~Thanks for the reviews. As always, they bring me much happiness!!! Sorry about the length. I have problems with that and am trying to work on it.

The next morning, Ryan woke up with a tremendous headache. Disoriented, he opened his eyes. "Where am I?" he muttered before realizing he was not alone. Next to him laid Marissa. He sat up thus expanding his view. Realizing he was at Summer's house, he decided to get up to look for Seth and Summer. He slid his leg off the bed and was surprised to feel something besides carpet beneath his feet.

"Ouch." Seth mumbled, his voice coming out muffled because of the foot covering half his face.

"Sorry, man," Ryan replied pulling his foot back up on the bed. "Hey, what's going on?" he asked as an afterthought.

"Well, see you were totally wasted last night as was Marissa, but that's a given. I, myself, had a buzz and lovely Summer could hardly stand. I knew we were in no condition to be seen my parental units, so I called Dad and told him that we were crashing at Luke's. After getting that taken care of, I somehow managed to get the four of us to Summer's house. Don't ask how. I doubt I could explain. Speaking of which, care to share with my why you kept on talking about some guy named Charlie?"

Ryan blushed. Seth thought it was strange and liked it. Ryan never showed his emotions, but obviously the mention of Charlie brought some emotion to Ryan that he couldn't hide.

"He was this guy who had these things back in Chino," Ryan muttered distracted. "It was a long time ago. Surprised I was talking about it," he added. "Hey, I'm gonna go get washed up."

With that, Ryan managed to get off the bed without stepping on anyone and made his way down the hall to the bathroom. He was going to just take a shower to refresh himself, but the mention of Charlie brought unneeded memories. "I need a cigarette," he thought to himself before heading outside. After all, it was just one.

* * *

Seth and Ryan were back at the Cohen's home. It was early afternoon, and they had to get ready for the Valentine's ball. Ryan didn't want to go because he always caused problems at these parties, but apparently this ball was a big deal. From what Seth told him, the ladies of Newport put together the Valentine's ball every year. The bids to the ball, which were some exorbitant amount, went towards some charity benefiting third world countries, kids with AIDS, or some charity that they really didn't care about. All these people cared about, were finding excuses to party. Ryan laughed at the thought. People were the same everywhere.

Ryan, Seth, Summer, and Marissa entered the charity ball right on time which was unusual. Marissa wore a red halter dress that was both low cut and short while Summer wore a black tube dress. "Black is totally classy," Summer had told Marissa that afternoon as they got ready. Marissa had countered with some line about red being seductive, and she had plans to seduce Ryan that night.

Ryan was bored. He hated these events. Marissa and Summer were in the bathroom touching up their makeup or something stupid like that. He didn't know why, but he felt grouchy. He thought it might be partially due to the hangover he still had, but wasn't positive. "I need something to drink," he muttered as he headed over to the bar. As he passed a table, he accidentally ran into someone, bumping them. He wasn't going to stop, but then he heard a familiar voice cursing as a platter came crashing to the floor.

TBC...