Title: Black Diamonds
Summary: Ryan makes friends with an African-American student at Harbor.
Disclaimer: I own nothing related to The O.C..
Chapter 13
Mr. Reese got it started. "As far as what we tell Nathan and Beverly about your background, Ryan, I'm thinking that we should stay as close as possible to your real history. Since I think we're all at least somewhat familiar with it, it would help us minimize the number of lies that we have to keep straight. That is, if that's all right with you?"
Ryan didn't really want to go through his whole history again, but Mr. Reese was right, the fewer lies the better. Ryan had learned that the hard way.
"Sure, Mr. Reese. That would be all right."
"Oh, that reminds me. You call the Cohens by their first names, right? So you should call us Henry and Gwen."
"OK."
Henry and Gwen. That was going to take some getting used to. Ryan had been thinking of them as either Mr. and Mrs. Reese or as Sam's Dad and Mom for over six months. It was hard enough getting used to calling Sandy and Kirsten Sandy and Kirsten, and he'd only known them for a few weeks when they told him to call them that. For a long time, he didn't really call them anything at all. Mr. and Mrs. Cohen didn't sound right any more, but Sandy and Kirsten didn't seem right either. Eventually he got used to it, though.
Mrs. Reese -- er, Gwen -- laid the calendar out in front of them. She flipped to March. "OK, let's see. Ryan, you were here, what, the fifth through the ninth, right? And today is..." She flipped to April. "... the eighth. So that works out. If you came here March 5th, you've been here about a month."
Henry turned the calendar towards him and flipped back to February. He pointed to the last week of the month. "This is when we almost got that boy from L.A., right? Did you tell your brother about him?"
Gwen thought for a moment. "Um... yeah... I spoke to Nathan when he called to wish Angela a Happy Birthday. I updated him on our progress then."
Ryan knew that Angela's 15th birthday was March 1st. She said at the time that she wished she'd been born a year earlier, because then she would have been born February 29th, which would have been so cool.
Henry nodded. "So great, we can tell Nathan that Ryan is the boy you told him about then. You didn't tell him that it fell through, though, right?"
Gwen thought for a moment, again. "No... I talked to Beverly last week to finalize our plans, but I didn't talk to Nathan, and we didn't talk about our search."
"Sam, Angela, did you mention anything to your Uncle Nathan?"
They both shook their heads and said, "No."
"Good. I think we have the beginnings of a plan here. How about -- Ryan's the boy from February, and he came March 5th, but he's from Chino, not L.A., and he's 16, not 15. Ryan, you're still 16, right?"
"Right. My birthday's not until next month."
Ryan knew that Sam's 17th birthday was in January, and with Angela being 15 now, that made the three of them 15 and 16 and 17, which worked out kind of nicely.
"Oh, good, we would know when your birthday is. What day?"
"The tenth."
After what Henry said, Ryan wondered if Kirsten and Sandy knew when his birthday was. They'd never discussed it. He'd have to find out when he got home.
Sam told Ryan, "We have to give you a birthday party next month, man!"
Angela agreed. "Yeah! We totally have to!"
Ryan smiled. He hadn't had a birthday party in a while, unless you count Trey taking him out drinking on his 16th birthday. "Sure."
Henry started writing stuff down on his pad. "OK, so, Ryan Atwood, 16, birthday 5/10, from Chino. Do you have a middle name?"
"No." But he always wanted one.
Henry nodded and wrote down "N.M.I." for "no middle initial" on his pad. Then he put his pen down and folded his hands together and leaned forward.
"How about this -- Ryan still stole that car with his brother, and Sandy is still his lawyer. And Sandy is our friend and lawyer too, so when Ryan... um... needed a home... "
Henry looked a little uncomfortable. Obviously he didn't want to say out loud that Ryan's mother kicked him out then abandoned him.
Henry cleared his throat and continued. "... when you needed a home, Sandy brought you here to us, instead of to his house, because he knew we were looking for a teenager to take in. And it became permanent -- we became your legal guardians -- on March 5th."
Ryan and the others were nodding. It sounded like a good plan.
Henry picked up his pen again. "Let me make sure I have this straight. Your brother is in jail since the car, right?"
"Right. He's in prison in Chino."
"How long is he going to be there?"
"Sandy says 3 to 5 years."
"What's his name? How old is he?"
"Trey. He's 19... no... he's 20 now."
Trey's birthday was last week. Ryan couldn't believe that he'd forgotten it until now. He wished he could have called or visited him, but they'd agreed it was best not to see each other.
"And you have no other brothers and sisters, right?"
"Right."
"And your father is..."
"He's in prison for armed robbery."
"And you have no other relatives you could live with? Grandparents? Aunts and Uncles? ..."
"Nope." Ryan noticed that Henry didn't mention his mother.
Henry finished writing things down. "OK. I think that covers it. Anything else anyone can think of?"
Gwen replied, "Obviously we have to clear this with Sandy and Kirsten, first."
"Right. I'll call Sandy."
Sam spoke up. "What about Maggie?" They all turned to look at Maggie in the den. "She could ruin the whole thing by just blurting out the truth."
Gwen told him, "I'll talk to her. I'll tell her that we're playing make believe. She loves to play pretend. I'll tell her that we're pretending that Ryan lives here and is really her brother."
Henry put in. "And just to be safe, let's not let Maggie be alone with Nathan or Beverly. One of us should be there all the time, then if she says something, we'll be there to cover."
"Good idea."
They all looked at each other. Then Ryan cleared his throat and and the Reeses all looked at him.
"Um... I don't know if you know about this, but... I'm... I'm on probation, you know, for the car."
Henry gave Ryan a reassuring look. "Actually, yes, we did know about that."
Ryan nodded. He wasn't sure. It had never come up in conversation with the Reeses and Ryan wasn't sure if Sam or Sandy would have told them. Ryan wondered how Henry and Gwen knew, but he wasn't going to ask.
When no one had anything else after a moment, Henry said, "OK, sounds like we're done." He smiled. "I love it when a plan comes together."
Angela and Sam groaned. Sam said, "God, Dad, quoting from The A-Team?"
Ryan chuckled.
After a moment, Henry got up and got the phone and headed outside to call Sandy privately. And Gwen went over to the den and sat Maggie down to explain how they were "playing make believe". That left the three teens in the kitchen. Sam got up followed by Angela then Ryan to finish cleaning up after dinner. As they were cleaning, they chatted about their plans for the weekend.
After a few minutes, Henry came back inside and held the phone out. "Ryan, Sandy wants to talk to you."
"OK."
Ryan took the phone and headed out into the back yard by the pool, for privacy.
"Hey, Sandy."
"Hey, kid. Henry told me about his plans for the weekend. Are you OK with all this?"
"Yeah... yeah."
"Because as I told Henry, it would help us out for you to stay there, you know, with Seth sick and all. If you're here at the house, even if you stay in the pool house, there's still a pretty good chance you'll catch the flu."
Ryan smiled. "And we don't want that."
Sandy chuckled. "No, we don't... So, I was thinking that it would be best if you didn't come back here at all. I can bring you clothes and other stuff that you need for the weekend."
"Um, sure, I guess that would be OK."
"All right, hold on, let me head out to the pool house so I can grab stuff as you tell me what you need."
There was a pause as presumably Sandy was heading out to the pool house.
"Ready."
"OK. First of all, I'm going to need all of my school stuff. Everything should be on the kitchen island counter."
"OK. I see them. What about your laptop?"
"Yeah. I'll need that for school."
"Hold on, I need to find... You have your bookbag with you, right?"
"Right. Why don't you put that stuff in my dufflebag with the clothes and stuff?"
"Where's your -- OK, I see it... got it."
Ryan waited a moment to give Sandy time to get the dufflebag and put his school stuff in it.
"All right. I'll grab some clothes for you. Socks... Underwear... T-shirts... Shirts... Pants..."
"Sandy, don't bring too much. Remember, we're pretending that I've only been here for like a month. I didn't have that much stuff after a month at your house. Oh, and I still had my old boots, so grab those."
"OK."
Ryan waited, again. Ryan also still had his old Chino clothes, including his leather jacket, kind of hidden away. If they wanted to be really accurate, Sandy should bring those, too. But Ryan didn't know if Sandy knew he still had them, and he didn't really want Sandy to know, so Ryan decided he didn't care about being that accurate.
"Ready. What about your CD player... Soccer ball... Weights..."
"No, I don't need any of that. And I already have my bike here, so that's all set." Ryan had ridden his bike to school that morning and it was currently sitting in the back of Sam's SUV.
"What about a suit?"
"I didn't have my own suits until later. I was still wearing Seth's back then."
"All right. Anything else you can think of?"
"No, I don't think so."
"Great. I'll be right over with your stuff."
"OK."
Ryan hung up the phone with Sandy and headed back into the house to be with what was his new family, for the weekend, anyway.
To Be Continued