Second Chance

I woke up the next morning to my name being called.

I mumbled something and turned over.

"Wake up, querida" said the familiar voice in my ear, "if you don't get up you'll be late for school."

I opened my eyes and sat up to see Jesse leaning down beside my bed, his face close to mine. He wasn't wearing much either. He had apparently slipped on the pair of pants he had yesterday but he wasn't wearing a shirt. And with him so close to me it caused my face to redden more then usual.

"Hi, Jesse." I said my voice sounding really squeaky. God, how embarrassing.

"Hi" he said back, "Your brothers have been calling you for a while you better get out of bed."

"Stepbrothers," I reminded him. "So when did you get up?"

He shrugged his broad shoulders, which caused me to notice his washboard abs even more. "A while ago, I couldn't sleep."

"Looks like you need a shirt," I squeaked out. Ugh, how lame can I be? But before I could embarrass myself anymore I quickly said, "I'll go grab you a clean one from Sleepy's room, I'm sure he'll let you borrow one." And I was sure, Sleepy was so out of it all the time he'd never even notice if Jesse were wearing one of his shirts. And plus, one of Doc's shirts wouldn't fit Jesse and I was not willing to risk my life venturing into Dopey's room.

I hopped out of bed and ran down the hall to Jake's room before Jesse could say anything and grabbed a clean shirt from his dresser.

When I got back, Jesse was laying on his cot with his eyes closed. It kinda looked like he was sleeping.

I studied his perfect silhouette for a minute, but shook my head slightly, waking myself out of the dazed stupor that the sight of Jesse always seems to put me in. Not to mention he wasn't even wearing a shirt at this moment.

"Jesse, wake up" I said dreamily.

But I was shocked when he said, "I'm not sleeping," then he grinned, with his eyes still closed, "What took you so long to say something? What were you looking at?" I swear I could hear something like amusement in his voice.

"Nothing," I said, maybe a little too quickly, and chucked the shirt at him, landing it right on his head. Then I turned around and walked into the bathroom slamming the door.

When I came out Jesse was fully clothed wearing Sleepy's green shirt and I was sporting a tight pair of jean capris paired with a pink T and a jacket.

I added a little make up and turned to Jesse.

"You gonna come down and have breakfast with everyone else?"

He shrugged nonchalantly and said ok following me down the stairs.

The rest of the Ackerman household was also already seated around the table, besides my mom who had to get to work early.

When Jesse and I sat down nobody really paid attention, except Andy who gave us the usual how did you sleep, blah, blah, blah, talk. From the reaction of the three Ackerman boys I realized that they must have already been inform of Jesse from mom or Andy.

The only one of the three that said anything was Doc who said a quick, "Hi I'm David Ackerman, welcome to our house hold." And held out his hand in his nerd like manner.

"Jesse De Silva" Jesse said giving Doc a small smile, taking his outstretched hand.

You wouldn't think that small statement would get a reaction out of anybody.

But it sure did in this case. Doc's normally pink freckled face turned white as a sheet as he recognized Jesse's name. He took a stunned look at me and mouthed one word: ghost.

A bit my lip and gave a little nod and mouthed the words: I'll explain later.

Doc has known about Jesse—well, not Jesse personally—from several experiences. One was when Jesse was forced to wake Doc up to save my life, and other much less serious, but frequent, occurrences are when Doc has been sure that he feels some kind of presence in my room.

He also knows Jesse's name after he helped me get a book, My Monterey, back when I first met Jesse, to help me find out a little but more about his secretive past.

Doc is the only person, besides CeeCee, who has any idea about my special gift.

Doc looked back over at Jesse, gave him a small scared smile and didn't look back up from his food until we left.

The other person who had any reaction at all was Dopey. Yes, Brad, of all people. He looked up from gorging himself with the pancakes that Andy made, when Jesse said his name and obviously found something familiar in his voice.

I had explained to Jesse, a couple days ago, why CeeCee knew about him. I had told him what Dopey told me, about hearing us talking at night. And that Brad had told some people around school. Jesse chuckled a bit when I told him that Dopey thought he was some guy I was sneaking into my room at night, but Jesse had also said that we had to keep it quieter so nobody else would here us.

But finally, Dopey realized who he thought Jesse really was, and sent him a cold glare from across the table. I was sure he was about to say something but Jesse sent him a dangerous look of his own. After staring at each other for a couple minutes Dopey looked back down at his plate. I guess Jesse won. When he looked back at me with a kind of triumphant look on his face I just rolled my eyes. I mean, men! So immature!

We started out the door ten minutes later with about five minutes to spare.

But before I walked out the door I turned around to face Jesse. "Don't forget out little shopping date after school." I said, giving him an inane smile. "I'm your personal stylist for a day."

Jesse groaned and rolled his eyes at me. Yeah! He rolled his eyes at me! "How bout I come pick you up after school and we can walk to the mall?"

"Sure!" I said a little too happily, but Jesse didn't seem to care. "See ya after school then." With that I gave him another smile and ran out the door.

To Be Continued…..

A/N: OK! I swear I'm gonna start getting on with the plot now and stop with so much mindless fluff! But don't worry fluff lovers, there's still lots more to come! Ok buhbye! I'll update real soon.