Disclaimer still stands

A/N: hey everyone. Thanks for the reviews on chapter 8. I know it was a fluff chapter but it was cute. And people wanted more SS moments so I gave em. Grr…. Ryan and Marissa are officially "Just Friends" in the show!!!! No fair!!! Dumb new characters. Except Alex. She is way awesome. And as much as I hate to say it, she may be good for Seth. Well anywho, I don't know where this chapter will go, but bear with me. Here we go!

The Chrismukkah party was only one hour away. Seth was waiting for Summer. He was hoping everything would go as planned. The door bell rang.

"Oh Cohen… can you help me find something…?"

"Yea Summer…" They went into the closet, Summer in the Wonder Woman costume…. They had about 45 minutes to themselves. Unfortunately they lost track of time and Marissa and Ryan showed up. They went looking for they're friends when they suddenly remembered where they would probably be. And even if Seth was the host of the party, the two didn't really want to disturb them. So instead they greeted all the visitors. First Zack came, was a bit confused but sat down anyway. Then Alex showed up, awkwardly sat down and then decided, what the heck, I'll go look for Seth. She had a pretty good idea where he was. She opened the closet door and found an embarrassed Seth and Summer.

"Uh, hey Alex…."

"Yea, hi Seth, umm parties here, and I just thought I'd tell ya."

"Oh, thanks…." Summer awkwardly walked past her and went to change, hoping that Alex wouldn't tell anyone what she saw. Seth, after finally brushing himself off a bit, and making sure his hair was good, went with Alex to join the others.

"Look who I found."

"Hey Seth. Glad you're finally here. I was starting to think this was my party."

"Ha ha Ryan. No its not. Still mine. And we're still having dinner. Hey Zack, Marissa."

"Hey. Where's Sum?"

"Oh, she had to go get something."

"Oh really?"

"Yup." Just then Summer walked in, still looking a bit startled and flushed.

"That took you a while. What were you getting again?"

"What?"

"Seth said you went to get something." Marissa loved teasing her best friend like this.

"O, yea I did. Umm yea Seth hun, I put the ice in the freezer."

"Thanks. So everything is ready. Do you guys wanna hang a bit and then eat or…?"

"Lets hang a bit." Ryan suggested. Seth glared. He knew what Ryan was doing.

"Umm sure. Do you guys want me to bring out snacks?"

"Oh don't worry Seth, I already did that while you were gone. O where were you again?" Seth glared.

"Just setting things up."

"I'm sure you were." By that, Ryan didn't mean the food. Seth glared again.

"Um maybe its better that we do eat now," Marissa suggested, seeing how awkward everything was. Just then the door bell rang. They weren't expecting anyone else. Marissa answered the door.

"Hey." It was Lindsay. She was holding a plate of cookies in her hands.

"Oh, hi Lori… I mean Lindsay. Ryan it's for you. Marissa rolled her eyes and left the door. Ryan walked to the door. Half excited that it was Lindsay.

"Hey. What are you doing here?" he felt guilty yet happy at the same time that he had mentioned the party to her.

"Oh I just thought I'd bring some cookies for everyone."

"Thanks." They stood there for a while looking at each other when Marissa noticed.

"Ryan let me help you with those. Thanks for the cookies. But we really have enough food." Marissa glared.

"Oh…"

"Well, the more the merrier. Come in." Marissa glared at Ryan. How could he be inviting her in? The truth was when Lindsay had asked him out, he was really happy about it somehow. He was flattered that a girl like her would even think of going out with him. He really didn't think she was interested. Maybe if he was with Lindsay, his life wouldn't always be a roller coaster, as it was with Marissa. He felt bad for admitting this to himself, especially when he and Marissa were just barely getting back together, but how much more could he really take. He didn't know. All he knew was that he was glad she was here, and even though he knew he probably shouldn't be feeling this way, he did.

"Thanks Ryan. Hey everyone. Hope ya can have one more in."

"Hey Lindsay," Seth said. "At least I get to greet someone when they come. So ha, it's not your party."

"Greeting someone?" Lindsay asked confused.

"Oh its nothing," Ryan answered, before the got into major discussion over what happened. "Should we eat?"

"Yea let's go," Marissa answered. She took Ryan's hand and led him in the kitchen. "What's Lindsay doing here?"

"I don't know."

"How did she know about the party?"

"Well today when she called—"

"She called?"

"Yea today, before I picked you up for lunch."

"And you told her about the party?"

"No, not exactly. I had to give an excuse for not meeting her after I had lunch with you and that's what I said."

"She wanted you to meet her after lunch? Why?"

"Well… uh…" Ryan didn't exactly feel like telling Marissa she wanted to go out with him. After the whole Teresa deal, he didn't want to have more catfights over him, even though at times, they were amusing to watch. But Ryan didn't have time to say it, because Lindsay came into the kitchen right as he was about to answer.

"Sorry, am I interrupting anything?" Lindsay asked. Even though she knew that that was exactly what she was doing.

"No, it's alright, we were just…"

"We were just talking," Marissa finished for him. "And we're not done so could you please go away Lori." She didn't mean it as a question, more of a demand.

"My name is Lindsay."

"Oh right. Sorry." The two girls glared at each other again. 'Oh boy' Ryan thought. Here we go again.

By the time Ryan and Marissa got into the dining room, everyone had already sat down. Lindsay had tried to leave two seats across from each other so Marissa and Ryan couldn't sit by each other but luckily Seth and Summer had caught it just in time and rearranged everything a bit. Ryan was sitting between Seth and Marissa, Summer was on the other side of Seth and on her other side was Zack. Next to Zack was Lindsay and finally Alex by Lindsay and Marissa and that completed the circle. Seth thought to remind Ryan later of what they had done, but hoping he would catch it by himself all the same. Dinner was great. Everyone got to know everyone else a bit more. Summer was comfortable as just being Zack's friend, and Zack, being the mature guy that he was, was completely fine with the situation too. Alex was hoping to sit next to Seth but since that wasn't the case, she felt weird separating Lindsay and Marissa. The two of them seemed to be giving each other dirty looks all night. She really didn't know what was up with all of it but decided to ignore it and get to know Lindsay a bit more. Marissa gave her best friend a look of thanks for getting "Lori" away from Ryan. Ryan was in a way disappointed about it but hoped that these strange new feeling would go away soon. He didn't need to be feeling this. Not now, not when things were going great with him and Marissa. Seth was having the most fun of all. He loved seeing all his friends getting along so great.

After dinner they all sat down in the living room and talked. Things were going much better than when everyone came. All of them were talking. Alex took this as the chance to get Seth under the mistletoe. She had seen some earlier and was hoping to "accidentally" drag him under it. She whispered in his ear, "Seth, come talk to me for a sec." Summer hadn't seen this happen and was talking to Marissa over in the corner. Luckily, Marissa did. She motioned Summer's attention over but still Summer failed to notice. It wasn't until Alex was leaning in to kiss Seth that Summer had looked over (only because Marissa turned her around right at that moment.) Luckily, she had seen that Alex was the one kissing him, and not the other way around. Summer stared as the two kissed under the mistletoe. Seth, after the split second moment was over, stared a minute, and then being the sensitive guy he was, said, well he said nothing. He was about to say thank you, but he remembered Ryan's mistake and wasn't about to make it. Instead, he hoped someone else would bail him out. Thankfully, Summer did. But Seth wouldn't be that happy for long.

"Cohen, what the hell was that?"

"I didn't know she was going to do that."

"You didn't?"

"No."

"Cohen, don't be stupid. You're the one who put the mistletoe there. You knew she was dragging you there."

"No I didn't."

"Come on Cohen. You know she likes you. How could you not notice?"

"Now you're blaming this on me? How is this my fault? She kissed me not the other way around."

"Well did you like it?"

"What?"

"Did you like it? Enjoy it? What?"

"Summer…"

"Tell me. Now." He kissed her.

"That, that I liked. That I enjoyed. I don't know why she kissed me, but its nothing compared to when I kiss you ok? Don't worry. You know I love you."

"I know."

"Good. Let's go back to the party k?"

"Ok, but no more kissing bosses under mistletoes ok?"

"And no kissing ex boyfriends."

"You mean I can't kiss you?"

"Ha-ha. Of course you can but I'm the only one."

"Good." She dragged him under the mistletoe and kissed him, and this time, he loved it. Then they went back to the party. "Hey guys, sorry about that." Then they went back to doing what they were doing. Except for Alex, she was miserable. It hadn't worked. She felt stupid for even trying. She knew Summer had taken him back. So why did she do that? She knew why. Because she liked him so much and that was her way of telling him. But he didn't feel the same way. At least she had left some sort of an impression though. Well, there was no more to do. She took her jacket and was about to walk out the door when Seth noticed she was leaving and went after her.

"Hey, are you leaving already?"

"Yea thought I'd head out. Gotta clean up a bit at home and stuff."

"But we're just about to have dessert."

"It's ok. Thanks though. I had fun."

"Ok good. See you at work."

"Happy Christmukkah Seth."

"Thanks." Seth smiled. He didn't want her to go, and she didn't want to go but he wasn't about to play the Anna/Summer game again. He had hurt enough people by not choosing, and even though he had liked the kiss he had received, he was with Summer and he wanted it that way. Or did he? I guess more than one person was confused that night. He went back in and joined Summer on the couch.

"Where did you go?"

"Oh I just said goodbye to Alex." Summer looked at him suspiciously. "Just goodbye, I promise."

"Good, cuz your mine, and I don't want ya to forget it."

"I won't." and even though he said it, he had a strange feeling that he would. "Having fun?"

"Yea, this Christmukkah deal has been a lot more fun than I expected."

"Great. Hope I'll get to do it next year too."

"I'm sure you will." Summer left his side to go talk to Marissa. Seth noticed Lindsay and Ryan kinda getting close while Zack was talking to Marissa and he refused to let someone take Marissa's place. He decided to go break up the mini party.

"Hey, decided to come join the little Lindsay/Ryan mini party." Ryan and Lindsay quickly scooted apart hoping no one else noticed how into their conversation they were.

"Hey Seth."

"Yea hi."

"So you two… what's up?"

"Not a lot… just talking."

"I noticed. And now I want to talk to you Ryan." Ryan followed Seth to the kitchen.

"Ryan, why aren't you talking to Marissa? You two are the ones who just got back together. You need to talk to her, and you talk to Lindsay in physics everyday so go, talk." Seth pushed his friend out the kitchen. Ryan, who was a bit surprised by Seth's on-the-go-attitude, was afraid of what would happen if he didn't follow. He went over to Marissa and Summer, motioned Marissa over to the mistletoe and kissed her. He felt it would be sweet to do, and he was right. He loved spending time with her, the only problem was, he loved to spend time with Lindsay too. Marissa was totally happy he did this, and she thought it was very sweet, just as he had predicted. Lindsay wasn't happy at all. She was miserable. These days, the new girls were miserable. She decided that maybe it was time for her to leave too. She picked up her purse, didn't even bother to say goodbye, and left. Only this time, no one noticed that the other miserable girl left. After a while, when they remaining friends noticed that Lindsay had left, Zack felt it was time to leave too.

"See ya dude."

"Yea bye Zack."

"Nice meeting you."

"See ya at school."

"That was fun eh guys? But now its just the four of us. Man, it does really feel like old times."

"Yea it does," Ryan replied. And with that, he took Marissa's hand.

Well Chrismukkah chapter is over. How did everyone like it? I really liked this one. Its one of my better ones in my opinion. But who am I to judge, its about you guys. So please review and be kind. till chapter 10, see ya.