To Hollie's immense surprise, Nikki was fine with the idea of her daughter having some friends over for a party, as long as she agreed the guest list with her first. Nikki even suggested that she went round to Tom's for the evening so that they could have the house to themselves. As it turned out, however, they were both asked last minute to go on a year nine weekend trip to Edinburgh on the weekend Hollie had arranged for her friends to come over, so the teenager was going to be home alone anyway.

"Are you sure you'll be alright?" Nikki demanded on Friday morning as she rushed around making sure she had everything she needed for the trip before they left for school.

Hollie nodded, taking a bite from her toast. "I'll be fine, Mum, stop fussing."

"Are you sure?"

"I'm not going to change my mind just because you keep asking." The teenager replied with a smile.

"Fine, OK."

"Besides, you cleared it with Maggie for everyone to stay over tonight and Josh's gonna stay here tomorrow night." Hollie informed her mother, not meeting her eyes.

The truth was that when the teenager had found out that Nikki was going to be away all weekend, she had phoned Natalie and invited her to stay over. The older girl had been coming to visit on Saturday anyway, so it made sense for her to come for the whole weekend. Natalie's train got in at almost half past ten that evening and Hollie had already told her friends that her sister was coming.

"Right, yeah, let's go before I think of anything else I need." Nikki commanded.

The teenager grinned and loaded her breakfast things into the dishwasher, before following her mother into the hallway and grabbing her school bag. Rolling her eyes as the woman dashed back up the stairs for something or other that she'd forgotten, Hollie leant against the car and read a text from her sister, grinning to herself as she did so.

"Kevin?"

Glancing up guiltily, the teenager blinked at her mother. "Huh?"

"Is that Kevin? Judging from the grin on your face I don't want to know what that message says."

"Oh… it's nothing bad." Hollie assured her quickly, blushing slightly at what the woman was implying. "Just… stuff…"

"I don't want to know."

"No, really, it's nothing…"

Nikki grinned and got in the car. "OK, OK."

The morning was spent getting excited about that night. When Hollie finished for the day at lunchtime, she walked home with Josh and Madi to tidy up before they could start setting up for the party. On the way, she stopped, staring at a car intently.

"What's up?" Madi asked, frowning at her friend.

"That car… I've seen it like four times this week." Hollie replied quickly.

"So?"

"Like I've seen it outside the house like four times."

The blonde laughed. "What, like it's following you?"

"I don't know…"

"That's stupid." Madi told her bluntly. "There must be loads of blue Fords around here."

Hollie nodded slowly. "Yeah… yeah, you're right."

As they got started on sorting things out, the brunette seventeen-year-old put all thoughts of the car out of her mind. By the time their friends started arriving, Madi and Josh were already quite tipsy and Hollie was on her way there. She almost forgot that she needed to go to the station to pick Natalie up. Kevin reminded her and together they left the party. Natalie laughed as she saw her younger sister being supported by her boyfriend on the platform, accepting the tight hug from the teenager and smiling warmly at Kevin.

Nothing was broken and the house remained in an almost acceptable state. By the time her mother arrived home on Sunday night, Natalie had left and everything was neat and tidy once more. Nikki raised an eyebrow at the fact that the house looked better than it had before she left, but didn't comment as Hollie handed her a mug of coffee and asked about the trip. They curled up together on the sofa and watched a film, happy to be back together again.

When Hollie went up to bed several hours later, she glanced out of the window as she was drawing the curtains. Frowning, she spotted the blue car parked across the road. Turning away from the window, she ran down the stairs to point it out to her mother, only to discover that it had gone. Kissing her on the head, Nikki sent her daughter to bed, telling her that it was nothing.

x-x

The week passed slowly, with Hollie's party being the main topic of conversation for the sixth formers for a couple of days. The gossip even found its way around the staff room, with Nikki hearing more about what had gone on there than she did from her daughter. She made a mental note to ask about some of the things she heard.

As she was walking home on Thursday, a car drew up on the other side of the road and stopped a little way ahead of her. Hollie paused, her heart thudding wildly in her chest as she recognised the blue Ford she'd seen around over the last couple of weeks. Taking a deep breath, the teenager sped up, pushing her bag more securely onto her shoulder. The car doors opened and two men emerged, glancing around for a moment.

"Hols?"

Hollie didn't think she'd ever been so grateful to hear Josh's voice before in her life. She smiled at him and turned, seeing the car drive away out of the corner of her eye. "Hey, what's up?"

"Dad wanted to know whether you and Nikki wanted to come round to ours for dinner tonight." He told her, coming to a halt beside her. "I think he's gonna ask her."

"Yeah, sounds good." She agreed, changing direction and heading towards their house instead.

Hollie wasn't sure whether to tell Josh about the car or not. So far every time she'd mentioned it everyone had told her she was just being paranoid. The car coming to a stop and the men getting out had really shaken her and her imagination was in overdrive thinking about what might have happened if Josh hadn't arrived at that moment.

"So what d'you think?" He asked, dragging her attention back to the conversation.

"What? Sorry…"

"I was wondering whether you fancied going to a gig on the ninth." Josh repeated his question. "It's that new indie band I was telling you about the other day."

"Oh, the one with the fit lead singer?" Hollie asked, grinning as he blushed. "That's next Saturday, right? Nat's coming down, but I'm guessing it won't start 'til after she's left."

"Nah, it starts at eight." He agreed. "Have you told Nikki about Natalie yet?"

The girl sighed and pushed her arm through Josh's, leaning her head against his shoulder. "No… it's too hard. Maybe I should have told her straight away."

"Maybe next week when Nat's here you should just tell her. Introduce them or something. It'll be fine."

Acknowledging that he might have a point, Hollie decided to take Josh's advice and take Natalie to meet her mother when she came to visit again. Until then she decided to keep her mouth shut about it.

Tom had cooked dinner and they all got on well. Hollie felt guilty that she had given him such a hard time before. When they'd finished the meal, Josh and Hollie did the washing up, before going into the living room to join their parents and watch a movie.

"Listen… Nikki and I were talking when you were in the kitchen and we were wondering how you'd feel about us all living here together." Tom said when the credits rolled at the end of the film. He glanced between the teenagers warily, as though wondering which one would explode first.

Hollie thought for a moment. She had wondered whether this conversation would happen soon and had thought that she'd be annoyed or even angry when it did. But the more she thought about it, the more she found that she liked the idea. Tom and Josh might not actually be related to her in any way, but the four of them was the closest thing to a proper family that she'd ever had.

"Hol?" Nikki coaxed gently, obviously thinking that her daughter was about to start hurling abuse or shouting at them. "Josh?"

"I…"

"It's fine with me." Josh said, cutting Hollie off and shrugging.

With all eyes on her, the girl smiled and shrugged too. "And me."

"Really?" Nikki and Tom chorused, neither looking as though they could believe what their children had just said.

Glancing at Josh, Hollie nodded. "Yeah… it'll be like… we're a real family."

"Great!" Tom enthused, reaching over and giving her a hug. "Brilliant!"

As they drove home a little later, after deciding that they'd get things sorted as soon as possible for the move, Nikki turned to her daughter. "Are you really alright with moving in with Tom and Josh?"

Hollie nodded. "Honestly, Mum, I'm really excited about it."

"Good." Her mother replied with a contented sigh. "Because if you weren't I'd have said no. You know that, don't you? You always come first, Hols."

The teenager grinned and reached out to squeeze her mother's hand which was resting on the gear stick. "I know."

A/N: If you hadn't guessed, Josh and Madi haven't left Waterloo Road ;)