DISCLAIMER-I don't own stand by me or any of the characters featured in the
movie/book Rory Scanlon along with her friends and family are mine SORRY if the TV shows or music mentioned isn't exactly from the right time- I didn't research-call me lazy I deserve it. Just use your imagination if
it bothers you that much!

The car ride started out deathly silent. Jack made some lame attempts to talk to Marianne, saying something stupid about how he liked her shoes or her hair or something to which she weakly smiled. Ace leaned back in the
seat and occasionally flipped the radio buttons. It was looking to be a crappy evening until Marianne mustered up some courage. "Where exactly are
we headed?" Jack turned to her, eager to have a chance to talk. "Out by Lake Tanner. There's an old cabin out there that we hang out in sometimes, it's a chill
place, no cops for miles."

Marianne nodded uneasily. Jack's emphasis of the lack of cops made her a little nervous. Since we had started talking a little, I wasn't about to
let the silence take over again. "And what exactly are we doing at this
mystery cottage?" I asked. "Ahhh the possibilities are endless Scanlon. Just use your imagination."
Ace said as he looked over at me. I nodded. "So we'll be singing show tunes and playing charades and all that
good clean fun-right Merrill?"

Jack laughed. "Funny. She's a funny broad there Ace. She's exactly like
what you told us. And damn she's just as hot as you pictured her."

He glared back at Jack. "Will you shut up?" I bit my lip. "So Jack, what did Ace tell you about me. I'm dying to know."

"I told him you were a tasty broad with an attitude to match." Ace said
cockily.

"Oh, yeah so Jack-as you were saying-what did our friend Ace say about me?"

Marianne started laughing in the backseat and Ace shot Jack another look. "Look man, all I know is he didn't tell me how fine your friends were gonna be." Jack said as he glanced over at Marianne, who had stopped laughing and
started turning red. "Nice cover." Ace said as he reached back and smacked Jack upside the head. Just then, the cars in front of me pulled on to a dirt road. Ace instructed
me to follow them. I was a little nervous, riding down that pitch black road with nothing but trees in sight. But soon we entered a clearing and the lake became visible. An old abandoned cottage stood near the lake. The cars pulled over into what used to be the driveway of the old cottage and the entire gang got out. I was a little nervous to see if Abby had made it through the ride ok, but when she got out, she seemed like she had stopped
freaking out. Nonetheless, Mair and I went to check on her.
"I'm ok.whenever I found out that I was going in the other car I almost
killed you, but it wasn't bad. Jess was ALL OVER Vince! And look at her now! She's going after Eyeball! That girl is going to get herself killed!"
Abby gushed. Marianne and I rolled our eyes. Jess walked over to us after a flirt fest
with Eyeball. "Oh my god this is gonna be so good! I have both of those boys wrapped around by little finger! How about you girls? Nevermind, Vince already told us that Ace has it BAD for Rory. He said tonight is all he's
been talking about and how he hasn't ever seen Ace get so into a girl."
Jess smiled at me. "Oh please! I'm not Ace Merrill's next bimbo-trust me that boy gets excited over anything with breasts." I rolled my eyes, but inside I was a little thrilled. Ace Merrill had actually been talking about me to his friends-and it wasn't like it was about how I was good in bed or anything. Somehow it
was getting harder to convince myself that I wasn't attracted to Ace.
Meanwhile, I saw Charlie and Billy unload what seemed like a million
gallons of booze from the backseat. You name it-it was in their trunk.
Beer, gin, whiskey, rum, wine coolers-Ace's car was a veritable liquor
store. Eyeball walked over to us. "So ladies, shall we?" He offered an arm to Jess who looked over at us and squealed. "Yeah, lets go get the party started!"

We walked into the ramshackle house. The first room, which I supposed had been some sort of an all-purpose living room/kitchen back in the day, had nothing but a few pillows scattered on the ground and a fireplace. Upstairs had three bedrooms with nothing but old mattresses with the springs popping out lying on the floor. The boys had carried in the bottles and bottles of liquor and tossed it on the floor. Ray had started to light a fire in the
old fireplace. "So ladies, have a seat." Billy said indicating one of the pillows on the
floor.

We sat down in a little group, not allowing much room for the guys to sit with us, much to my dismay as I had sort of been hoping to get the chance
to chill out with Ace.
"What are you drinkin tonight Marianne?" Jack asked her.

"What do you have?" She asked. As quiet and demure my friends seemed, they
had all been known to tip back a few when hanging with our crowd. Mair ended up settling for a rum and coke, Jess and Abby had wine coolers and I settled for a beer. After we all had drinks in our hand, the seating arrangements started shifting around. Vince and Eyeball both made a beeline
for Jess, who played innocent and proceeded to flirt with both of them. Jack tried to make another move on Marianne even though his attempts in the
car were less than stellar. Even Billy had started striking up a conversation with Abby. I think Charlie and Ray were too far on their way
to being completely trashed to notice us. I was sitting there; just sort of chilling out in my own little world when I noticed Ace was moving closer to me. I pretended not to care, like it was Andy moving closer to me, something that was second nature, but I wasn't
sure how well I was hiding it. "So guys," Jess started. "We like don't know you at all and you don't know us. Enlighten us.tell us a little about the men behind all that Cobra fame
and glory."
Eyeball laughed. "What do you wanna know?"

She shrugged. "Well, if you had to label everyone in the group, what would
you call them? For example: Abby would be the scaredy-cat."

Abby looked up and tried to look offended. "And Jess would be the Slut!"

Her mouth dropped open and she pretended to be pissed off. I continued.
"Mair would be the goody goody smarty pants."

Marianne rolled her eyes. "I can't pick just one for Rory.she's too
complex."

Jess said. "She's easy! Rory's the HOT one!"
"NO! She's the one talks everyone into things." Abby piped in.
"I'd have to agree with Jess-Rory is pretty fine." Ray added as he took
another drink. Ace cut them off. "You're all wrong. She's the ballsy one. The only one of
you who wouldn't have freaked out if I had called you a.what was it
Scanlon? Yeah, a tasty broad, that's it."
I looked over at him and smiled. He was right. "So Ace, what are you?"

Eyeball laughed. "The dumbass hood who always gets into trouble."

Charlie yelled. "The alcoholic."

Vince said. "Will you pansies shut up? Ace is the fearless leader."

Abby giggled. "He's the scary one."
"Definitely! You're super intimidating Ace." Marianne agreed. Jess, who was already three sheets to the wind added. "He's the hot one!" That comment earned an evil look from both Eyeball and Vince, both of whom
were convinced that Jess was starting to like him more.
I shook my head. "Nah. Ace is the Rory of the Cobras. How many of you little pansies would actually have intrigued me enough to get me to come here? He's ballsy, he's smooth, more than the cheap dime store hood we give
him credit for."

Ace looked over at me and I stared back. His eyes were so intense, I could
feel a connection with him that was so much deeper than any I had felt
before. However, Jack's insane laughing at some stupid joke Eyeball had
told broke the connection.
The night went on like that for a while, just the group of us telling stupid stories and drinking, just hanging out like it was something we did
every weekend.

As the night went on, things started getting a little heavy. Abby had overcome her inhibitions and didn't seem to mind the fact that Billy was nibbling on the back of her neck. Marianne was sitting on Jack's lap. And Eyeball had finally lost interest in Jess, so Vince had her full attention. Ray, Charlie and Eyeball had drank half of the beer that they had brought
and were laughing at nothing in particular.

I was listening to Charlie's drunken joke when I felt Ace move closer to
me. "Hey Scanlon, you wanna go upstairs and get away from these drunk
idiots? No pressure, just a couple of kids hanging out away from the
drunken debauchery?"

Every bone in my body was saying NO NO NO but for some reason, I nodded and
took Ace's hand as he led me up to one of the bedrooms. Catcalls and screams from the group followed us. Taking a candle, we walked into one of
the bedrooms and I sat down on one of the skuzzy mattresses while Ace
placed the candle on a dresser in the corner of the room.
Ace looked over at me and started laughing. "What?" I asked.
"You."
"What about me?"

He shrugged. "That you're here. The little princess of the view is at Lake
Tanner with the Cobras. What would mommy say?"

Without thinking, I said "Who the fuck knows? She ran away to Cailfornia a
while ago so god knows what she'd think."

"I didn't know.I didn't mean to bring it up."

I shrugged. "Whatever. Its not that big of a deal."
"Liar."

He walked over and sat down on the mattress. "It does matter doesn't it?"

I bit my lip. "I guess.its not easy ya know? I have to be everything she
was now.cook dinner, clean the house, take care of my sisters. And god knows my Dad's too oblivious to care." I trailed off. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to dump all my problems on you. That really isn't what you signed up
for with tonight."

He smirked. "How do you know what I signed up for?"

I rolled my eyes. "Obviously you didn't want to hang out with me to hear my
stupid View Rat problems."

He nodded. "No. But I didn't want to hang out with you just to get in your
pants either."

I looked over at him. "Then why?"

"Because you aren't what I expected at all. Because I gave you shit and instead of crying off to daddy or you're big scary boyfriend you gave me shit back. You weren't scared of me but you weren't all over me, like those
cheap broads who hang all over us down at Igby's Billiards. You were a
challenge." He looked around the room. "And besides, you're beautiful."

I couldn't help but smile. "You think I'm beautiful?"

Ace laughed. "Come on, would the King of the Jungle have a girlfriend who wasn't gorgeous? Watts is an ass and I'm glad you dumped him, but you can't
debate his taste in women."

I laughed and then looked over at him. "So now what?" He leaned over. "What do you think?" Before I had time to think, Ace had
moved in and pressed his lips against mine. His kiss was amazing, more intense than anything I had ever experienced. At that moment, lying on a mattress at Lake Tanner, I knew that Ace Merrill wasn't the release I had
wanted, he was so much more.