakes his head and the mix goes flying.

"How clumsy of me," he jokes.

"You're so silly," I say, cleaning up the mess. He helps me clean up the mess off the floor. After a few seconds, we bump heads and look up into each other's eyes. I giggle nervously and continue wiping. Austin lifts my head up by my chin and smiles at me. I look away. I don't know why I feel so shy all of a sudden. Maybe it's because I'm all alone with him.

"What's wrong?" he asks me worriedly.

"Nothing's wrong," I say nervously.

"We've been best friends forever yet you're still shy around me. Why, Als?" he asks. I shrug.

"I don't know," I mumble.

"Ally, I love you. Please don't be shy around me."

"I'm sorry, Austin. You just make me nervous sometimes. Like, when we're alone. I just feel like I'll do something wrong," I say.

"Nothing you could ever do would be wrong," he tells me. I smile.

"I'll try to stop being so shy around you. For you," I say. He smiles and kisses my cheek gently.

"Thank you," he whispers. We finish cleaning up the mess and I sigh sarcastically.

"What?" he asks.

"Now we're all out of pancakes. I guess you don't get any," I say. His eyes widen.

"Be right back!" he exclaims. He runs out the front door. I giggle. I walk to the dining room, pick up Austin's picture, and bring it to my room. I open my laptop, rest it on the keyboard, and close my laptop. At least it won't get all crumbled up on the way home.

That reminds me, I think I should start packing. I bring all of my clothes to my bed and fold them up. Then I put them carefully in my bag. Bras and underwear on the bottom. No one would want to see those. I also put my bathing suits down there with them. Pants and skirts on top of them. Then pajamas. Then tank tops then shirts on the very top.

Then I remember something. I take everything out, making sure to leave everything folded up. I take out my bathing suit, in case Austin wants to go swimming later, pajamas to go to sleep tonight, and an outfit for tomorrow. Then I walk to the dancing room and get my songbook. I walk back to my room and set it on my bed.

What am I forgetting...? My eyes sweep around my room. Nothing. I need to leave everything else out for tomorrow when I'm getting ready to... leave. I pick up my songbook.

Dear Diary/Songbook,

Well, today is my last day. I'm leaving tomorrow. Austin and I are both sad about that but we hold on to the fact that we'll see each other next summer. Hopefully, he won't have to work as much. A girl can only hope. Right now, he's out getting more pancake mix since he decided to make himself an ingredient. Haha, he poured all of the mix on his head. He was so adorable. He should be back soon so I'm gonna go. Bye bye!

Love, Ally

"ALLY!" someone screams from downstairs as soon as I close my book. It flies into the air and drops to the floor. I pick it up and set it on my bed. I walk to my door.

"Yes, Austin?" I call down the stairs. He runs up them.

"Guess what?" he asks excitedly.

"What?" I ask.

"The store gave me free pancakes!" he exclaims.

"Free pancakes?" I ask. He leads me down the stairs. I look at the table and see a large bag full of smaller bags of pancakes. "Why did they give you free pancakes?" I ask.

"They said that they loved me so I shouldn't have to pay!" he says with a bright smile on his face. I put all of the bags in the freezer. "I kinda think I should have paid though but they said they had it covered so..."

"Well, I guess if they say so then it's fine," I say "Oh, I still need to make a cake." I cross to the cabinets. I take out everything I need and mix it together. I pour it into a pan and, once the oven is preheated, I put the pan in the oven. "You want this?" I ask Austin, gesturing to the leftover cake batter.

"Ally, do you know nothing about me?" he jokes. "Of course I want that." He takes the bowl from me and licks it clean. "See? Now you don't have to wash it." I laugh.

"Yes, because everyone wants your saliva," I joke. I run water into it and set it in the sink.

"Ew, you're right," he says. We lie around the house for a while before the timer goes off. I check the cake and it's done. I grab some oven mitts and slip them over my hands. I take out the cake and set it on the top of the stove.

"You're gonna ice that, right?" Austin asks from behind me.

"Yeah, why?" I ask.

"Can I help you?"

"'Course you can. What colors do you have?" I ask.

"We have yellow, white, blue, orange, and red," he tells me.

"What are your parents' favorite colors out of those?" I ask.

"Um... I don't know their favorite colors," he admits.

"Then we'll just use them all," I say.

"You should use yellow the most," he says.

"We'll use them all equally. We can make the top-left yellow, the top-right blue, the bottom-left orange, and the bottom-right red," I tell him. Once it's cooled down, we ice the cake with all of those colors. Then we write Thank You! in white icing.

"I think I did pretty good icing this cake," he tells me cockily. I shove him playfully. "Okay, okay, your small help was pretty good too." I shove him again. "Alright, we did pretty good icing this cake," he says, putting his arm around me.

"Thank you," I say, "and yes, yes we did." We set it off to the side. "What time is it?"

"About five," he tells me.

"So when does everyone get off of work?" I ask.

"Your dad gets off of work about 5:30 and my parents get off about 5:45," he says. "So they should be coming home around six."

"You know what we haven't been doing?" I ask. He smiles and wraps his arms around my waist.

"I have an idea," he says, leaning in to kiss me. I start talking before he can though.

"We haven't been doing my guitar lessons," I say. He pulls back.

"Your guitar lessons? That's 'cause you can play now," he tells me.

"Not as good as my teacher," I say with a smile.

"And how good is your teacher?" he asks, faking being oblivious to the fact that he's my teacher.

"Oh, he's very good," I say, putting my arms around his neck.

"Oh, yeah?" he asks. I nod. "And how awesome is said teacher?"

"He's very awesome," I tell him.

"Hm? And... how sexy is he?" he asks. He picks me up and sets me down on the counter so he doesn't have to look down to look at me anymore.

"He's very sexy," I answer, tapping his nose.

"I see. And are you maybe in love with this teacher?" he asks.

"Hm, I don't think I should reveal that," I joke. "Students aren't supposed to feel that way about their teacher..."

"I'll take that as a yes," he says, smiling and kissing me gently. He carries me up the stairs to his room. He sets me down and picks up his lucky guitar. I pick up the red one I like. He teaches me some guitar stuff for about an hour. He ended up behind me, sort of playing for me with his own hands.

I told him I was more of a hands-on learner. He knew that wasn't exactly true so he knew what I meant so he took off his guitar and came over to me. That's how he taught me for the last thirty minutes. I can really learn any kind of way so that worked. I take off my guitar and put it down on the stand.

"Can I tell you a secret?" I whisper, looking up at him. He nods. "I am in love with my teacher," I whisper to him with a wink.

"Aha! I knew it! I'll kill him!" he jokes. I laugh and shake my head. I lean up and kiss him. I twist my body so I'm facing him so I can kiss him better.

"Austin! Ally! We're home!" Mimi calls up the stairs. I pull away from Austin and we walk downstairs. "Dinner will be ready in about thirty minutes," she tells us. Mike and my dad walk into the living room, going on about some football game that's starting in a few minutes.

"I already have dessert handled," I say, nudging Austin in the ribcage.

"What do you mean?" she asks. I nod toward the counter and she turns around. "Oh, Ally, did you make this?" she asks.

"Yep, Austin and I made it," I tell her.

"What are you thanking us for?" she asks.

"For letting me stay here all summer," I answer.

"Ally, you're basically family. You don't have to thank us for letting you and your dad stay here. It's not like we were gonna make you stay at a hotel or something," she says.

"That's exactly what Austin said," I tell her with a smile.

"Like Mother, like daughter," she says. I laugh.

"Mom!" Austin exclaims.

"Sorry. I meant to say that Mike probably would have said the same thing too. Then I was going to say 'Like Father, like son,'" she tells us quickly.

"Sure," Austin says sarcastically. When Austin isn't looking, she flashes me a smile that says she really didn't mean to say that but she also doesn't care. I smile back. She starts dinner and Austin and I start to walk up the stairs.

"TOUCHDOWN!" we hear Mike and my dad shout from the living room. Then we hear them high-five.


"Austin, Ally, may I ask you a question?" Mimi asks after she swallows the piece of cake she was eating. Austin and I look up at her simultaneously.

"Yes," we say.

"Why are you wearing your bathing suits?" she asks. Austin and I look down at our bathing suits then back at Mimi.

"We're gonna go swim after dinner," I explain.

"Okay..." she says. "This cake is delicious though."

"It really is," Austin, Mike, and my dad all say scattered. Austin swallows his last piece of cake. We put our plates in the sink and walk out to the pool. I jump right into it. Once I surface, Austin jumps in, making a big splash. We swim around for about an hour. Most of the lights in the house are off now so everyone must be asleep. Austin swims up behind me and tickles me. I start laughing.

"Austin, stop it!" I exclaim, squirming around. He stops for a second.

"Hm... no," he says, tickling me again. I laugh and think, trying to remember his ticklish spots... I reach for his stomach and start tickling him. He jumps and starts laughing.

"No fair!" he exclaims, laughing.

"How is this not fair? You were tickling me!" I say, also laughing.


I don't even remember how we got up here. It doesn't really matter. Austin's up here with me so I'm fine.

We're lying on the roof, looking up at the moon and the stars. His arm is around me. We changed into the clothes we were wearing earlier in case it got cold but it really isn't that cold tonight. It's actually pretty warm. Austin looks down at me and kisses me. I kiss him back automatically.

Makin' out up on the roof

I roll over on top of him and deepen the kiss. When we finally pull apart and I return to my original spot beside him, I hear a group of people on the road in front of the house. They're laughing like idiots.

"Hey losers! I'm gonna laugh when you fall!" one of them call up to us. We sit up and look down at the group of obviously highly intoxicated boys. "What are you even doing up there?!"

"We are waiting to board the mothership!" Austin exclaims and I laugh. "They should be here any minute! And we'll send them to abduct you unless you leave right now!" They run down the street, tripping over each other. We laugh at their dumb selves.

"You know what we should do?" he asks me once they're out of sight.

"What?" I ask.

"We should skinny dip," he tells me, raising his eyebrows.

"Um, excuse me?" I ask with a slight laugh. "You can do that on your own if you want." He rolls his eyes.

"Come on, Als. It'll be fun," he says.

"I am not doing that," I say. He sighs.

"Hold on," he tells me. He goes over the top of the house and disappears. He grunts a little as he hits the ground. Suddenly, the light that illuminates the pool goes out and I can't see anything. "See? Well, don't see? Now no one can see you," he calls up to where I'm sitting. I feel something fall on my head. I take it off and wait for my eyes to adjust to the darkness. Once they do, I see that I'm holding Austin's bright pink boxers.

"Ew!" I exclaim, throwing them backwards. I hear a splash in the pool.

"Ally!" Austin calls in a sing-song voice. I sigh and climb over the top of the roof, dropping down when I get to the end. I can't really see him either. "You coming in?" he asks. I take off my shirt and my pants.

"Do I have to take off my bra and underwear?" I ask.

"Yes. If you don't, it technically isn't skinny dipping," he says. My eyes adjust a bit more and I can see the outline of Austin's body. I take of my underwear and my bra. I throw my bra on Austin's head.

"Whoo!" he exclaims when he figures out what it is. I laugh. "I hope you know I'm keeping this," he jokes. Well, I think he's joking. I see it fly past me and land on the table. I dive into the water head first.

Skinny dippin' in the pool

Austin swims over to me.

"Stay away from me!" I exclaim, swimming away from him and laughing.

"Ah, come on," he says.

"Not while we're freaking naked!" I yell. I can't help but laugh even harder.

"If it helps, I'll put my boxers back on," he says. He swims to the edge of the pool closest to the house where I threw them at and he pulls them into the pool. After a few seconds, he swims back over to me. "Happy?" he asks. I smile.

"It's a little better," I say. He wraps his arms around me, careful not to touch any of my... erm... places. Thank God I don't have big breasts because his chest is touching them. If I did have them, Austin would have... never mind.

He presses his lips hard against mine. I close my eyes and kiss him back, running my fingers through his hair. When he pulls away, I blink and smile even though he can't see it.

Suddenly, the lights that are in the pool come on. They must have a sensor that tells them when it's dark or something. My eyes widen to the size of saucers. Austin's eyes slide down to my chest. I put my hand under his chin and force him to look into my eyes.

"Don't make me slap you," I snap. He smiles.

"Sorry," he says, kissing me once more.

"Is there anyway to turn these off?" I ask, pulling away from him. He nods. "Will you?" I ask. He looks up, deep in thought.

"Hm, I don't know if I should..." he says.

"Turn. Them. Off," I say firmly.

"Aw, what's the magic word?" he asks.

"Please?" I ask. He shakes his head. "Uh, pancakes?"

"Ah, you're so smart," he says. He climbs out of the pool and disappears into the house. After a few minutes, the lights go off and he comes back out. I hear him yelp and then there's a splash.

"What'd you do? Fall in?" I ask when I hear him come up for air.

"Psht, no. Maybe..." he says.

"You're so silly," I tell him for the second time today. We swim around in complete darkness for a little while. Then Austin goes to get us towels. I climb out and wait for him, with my arms folded over my chest in case the stupid lights come back on. Austin throws a towel out the door and it hits me. I grab it before it can fall to the ground. I wrap it around myself.

"Can I turn the lights on?" he asks me.

"Yes," I say. He flips them on and laughs.

"What's so funny?" I ask.

"I've never gone skinny dipping before," he says giggling.

"Well, now you have," I say, laughing too. "Can we go inside now? It's starting to get cold."

"Sure, Als," he tells me. He grabs my bra off the table.

"Gimme that," I demand.

"I told you I was keeping it. And you didn't object to it so..." he trails off with a smirk on his face. We grab the rest of our clothes and walk up to my room. Austin changes in his room and I change in mine. When we're both done changing, he comes back into my room and we lie down in my bed.

"You're gonna be here when I leave, right?" I ask.

"I promise, Ally. Where am I gonna be anyway?" he asks. I shrug.

"I guess you're right," I say, snuggling into his arms. "Hey. There's still one thing that bothers me."

"What's that?" he asks.

"When the lights came on in the pool, did you see anything?" I ask worriedly.

"If it bothers you that much then," he says quietly to where he thinks I probably can't hear then he says the next part at regular volume, "no, Ally, I didn't see anything." I swallow. Maybe I heard the first part wrong. Or maybe I imagined it altogether. I jump up. "What?" he asks. I grab my songbook and open it.

Skinny dippin' in the pool...

Or makin' out up on the roof...

I look down at the two lines of lyrics once and think of something else.

Crazy for you

And I am. If it was anyone but Austin, I probably wouldn't have done that. I feel Austin's hot breath on my neck.

"I'm crazy for you too," he whispers in my ear, making a shiver run down my spine. I kiss him once quickly then lie back down, setting my book on my side table.

"Goodnight," I say.

"Goodnight," he replies.

Sorry I didn't update yesterday. The long-ness of this chapter should make up for it. I should have the last chapter up tomorrow. I'll have to get over my OCD-ness once more and... bear the fact that it's an odd number... Review!

Love, Kenzie