"I saw you."

Bobby and I were sitting in the Browns' family room together, both reading. I had finally yielded to my need to study, which was easier to do now that the sun had gone down and my legs weren't melting into my socks.

I glanced up at Bobby, apprehensively, hoping he didn't mean what I thought he meant.

"Saw me?"

"Yeah. In some dude's car. And you've been getting lifts too. You told me you were taking the bus." Bobby gazed at me, shrewdly, over top of his glasses. I, however, inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. If Bobby's assessment of the situation was that I was with "some guy", I was at least safe on that front. For the time being, anyway.

"Oh. Yeah. Didn't I mention him? That's Mmm.. Muh.. Mickey. He's in my class." I spun a quick excuse with as casual a tone as I could.

"You've never mentioned any Mickey before…" Bobby observed.

"Nah. We never really spoke until recently. But he's pretty cool. We got talking when I bumped into him at the library a few months back. We've been hanging out a lot since then." The lies were coming quick and easy now. I wove "Mickey's" backstory fluidly. "Your house is on his way home so he offered to give me rides back. He's an aspiring vet too."

"Uh huh.." Bobby muttered. Not sounding wholly convinced but with no proof otherwise. "So, you two got a thing going or…?"

Well, that was about as subtle as a brick to the face. I shot Bobby a withering look.

"No, Bobby. There's no thing between me and Mickey. He's just a friend." I reinforced, strongly. Although, the thought that there could be a "thing" between me and who I was actually hanging out with made me want to burst out laughing. I'm sure that would go down very well with the Cobras!

"You sure about that?" Bobby asked, his voice having gained a steely edge to it.

Now I let my book fall into my lap.

"What's with the third degree here!?" I asked, indignantly. "Even if I was dating him, what would it matter? Johnny and I broke up months ago and, honestly, I don't think he wants anything to do with me now, anyway." I shook my head, annoyed at Bobby's accusations, and picked my book back up, trying to find my place again.

There was silence for a few minutes while we both read.

Bobby broke the silence again.

"Hey. Me, Molly and Johnny were thinkin' of catching a movie on Friday if you're free?" Bobby asked, seemingly trying to smooth his tone out a bit.

I looked up again.

"Oh… Sorry. Me, Tommy and Jimmy are going out to Golf 'n' Stuff with Daniel and Jessica that day, for old time's sake. Does it have to be on Friday? Can you maybe catch a different viewing so we can all go (well, I mean, apart from Dutch, apparently)?" I asked.

Bobby pulled a face.

"Sorry. Friday was the only day that worked for all three of us. Why don't you guys go to Golf 'n' Stuff on a different day?" He countered.

"Ugh. That won't work. Jessica leaves Saturday morning. It was meant to be her final trip out before she left to go back to Columbus." I said, apologetically.

The two of us sat for a moment, trying to work it out. Eventually, though, we had to admit that this would be yet another instance of a failed attempt to hang out altogether (again, kind of).

"Dammit..!" I muttered, angrily.

"Hey, it's ok. We'll try to work something out next time." Bobby placated me, gently.

"I know I know. "Next time". It's always "next time"." I said, darkly, with nothing else to do but return to my textbook.

"Another day another failure huh? That sucks." Tommy said the next day when I told him. He was leaning on the hood of Dutch's car at his garage, Jimmy was standing with his weight on one leg and I'd made myself at home on some kind of wooden box. It was another hot day and I was doing my best to cool down, pressing a glass bottle of cola against my searing neck, although it was long past its coldest and wasn't doing much. Even the boys had ditched the jeans in favour of shorts today. Well, Tommy and Jimmy had anyway.

I glanced over at Dutch who was replacing the wheel of a client's dark blue car a little way off. Seeing him in all his full-length, black denimed glory was making me want to faint from heat-stroke on his behalf! It didn't seem to bother him much, though. He'd actually started to make a tidy little business for himself since the crash. I was proud of him.

"What are you grinning at?" Said Jimmy's voice from my left.

"Oh, was I grinning?" I hadn't realised I was.

"Maybe she's got a blossoming crush on Dutch. Aaaawwww." Tommy cooed with a grin.

"Shut up, you! I was just thinking about Dutch and this car repair business of his. It's pretty cool. He's doing well for himself." I smiled in earnest.

"Yeah, you're right." Tommy agreed, sincerely. "Even if it does mean he's leaving our karate gang."

"Well, let's be honest. We haven't exactly stayed in training lately, have we." I replied, fairly.

Tommy raised an eyebrow.

"Speak for yourself!" He said, apparently insulted.

"Hey, can one of you help me here!?" Dutch called, from over by the car he was working on.

"Sure, man! I'll be right over!" Tommy called back. He pushed himself up so he was standing properly and took a step to walk over, but paused. He glanced down at himself, up at me, then swiftly pulled his shirt up and over his head. Clearly I had been wrong! Tommy was, if anything, even more toned than normal! He'd never been bulky. He was slim but he was wiry and strong. His shoulders and arms in particular were well defined. His chest too. With a smirk and a wink at me, he turned and jogged over to help Dutch with whatever he was struggling with.

My eyes followed him as he went. The definition in his muscles was only reinforced as he helped lift and roll tyres.

"Now you really are staring." Jimmy pointed out.

"Shut up."

"Why don't you just ask him out already?" He pushed. "It's the nineties. Girls can do that now."

"It's not that simple, Jimmy." I responded desolately. "It's not been that long since me and Johnny-…"

"Oh stop feeling sorry for yourself! Is Johnny always going to be the reason you never risk anything?" Jimmy cut me off, unusually sharply. It wasn't often he reprimanded me like this and I was shocked. "You can't use him as a scapegoat forever, you know!"

I stared at him, stung that he'd think that of me.

"I'm not!"

"You are! Johnny is always the excuse for you to not do something, or have to do something else. This is gonna sound harsh, but you have to think for yourself sometime! Be selfish and take what you want and to hell with Johnny. What happened to that Cobra we used to hang out with, huh?"

"You know, Jimmy, I'm not sure if you're trying to be on Johnny's side or mine here…" I said to him, realising his allegiance seemed to be flip-flopping the more he spoke.

"I'm not on anyone's side. All I see is two friends who could be happy and not giving it a chance because "boo hoo, our other friend might get mad". Johnny will get over it. He'll have to. I mean, in case you forgot, he's the one who broke up with you." Jimmy crossed his arms, fixing me with a hard stare.

I couldn't deny what he'd said. But I didn't think Jimmy had really understood my reason for coming to this world in the first place. My loneliness had been crushing. This world had been a place to escape and the Cobras had been my only friends for a long time. I'd already disappeared for three years when things on my own world had got complicated, and run the risk of losing everyone then without really thinking about it. I'd been very fucking lucky. I'd been forgiven with almost no repercussions, possibly due to Johnny and the others just being glad I was back, and the whole ordeal had been swept under a very large rug when I'd put things in place to live here.

But this was different. This was something that would linger. It would hang around in this world. It was directly related to the inhabitants. Not just me. It wasn't something I could just banish to another dimension and forget about. I didn't want to lose Johnny's friendship, and if I asked Tommy out and he couldn't take it…

My introspection was interrupted by a car that pulled up outside of Dutch's garage. I looked round and saw that it was Johnny's red sports car. It ground to a halt with a crunch before it shut off and Johnny and Bobby got out of it. Bobby, in particular, seemed really pleased with himself.

"Hey." He greeted us cheerfully. "You guys got a minute?" He asked, apparently eager to share some news or other.

Jimmy nodded and went to move towards Tommy and Dutch but I hopped off my box.

"I'll get them."

Once we were all assembled, Bobby proceeded to share what he'd come to tell us.

"Guys, I know we haven't hung out as a group in ages so I had an idea. I called that Jessica chick and-…"

"You got her number?" Tommy interrupted with a frown of confusion. "When did that happen?"

Bobby faltered.

"Last Summer at the beach party. Does it matter?" He asked.

"Does Molly know?"

"It was Molly's idea! Can I finish!?"

Tommy mimed zipping his mouth shut and gestured for Bobby to carry on, with a smirk over at me.

I giggled.

"So, anyway, I called her and I asked what movies she was into, right. Get this! She's a total action movie nut! She wants to see the movie we're going to see anyway! So I asked if she and Daniel wanted to join us this time and she agreed! We can all go out together! And, yeah, I know you guys were going to go out to the arcade," here, he glanced a me, "but she'll be back again next year so maybe you could do that next time. So, what do you think? We've needed this for a while." He smiled round at all of us.

I caught a look from Jimmy from behind Tommy.

Strike first.

"Uh.. you know, Jimmy, Tommy and I were really set on going out to the arcade, actually." I said, really trying to sound apologetic.

Bobby simply stared at me, disbelievingly.

Tommy, however, looked entirely nonplussed.

"We were?" He asked.

Jimmy caught on fast.

"Yeah, man. Maybe we didn't tell you, but Jac and I had this whole thing figured out. She was really looking forward to it." He said, really leaning on the "poor Jac" angle.

So I joined in.

"Yeah. Remember, we used to spend pretty much every free day there. We haven't been in so long. We've been so busy or just had other stuff on. I really miss it too. But, you know, if you want to go with them, we can go some other day. We've got time left in the Summer after all. I can wait."

Oh good lord above, you could practically hear the violins.

And Tommy fell for it, hook, line and sinker.

"Hey, no, if you wanna go that bad, we'll go!" He insisted. "We can catch the movie some other day, just the three of us, huh?"

His face! It was so full of concern and determination. For me. I couldn't help myself. I hugged him. And then quickly pulled away again.

"Ew! You're sweaty!" I cried, recoiling.

Tommy cackled.

"C'mon! Hug me! Hug me!" He shouted, chasing me around the garage.

"Get away from me, you soggy prick!" I squealed.

Bobby just shook his head.

"Unbelievable!" He scoffed.