Title: Black Diamonds

Summary: Ryan makes friends with an African-American student at Harbor.

Disclaimer: I own nothing related to The O.C..

Chapter 17

Later that day, after dinner, Sam, Angela, and Ryan were in the den, using some of their daily allotment of video game time. Henry, Gwen, Nathan, and Beverly met in the livingroom, after getting ready in their respective bedrooms. They were all dressed up in formalwear because they were going out to the opera in L.A. for the evening. They headed to the den to have some last words with the kids before they went out.

Ryan looked up as he heard the adults coming down the hallway. He had to smile when he saw them. They all looked pretty great in their fancy clothes. He hadn't seen such clothes since cotillion, where the debutantes wore the long white dresses with gloves and and their escorts wore tuxedos. Gwen and Beverly were wearing long formal dresses, in green and blue, respectively. Henry and Nathan were wearing tuxes, with cummerbunds that complemented their wives' dresses.

Ryan noticed that Gwen was wearing her special diamond necklace with the five black diamonds which represented the five members of the Reese family. Angela had been right what she said when she showed Ryan that necklace the first time he came to this house, back at the beginning of the school year -- it was pretty cool. He wondered when Henry and Gwen finally found a kid to come stay with them, if Gwen would have another black diamond put in to represent him or her.

When the four adults got to the den, they stopped in the entranceway. Gwen addressed the three teens.

"OK, so, Maggie's already been put to bed. Keep an ear out for her, she didn't like going to bed early. If she gets up, just put her back in bed."

Henry added, "You kids behave yourselves and don't stay up too late, since we all have to get up early in the morning. All of the emergency numbers are on the fridge. If you need anything, we have our cell phones. But please, don't call unless it is an emergency."

Sam smiled indulgently at his parents and answered for all of the teens. "Yes, yes, we got it. We'll be fine. Maggie'll be fine. Get going already and have a good time. Don't worry about us."

The adults finally headed towards the door, with one final word from Gwen, "Don't eat all the ice cream!"

"Bye, Mom!"

After they left, Ryan turned to Sam. He was a little confused about something.

"Getting up early in the morning? Why are we getting up early? How early?"

"For church."

"Church?"

"Yeah, you know, Easter sunrise service? You've never heard of it?"

"Well, yeah, I've heard of it, I just never... thought about it." Ryan looked from Sam to Angela. "We really have to be at church at sunrise?"

Angela laughed. "Of course, silly. That's why they call it a sunrise service."

Ryan thought for a moment. "Maybe I shouldn't go."

Sam replied, "What? Of course you're going. If we have to get up at some ungodly hour, so do you."

Angela added, "Besides, if you were really like our brother, you'd have to go."

Ryan nodded. She did have a point. "OK, yeah, I guess. But -- what about clothes? What do we have to wear to this thing? Do we have to dress up?"

Sam told him, "Yeah. Normally for church on normal Sundays, we don't really get very dressed up. Well, you've seen that. This is California, after all." Ryan nodded. He remembered from when he stayed over last month. "But Easter is different. In our... community... it's traditional to buy new clothes for Easter. I've got a new suit --"

Angela was practically jumping up and down. "And I've got this cool new dress. Do you want to see?"

"Angela, Ryan doesn't want to see your dress."

Angela looked disappointed, so Ryan told her, "I'll see it tomorrow." She lit right up.

Sam scowled at his sister a little, then finished what he was saying to Ryan. "As I was saying -- yeah, we get dressed up in suits and stuff for Easter."

Ryan remembered, "I didn't bring any of my suits with me."

"Hey, you can wear one of mine. We're about the same size, right?"

"Yeah, I think so."

"OK, then, come on."

Sam led Ryan up to his room for Ryan to try on his suits. They were right, they were about the same size. After trying on a couple, Ryan found one that fit him the best. He also had to borrow a dress shirt and tie, plus dress socks and shoes. It was a good thing that Sam just got a new pair. After changing back into his own clothes, Ryan took the suit and accessories that he was borrowing out to the pool house for the morning.

When Ryan came back inside the house, he found Sam and Angela taking stuff out of the hall closet.

"Hey, guys, what are you doing?"

Angela said, "Putting out the Easter decorations."

"Decorations?"

Sam explained, as he continued to take stuff out of the closet and hand it to Angela to carry to the livingroom. "Yeah, we do it every year. Our parents used to do it for us when we were little. It's kind of like Christmas -- we'd wake up on Easter morning and see all the decorations. Recently, we've been helping our parents put it all out for Maggie."

"But this year, you're doing it by yourselves, since your parents went out?"

"Right."

"Cool."

Ryan helped finish carrying the various boxes and bags into the livingroom. Once it was all there, the three of them sat down on the floor and started pulling stuff out. Ryan saw Easter baskets, and stuffed animals, and large hollow plastic eggs, and fake grass for the baskets, stuff like that.

Sam stood up and said to Ryan, "Come on, man, help me get the eggs."

Ryan stood up and followed Sam. "Eggs?"

"You know, colored eggs? Hard-boiled, colored eggs?"

"Oh, right."

"Yeah, we colored them last weekend, the whole family. You should have seen my Mom, she was in heaven. She loves this stuff."

Ryan had to smile. He could imagine. He could just see the five of them, around the kitchen island, with little Maggie squealing at every color on every egg. It sounded like a lot of fun. Now he wished he'd been here last weekend, too. Except of course he wouldn't have wanted to miss Passover with Sandy's mother.

Ryan followed Sam out to the garage, where they had a backup refrigerator, for when the one in the kitchen got too full. Sam opened the fridge door and pulled out an egg carton and handed it to Ryan, then grabbed two more which he carried himself. Ryan opened up the carton to see various colored eggs. Some were solid color, with little pictures of bunnies and stuff on the side. Some were streaked with multi-colors. They looked really cool.

When Ryan and Sam got back to the livingroom with their bounty, Ryan saw Angela coming out of the kitchen carrying her own booty: a bag of jelly beans, a bag of chocolate eggs, and a package of Peeps, the yellow bunny ones. Ryan was a little surprised that they even had candy, what with the Reeses' policy on junk food in the house. But after he thought about it, he figured it was like the sundaes -- it was a once-a-year special occasion. And besides, given the number of people to eat the candy, they really didn't buy very much. Probably just enough to make the kids think they weren't missing out, but not enough to rot their teeth, or whatever the usual reason is that parents don't want their kids to eat candy. The Reeses were clever that way.

Sam and Angela started setting everything out on display, putting the grass in the baskets, topped with the colored eggs and candy, etc. Ryan helped, as he was directed.

They were interrupted by the phone ringing. Sam went to get it. He came back with the cordless phone in his hand and held it out to Ryan. "It's for you. It's Marissa."

Ryan took the phone and went outside through the livingroom french doors, for privacy. "Hey, Marissa."

"Hey, Ryan. Can you come over?"

"I thought you were with Summer today."

"She went home."

Ryan was concerned. "You're alone?" Marissa shouldn't be left alone.

"No, my Dad's here, but I just want to see you. And I'm bored."

Ryan was relieved that Marissa wasn't alone. And he wouldn't mind seeing her, too, but...

Ryan turned around to watch Sam and Angela continuing to put out the Easter decorations in the livingroom.

... but he was having a lot of fun with Sam and Angela. And his hand and eye still hurt from the fight earlier. And it was kind of late to be going out, especially since he had to get up early in the morning. And besides, if he went out and stayed out too late, and got back after Henry and Gwen, it would blow the illusion that they were trying to do for Nathan and Beverly that Ryan was grounded.

Ryan had to figure out what to tell Marissa. He didn't want to hurt her feelings and just tell her that he didn't want to see her. He was still planning on getting back together with her soon. So he told her the first excuse he could think of.

"Sorry, I can't, I'm grounded."

"You're grounded? Why?"

"I got into a fight today."

"Are you OK?"

"I'm fine. Well, I have a black eye, and my hand hurts, but I'm fine."

"Wait, you're at the Reeses'. Did they ground you?"

"No, of course not, but Sandy knows about it, so..." That wasn't really a lie, exactly...

"Oh."

"Sorry."

Marissa sighed. "That's OK. If you're grounded, you're grounded."

"But, I'll see you Monday at school, right?"

"Yeah."

After Ryan hung up, he realized -- the fake evening with Marissa, that got fake cancelled, because of his fake grounding, just turned into a potential real evening with Marissa, that just got really cancelled, partially because of his fake grounding. Ryan had to smile about that. How exactly was this fake grounding different from really being grounded?

Ryan put the phone back in the kitchen and went to help Sam and Angela finish putting out the Easter decorations. The last item to be put out was wrapped in Easter-themed wrapping paper.

Ryan asked Angela, "What's that?"

"It's a stuffed bunny for Maggie. We used to get stuffed animals every year too, when we were kids."

Ryan nodded. Sounded like a nice tradition.

To Be Continued