Disclaimer: We all know... I don't own it.

Recap: We got the lowdown on how Riley Elizabeth Manning came to be. Her boyfriend- Haiden Michael Mason- is also from a Degrassi family. If you haven't figured it out- Riley's mom is Emma, dad- Craig. Oh, and I made a silly little mistake... I wrote grandma and grandpa Nelson... yeah, it should be grandma and grandpa Simpson.

(A/N: Thanks for all the reviews. Please keep it up. If at anytime, you have any ideas for the story, please put them in the review! This chapter isn't as good as the first one, and the next chapter, will definately start getting into the good part of the story. Thanks, again.)

I walked out to Ashley's new Corvette. Her and dad were pretty well off, dad's a professional photographer, he does a lot of magazine spreads and things like that. Ashley is a songwriter. She's even written for some big names in music like Andy Little (A/N: Yeah, I made it up... I couldn't think of anything else.). Not to say that mom and Sean were poor, they're not doing horrible either. Sean's one of the best known mechanics in Toronto. And Mom's a campaign publist for a woman's rights magazine.

Once I opened the door to the car I heard the blaring music- that's how Ashley liked her music, loud and upbeat, but at the same time, deep and heavy. I guess, mainly the type of music she listened to was the type of music she wrote. But, Ashley only listened to her own songs once, to see if they sounded the way she had planned. I quickly hopped in.

"Hey, chicka," she greeted.

"Hey," I replied.

"Let's get going, don't tell your dad, but we're going shopping," she laughed.

My smile grew bigger. I loved shopping with Ashley, she'd buy me nearly anything I wanted, unlike mom, who made me uy everything a size too big. Once again, mom wasn't a bad person, she just didn't want boys viewing me the way they had viewed her friend, Manny, in high school.

"Yeah!" I exclaimed.

I really liked Ashley, she was a really great step mom, so if my parents can't be together anymore, then I'm glad I got the step parents I have.

"What do you wanna get?" she asked. "Makeup? Jewelery? CD's? Clothes? You tell me."

"Um... I dunno. What do you wanna get?" I asked back.

"I need to get some CD's and make up," she said, simply.

"Oh, okay," I replied.

"I know you want that new JoJo CD, man, she's been around since back in the day... I think she was about thirteen or so, when she started," Ashley informed me.

I nodded in agreement. I did want the CD, and I've been listening to JoJo since I was pretty young.

"Yeah," I agreed. Ashley had written a few songs for JoJo awhile back.

"What else?" she asked. Ashley wouldn't leave the mall until I'd bought atleast three or four things.

"I dunno... a DVD or something, maybe?" I said, not meaning it to be a question.

"Like?"

"I don't know... like Thirteen or something," I responded. I had this weird obsession with movies from my parent's and grandparent's younger years. I liked movies like The Goonies and Thirteen. Some of my friends thought it was kinda weird, they would watch a movie with me and say "That movie has such bad special affects," but mom and Ashley say that's what they used to say about movies from their parent's time.

"Okay," she smiled. She thought it was funny, too, those were some of her favorite movies as a teenager. "Anything else?"

"Nah, probably not," I replied.

We went shopping for nearly two and a half hours, when we were finally done, I was relieved. We went home, and found dad waiting for us. I walked into the house, threw my bag of clothes and my shopping bags into my room, and went back out to the kitchen. Dad had ordered pepperoni pizza, my favorite. I grabbed a plate, slapped two pieces down on it, and then I sat down at the bar where we usually ate. Dad and Ashley were already sitting down, eating.

"So, how's school?" Dad asked. That was always the first question he asked.

"Same old, same old," I replied.

Dad laughed. "Same old, same old, eh?"

"Yep," I said.

"I see you guys went shopping," Dad added, with a wink.

I nodded.

"Traitor!" Ashley exclaimed, jokingly.

We all laughed.

"How's Haiden?" Dad questioned. He, too, liked Haiden, Dad and Spinner were friends way-back-when, and still to this day are.

"Good," I replied.

"That's good," Dad and Ashley said in harmony.

"Yeah."

"Well," Dad said, after finishing his pizza, "I need to go work in the dark room for awhile."

"Okay." Ashley and I replied.

I liked when dad had to work in the dark room, he's usually in there for atleast an hour or so... this gave me and Ashley time to mess around and do whatever we wanted. It was weird, Ashley was kinda quiet by herself, but when me and her are together, it's like she's a completely different person. (A/N: Yes, I know, 'me and her' isn't grammatically correct, but this is being told from a sixteen-year-old's POV) Once dad had gone into the dark room, Ashley and I went wild, we turned on the stereo and blared the music, and funny as it may be, we started singing into hairbrushes. That got old after awhile, so we just turned on the tv and watched some old movie. After that, it was nearly 11 o' clock. I headed up to my room, and turned on the stereo, I slipped into my pajamas, then fell asleep to my favorite CD, Take It All Away by Ryan Cabrera, all the time thinking about Haiden.

Okay, guys so this is this chapter, I promise the next chapter will be WAY more exciting then this, this was kinda just to get a feel on how Ashley and Craig lived.

Spoilers:

- Home alone.

- A shocking surprise.

Thanks,

Shelby