Hello again everyone! This is a chapter I've really been looking forward to writing. Enjoy! WARNING: There is some language (cursing) in this chapter. It's not a ton but just a heads up.

"Mom, PLEASE don't make me go! I don't have a date, and it's going to be really awkward! I REALLY don't want to go, so just let me stay here tonight!"

Ned Bigby's mother crossed her arms and gave her son one of her sternest looks that meant there was going to be no swaying her. Ned gave her his most pleading look but it had no effect.

"Ned Bigby you are GOING to this dance and that is final. I already paid the school for your ticket. Besides, I'm sure Simon will be there, and Jennifer will be going too. She's just going to be late. Her parents had another event scheduled today but I'm sure you can survive for an hour or two until she gets there."

Ned rolled his eyes. He hadn't told his mother about Moze yet.

"Mom, I don't really want to see-"

"No more excuses young man, you are going and that is final. Go upstairs and get dressed." As Ned slowly headed towards the stairs, his mother added "And no casual clothes! This is a dance so I want you to look nice!"

Ned responded by groaning as loudly as he could.

A few minutes later, Ned was sitting in the front passenger's seat of his moms car, feeling about as miserable as possible. Despite his best attempts to fight her on it, his mom had insisted on the light blue dress shirt, navy blue tie, and navy blue pants that Ned was currently wearing. At least I talked her out of the matching sport coat Ned thought miserably.

As they pulled out of the driveway, Ned glanced quickly at Moze's house. It was obvious no one was home, all the lights were out and both of Moze's parent's cars were missing from their usual spots in their driveway. Ned felt a brief twinge of guilt not knowing where they were. Moze would always tell him if her parents were dragging her somewhere, especially if it meant being late to a school event. The fact he didn't have a clue where she was right now made the fact she was no longer his closest friend glaringly obvious, and painful.

Ned almost unconsciously fingered his cell phone in his pocket, almost as if his fingers had a mind of their own and a desire to call Moze. After a minute or so, Ned realized what he was doing and quickly withdrew his hand from his pocket. His mom glanced at him, having noticed the odd behavior. She frowned but said nothing.

After what seemed like an eternity, they finally pulled up in front of the high school. The dance was being held in the gymnasium but there were plenty of students milling around outside. After one last pleading look at his mother (and getting a very definitive glare in response) Ned slowly got out of the car.

"Ned, just go have some fun" his mother urged, a reassuring tone in her voice that did nothing at all to help Ned.

Ned shrugged and mumbled something incoherent. His mother seemed to ignore it.

"Remember, the dance ends at 9:30 so I'll see you a little after that! I'm sure you'll want some extra time with your friends so I'll try to be fashionably late picking you up!"

Ned waved as his mom drove off. On the one hand, he was a little touched that she'd go out of her way to give him extra time after the dance to hang out. On the other hand, the friends she thought he was going to hang out with were now one significant number less. He was already stuck here for the 3 hours the dance was scheduled to run. Extra time at the end would just prolong what was sure to be a miserable night.

After his mom had driven off, the first thing Ned did was to take his tie off and unbutton the top button of his shirt. No date, no reason to dress to the nines he reasoned to himself. He made sure to put his tie in his pocket so he wouldn't lose it, knowing his mom would kill him if he did.

After looking around at the couples already gathering outside, Ned quickly decided he wanted to spend as little time around romance tonight as possible, so after heading into the school, he turned in the opposite direction of the gym. Almost as soon as he had, he heard someone calling his name.

"Ned! Ned you made it! This is great!"

Ned couldn't help but grin at Cookie's unmistakable voice and turned to see his friend eagerly fast walking towards him.

"Hey Cook" he replied with as much enthusiasm as he could muster (which wasn't much but Cookie didn't seem to notice)

Cookie looked quite nice for the evening. He had on a crisp white shirt, a black tie and black pants.

All he needs is a black suit jacket and he could be in the next Men In Black movie Ned thought.

As Ned clasped Cookie's hand and pulled him into a friendly half hug, he noticed Lisa walking up behind Cookie.

Ned had never been into Lisa romantically in any way at all. Once she'd gotten over her allergies, Ned had noticed she was attractive but he'd never thought much of it. However, at this particular moment, he had to work to keep from gaping at her. Lisa was wearing a very lovely yellow satin dress with fabric straps. The skirt of the dress fell to just above her knees. Her hair was down around her shoulders, and she'd done something to give it a bit of a wavy look. Ned was stunned at how beautiful she looked.

"Cookie, nice job!" he whispered into his best friend's ear. "Lisa looks amazing!" Cookie beamed at the compliment.

"I know, right!" he whispered back, or at least he tried to whisper. His excitement was through the roof so his whisper attempt was almost at full volume, and since he was trying to whisper back in Ned's ear, Ned had to put a finger in his ear from the pain of Cookie's loud voice reverberating through his eardrum.

"What do you know?" Lisa asked, grinning at Ned's reaction to Cookie's voice ringing in his ear.

Ned realized she'd easily heard Cookie's response, and decided there was no reason to hide an innocent compliment.

"I was telling Cookie that I thought you looked great. You both really cleaned up nicely tonight."

Now it was Lisa's turn to beam with pleasure.

"Thanks Ned" she replied in her usual soft, pleasant voice. "That's really sweet of you."

Cookie clapped Ned on the shoulder to show his appreciation for the compliment, but then his expression turned quizzical.

"Wait, Ned, why ARE you here?" His eyes widened. "Wait, did you get a date? Because if you got a date, that would be awesome! Where is she? I want to meet her!"

Cookie started looking around furiously, as though he expected a girl to materialize out of thin air.

Ned shook his head and the smile fell from his face.

"No date Cook. My mom made me come. I was actually about to go hang out near my locker for a while. I kinda don't want to be around all the couples right now. Especially, well you know."

Cookie's blank expression showed that he had no idea what Ned was talking about. Fortunately for Cookie, Lisa was there to rescue him from his oblivion.

"Simon, Ned doesn't want to be around when Jennifer and Jeff show up later. You probably should avoid the topic of girls, at least for tonight, for his sake."

Lisa looked at Ned for confirmation that what she was saying matched his thoughts. He nodded in agreement.

Cookie's eyes finally widened in comprehension. Lisa reached out and took his hand, gently directing him towards the gym. He looked back at Ned, uncertain if he should be leaving his friend alone. Ned waved.

"I'm sure I'll talk to you guys in a bit, go have fun! I can manage to survive tonight."

Though Ned said it, he wasn't sure he felt it.

Moze was sick and tired of sitting around doing nothing. It was bad enough that her parents had dragged her to their business meeting, but now she was missing a good chunk of her first high school dance, and missing out on spending time with her new boyfriend!

Her mother had explained to her that they wouldn't be able to give her a ride to the dance until after their meeting. That was the problem with having two parents running a real estate firm. If they had to meet a client, they often BOTH had to go. At least her dad had been nice enough to suggest bringing both cars so he could take her straight to the dance from the meeting instead of having to stop at their house first.

Moze looked out the window of her dad's office to his car. She could see the hanger and bag that had her dress for tonight in it, hanging up in the back of the car. She wished she was putting it on right now and getting ready to leave. But she didn't want to risk it getting dirty while she waited for her parents meeting to end, so she'd decided to wait to put it on until it was actually time to go, whenever that was going to be.

Her phone buzzed in her pocket and she fished it out. It was Jeff, wondering if she had an estimate on what time she'd be arriving to the dance. She responded the same way she had the last two times he'd texted: No timetable yet. Meeting still going on.

As she put her phone back into her pocket, her thoughts flashed to Ned. She wondered what he was doing tonight. Lisa had told her that he hadn't been able to get a date. On the one hand, Moze felt bad for Ned being alone, but on the other hand, she could still feel the sting of his words when he ended their long friendship. She'd been hurt, deeply. It still hurt to think about.

In her heart she knew this was why she'd broken things off between them romantically. She wasn't convinced Ned could handle that kind of relationship. She was afraid he'd ditch her if things got complicated, which is exactly what had happened with Suzy. Ok, so maybe he hadn't actually ditched her, but he'd lied to her instead of being honest.

Moze wondered if Ned was even truly capable of the kind of deep emotional connection needed for that kind of relationship. The way he'd dumped their friendship told her he wasn't. I guess I just bailed on him first, that's all she told herself. I did it to him before he did it to me, which he would have done anyway at some point. Moze wasn't sure if she was thinking this simply to assure herself she'd done the right thing, or because she truly believed it.

She shook her head, trying to clear all the thoughts about Ned from her mind. It was too painful to think about him. I need to get him out of my head she thought to herself. She decided to try to refocus her thoughts on Jeff. That brought a smile to her face.

Ned stepped out of the bathroom that was nearest to his locker. The hallway was deserted and only half the lights were on, since just about everyone was in and around the gym on the other end of the building. Ned was glad someone had had the foresight to leave some of the lights on in the main part of the school, likely in case someone needed to get something from their locker, or in his case, to be able to avoid the dance area altogether.

As Ned approached his own locker, he stopped in front of Moze's and stared at it. His mind was instantly flooded with all kinds of memories of Moze: the time she'd posed as his girlfriend to help ward of Missy Meany, the party where she'd kissed him because she wanted to compare kissing him to kissing Fayman, the time he and Cookie had desperately tried to enroll in the same class as her, only to end up in Life Science while Moze happily landed in Woodshop, the time she'd tried to help him get over Suzy after she'd moved away, the field trip…..

Ned was suddenly overcome by a pain that ran so deep he could've swore it went straight into his soul. He reacted, punching Moze's locker so hard his hand hurt, and a tiny dent was left in the metal. The sound of his fist banging into the metal echoed down the empty corridor. Ned looked down at his hand. There didn't appear to be any damage to it, and it didn't hurt too bad, but the aching he felt inside did. It hurt a lot. Damn it, I miss her. I miss Moze he thought mournfully.

Ned quickly spun back towards the bathroom. He hoped splashing some cold water on his face would help snap him out of this, whatever this was. I knew tonight was going to suck.

Moze had just finished her 8th game of minesweeper on her dad's computer when his office door opened and he peeked his head in.

"Hey Jennifer," he said "We are wrapping up now. If you want to go get ready, now's your chance. We should be able to leave soon."

Moze jumped up excitedly and grabbed her dad's car keys and dashed out to get her dress, eager to put it on and finally get to the dance. It was almost 8 already and the dance was almost half over. She was so excited she completely forgot that she'd left her phone charging on the floor near one of the outlets in the office.

Ned was wandering one of the hallways near the band room when he heard a voice yelling his name.

"Ned! Ned! You've gotta come quick! You've gotta see this!"

Ned whirled around, wondering what in the world was going on. He saw Coconut Head running towards him at a full sprint.

When Coconut Head reached Ned, he was panting heavily. Despite years of running away from Loomer, he still didn't have a lot of stamina while running.

"What's going on?" Ned asked, concern in his voice. "Is someone after you? Is it Loomer again?"

All Coconut Head could do was shake his head. He couldn't catch his breath enough to get any words out at first. Eventually they came out, a word at a time between gasps for air.

"No…..gym…..gotta see…come on…"

Coconut Head grabbed Ned's hand and yanked him towards the gym. Ned was capable of running much faster than Coconut Head, but since he had no idea what was going on, he let Coconut Head lead the way.

Eventually they made their way to the gym. At first Ned looked around at all the couples dancing, and wanted nothing more than to bolt out of there at top speed, but Coconut Head (who at this point was doubled over, desperately trying to catch his breath) clearly wanted him to see something important. After waiting several moments for Coconut Head to get some air back into his lungs, Ned started to get a little impatient.

"What is it?" he asked, exasperated. "What the heck is so damn important, and how did you even know I was here?"

Coconut Head finally straightened up, still panting a bit.

"I saw you….come in…..talk to Cookie…..and walk off. I figured…..I'd find you…somewhere."

"And?" Ned asked, now irritated now that Coconut Head was taking forever to get to the point.

Coconut Head's expression suddenly became very serious and he pointed towards a couple dancing halfway across the gym.

Ned's eyes followed the direction Coconut Head was pointing and spotted the couple. It was Jeff and Moze. He whirled on Coconut Head.

"That's what this was all about? Did you really not think I knew they were together? Do you think I'm stupid or something?!"

The expression on Coconut Head's face told Ned something was really wrong. When he shook his head no and pointed again, Ned turned back to the couple, and his eyes went wide. It was Jeff, no doubt about it.

But the girl he was with….. it wasn't Moze.

Suddenly Ned's mind flashed back to the bathroom a couple days ago. The random guy bragging about taking two girls to the dance….. the one who said neither girl knew about the other….. the pieces began to fit together in one horrible puzzle. Moze was going to be late to the dance. Jeff knew that. He'd asked another girl to go with him. He knew Moze wasn't going to be there until later. He was going to leave with this random girl, then come back and meet Moze, who would be none the wiser.

The pain that had been knowing at every part of Ned's insides was suddenly gone. In its place was a growing, blazing, white hot fury.

Without thinking, Ned strode purposefully straight to Jeff and his second date. He stopped just short of where Jeff and his date were dancing and bared his teeth.

"WHAT THE HELL?" the question was asked loudly, and simultaneously, by both Jeff and Ned.

Jeff asking the same question at the same time as him threw Ned off for a moment. Jeff didn't hesitate, stopping his dance with the girl, gently pushing her to the side, and facing Ned.

"What the hell are you doing here Bigby? You're not supposed to be here!"

Ned frowned, completely confused.

"What are you talking about?"

"You're not supposed to be here!" Jeff reiterated louder. "You don't have a date!"

Ned's frown grew deeper as his confusion grew.

"This dance doesn't require a date" he responded. "I came alone. I can be here all I…." his voice trailed off as realization struck.

"How did YOU know I didn't have a date?"

"Because I made sure that you…." Jeff's blurted out response faded to silence as he realized what he was revealing.

"YOU made sure I wouldn't have a date, didn't you!" Ned exclaimed, disgust in his voice. "How?"

Jeff smirked.

"It really wasn't that hard. See at my middle school I was actually POPULAR, unlike you. I already knew a lot of the girls in our class this year. All I had to do was use my connections, spread the word to the popular ladies I knew to all avoid going out with a guy named Ned Bigby, and the popular girls I knew would spread it to the ones I didn't, then the popular girls would pressure the unpopular girls by telling them they'd never be cool if they went to the dance with you. Pretty simple."

Now Ned's anger threatened to boil over.

"You did this because you hoped I wouldn't be here to bust your scam. No date usually means stay home, right? Too bad for you I have a mom who didn't go for that. Guess you're busted after all."

Now Jeff grinned, and there was a decidedly evil glint in his eyes.

"No, I'm not."

Ned frowned again, confusion again momentarily dulling his anger.

"Why is that?"

"Because even though you found out, you're not gonna tell her. The girl I'm with now doesn't care if I have two girlfriends, so she's not going to say anything either."

At this the girl nodded with a sadistic smile on her face. Jeff continued.

"And I'm popular. No one here is gonna risk their social status in school by going against me and ratting me out, so no, I'm not busted."

Ned glared at Jeff, the anger beginning the bubble up yet again.

"What makes you think I wouldn't tell Jennifer…..no, check that, what makes you think I won't tell MOZE what you did?"

Jeff laughed. He actually laughed.

"Two reasons you annoying little prick" he exclaimed between laughs. "First, you ended your friendship with her, in front of basically the whole school, so she probably won't want to speak to you again anyway, and second, even if you did manage to tell her, she wouldn't believe you anyway after the way you treated her. You screwed yourself dumbass."

Finally the rage that had been building and building inside of Ned boiled over and he exploded.

"Jeff you're an ASSHOLE! Moze deserves someone a hundred times better than you! A thousand times better! There probably isn't a guy in this school good enough for her! You know why? Because Moze is one of the best people I've ever met! She's caring, loyal, brave, and smarter than you could ever DREAM of being, she'll always have her friend's backs even if it means putting her own ass on the line, and you know what? Ending my friendship with her was the stupidest thing I've ever done in my life. Even worse than lying to her, even worse than getting angry and jealous because the girl I care about more than anything liked someone who wasn't me! I don't even deserve all the years of friendship we had. She put up with so much crap from me, but I was lucky to have that! Even the memory of the short time I got to spend as her boyfriend is more than I deserve! THAT is how wonderful she is, THAT is why you're the biggest ass in the world for treating her like that, and THAT is why I'm gonna do THIS!"

As soon as Ned made the exclamation, he suddenly lunged forward, swinging his right fist and connecting with Jeff's face with a decently loud CRACK!

Jeff was thrown backward by the ferocious force of Ned's punch. He landed on his back, and his cheek immediately began to swell. Meanwhile Ned hopped up and down and grunted in pain, as he had used the same fist to punch Moze's locker, so his hand now REALLY hurt.

Jeff was dazed for a moment then put his hand to his lip, which was also swollen and bleeding slightly. He glared at Ned.

Ned glared back, preparing for any retaliation from Jeff.

Suddenly Ned realized Jeff was no longer looking at him, but PAST him, and his eyes had grown wide.

Ned turned around, expecting to see a teacher coming to break up the commotion.

Instead he saw Moze.

She stood there, wearing a look on her face Ned wasn't quite sure he'd seen before. It looked like a mixture of horror, fascination, shock, dismay, and something else….

Ned could only watch as Moze walked right up to Jeff where he lay. Without warning, she kicked him in the shin. Hard. Jeff howled. Ned even winced.

"We're through" Moze told him flatly, no emotion in her voice. She turned and walked out of the gym.

After hesitating for a moment, wondering what to do, Ned followed Moze, hoping she wasn't leaving. As soon as he exited the gym into the school hallway he saw her, resting a shoulder against the hallway wall, her back to him.

For a moment Ned just looked at her. He realized just how beautiful she looked. She was wearing a royal blue chiffon dress with spaghetti straps that fell to her knees. Her hair was flowing, cascading down just past her shoulders. Ned always loved when she let her hair down. It made her look angelic to him.

After hesitating a few moments more, he gingerly approached her. She turned as she heard him walk up to her. Ned saw tears glistening in her eyes, but she wasn't crying. He looked down, trying to figure out what to say. He swallowed and looked up again, into her eyes.

"Moze, I-"

Ned was cut off as Moze suddenly stepped close and covered his lips with her own. The kiss was so sudden and caught Ned so completely off guard that he froze for a good 3-4 seconds. When he finally came to his senses he immediately started returning the kiss. He felt Moze respond, moving even closer and kissing him even harder.

After kissing for what seemed to Ned like hours but was really closer to 20 seconds, Moze finally pulled back. The two stared at each other silently for a moment.

"Did you really mean everything you said in there?" Moze blurted out, breaking the silence.

"You heard?" Ned asked. "All of it?"

Moze let a coy smile play at the corner of her mouth.

"I actually came in right behind you and Coconut Head. I forgot my phone at my dad's office so I wasn't able to tell Jeff I was on my way."

"I'd say too bad for him, but good riddance is more like it" Ned replied with a grin.

Moze's face became serious.

"Ned, I need to know, did you mean what you said to Jeff? About me?"

"Every word" Ned replied without hesitating.

"Then you were wrong" Moze said, showing no emotion.

Ned frowned.

"About what?"

"About you not deserving our friendship. About not deserving me."

Now Moze smiled, and to Ned it was the most beautiful smile he'd ever seen. He smiled back.

"So…. Can we be friends again?" he asked tentatively.

Moze didn't answer for a moment and Ned began to get a nervous feeling in his gut.

She sighed, and the nervousness in his stomach increased further.

"Ned, when I broke up with you, I did it for two reasons. One you know about, which was the fact you lied to me. The second, which I didn't fully realize until today, was that I was scared. I was scared you weren't ready for a serious relationship. I was…." Moze bit her lip nervously before continuing. "I was scared you'd get bored or get caught up in something else, and dump me. I didn't like that feeling. I was never scared of losing Faymen, or Jeff, or anyone else, but I was scared of losing YOU. So I bailed at the first sign of trouble. I meant what I said at your barbeque, that I wasn't giving up, but since I didn't realize WHY I was pulling away, I didn't know what else to do. I was stuck. Then Jeff came along and I guess I saw it as an easy way to handle it. I'd date someone else and we could go back to being friends and that would solve my problem. Only it didn't. Jeff manipulated me, and you, and caused you to flip out and end our friendship."

"Moze I'm so sorry" Ned said softly.

"I'm not done, let me finish" Moze replied. "After you ended our friendship, I was forced to look at things differently. I couldn't hide behind our friendship anymore. Just tonight I finally put the pieces together and realized WHY I pulled away over the Suzie issue. It's because I like you Ned. I like you a whole lot more than just a friend, more than even a best friend. I know we battled with these feelings back and forth a lot at the end of 8th grade, and especially on the field trip when we finally decided we wanted to be more than friends. But I don't think I ever completely processed my feelings for you. I thought about the obvious stuff, like hand holding, kissing, Valentine's Day stuff and all of that, but I never really thought about the feelings behind all of that, and when I did, it scared me. Not because of how much I care about you, but because of how much I realized it would hurt if I lost you. So I pushed you away to protect myself. But all I did was hurt both of us. So I'm the one who should say I'm sorry. I AM sorry Ned. I shouldn't have pushed you away, and I shouldn't have been so afraid of my feelings. I also shouldn't have doubted you. You told Jeff I'm always there for my friends. Well you've always been there for me, too. I trust you more than anyone I know. I'm not going to let my fears get in the way anymore, I promise you Ned."

Ned shuffled his feet a little, trying to decide how to respond.

"So, what do we do now?" he asked, a little apprehensive.

Moze gave Ned another radiant smile.

"Now you come over here and kiss your girlfriend….. if you haven't given up on me"

Without another word, Ned stepped forward and kissed her. He kissed her deeply and tenderly, and all the pain and fear and loneliness he'd been feeling for what seemed like ages all melted away in that moment.

After all the drama that had happened in the gym, Ned and Moze decided to skip going back in. Instead they went outside and walked around the school building, holding hands. When they rounded a corner that brought them to the back of the building, they heard familiar voices.

"Do you see it yet Simon?"

"No, but I'll keep looking. We aren't giving up until we find that cat. Ned will be devastated if we don't find it!"

"Cookie?" Ned called out in surprise.

"Ned?" came Cookie's reply, and from the direction of the voice, Ned realized Cookie was up in one of the many trees that surrounded the building.

"Cookie what the heck are you doing up there?"

"Ned, I'm so sorry! Jeff said he saw your cat climb up one of the trees here at school and that the city pound would probably come and get it if we didn't find it first! He said you loved your cat and Lisa and I figured with everything going on, that we should find it! The only problem was, Jeff didn't say which tree. So we've been out here looking and…. Moze? Is that you?"

Ned and Moze were laughing, listening to Cookie ramble on. A moment later Lisa came around from behind a bush, a confused expression on her face.

"What's going on?" she asked, wondering why Ned and Moze were laughing.

"Cookie!" Ned exclaimed. Did you forget I don't HAVE a cat?"

"Oh. Ooops." Came the reply from the tree Cookie was in. "Wait, then why did Jeff say he saw your cat?"

"It was probably to get you and Lisa out of the way" Moze replied, still chuckling a little.

"Why would he do that?" Lisa asked, sounding very concerned.

"It's a long story" Ned replied. "We can tell you all about it if you two want to go for a walk with us."

"Us?" Cookie asked from up in the tree. "There's an "us" again?" He couldn't keep the hopeful tone out of his voice

Moze grinned at Ned and kissed him on the cheek.

"Yes Cookie" she replied with a fake exasperated sigh. "You missed the whole thing. Ned punched out Jeff and he and I are together again."

"Wait, WHAT?" Cookie shouted in shock and glee. "So the friendship is back?"

"Simon!" Lisa exclaimed, rolling her eyes. "Jennifer means TOGETHER, as in DATING!"

Cookie finally managed to climb out of the tree and ran over to where everyone was standing. His smile was from ear to ear.

"You two are going out again? For real?"

"Yes for real" Moze replied, and turning to Ned she gently and teasingly pinched his cheek. "I missed my sweet Neddy-kins!"

"Hold up" Ned said in his best fake serious voice and showing his best fake serious face. "If you're gonna start calling me that then I don't think this is gonna work."

Moze gently bumped her hip against his.

"Oh come on, you know you love it!"

Ned finally broke his fake serious posture and smiled.

"You know me better than anyone Moze"

"Anyone" she agreed, leaning in and kissing him.

"This is great!" Cookie exclaimed

Ned and Moze called their parents to arrange for Ned's mom to pick them up together. When they got back to Ned's house, Ned happily offered to walk Moze to her front door. They walked slowly, holding hands.

"So now that we're back together, does this mean I can expect surprise visits from you at my window?" Ned asked playfully.

Moze laughed.

"Sure, if don't mind paying for my hospital bill when I fall off your roof and break my ankle!"

They grinned at each other. They both knew there would be PLENTY of surprise visits at each other's windows.

"So, it IS the weekend" Ned said, suggestively.

"Yeah?" Moze replied, intrigued. "What do you have in mind?"

"Maybe tomorrow night you could come over after dark, we could lie on my back lawn and watch the stars? Maybe cuddle?"

Moze moved in closer to Ned as they approached her front door, hooking her arm around his while still holding his hand, and pressing up against his side.

They reached her front door and she let go of his hand so she could face him.

"It's a date" she whispered seductively and playfully in his ear.

Ned grinned.

"I can't wait" he replied.

"Ned, seriously, thank you for giving me the weirdest, wildest, best night of my life" Moze said happily.

"My pleasure. Anytime you want to see a guy get punched out, just give me a call."

"I've got your number" Moze replied with a smile. "Night Ned. I'll be dreaming about you."

"Night Moze. Me too I hope."

Ned leaned toward Moze and brushed her lips with his. Moze responded by moving as close to him as she could, pressing him up against the side of her house, and deepening the kiss. They kissed for a good 30 seconds or so before finally calling it a night. As Ned walked home, only one thought was going through his head: Wow.

Well that concludes this chapter! I hope it was worth the wait to read! Hopefully I can get the next chapter up soon!