The next morning, Kirsten and Hailey were making the final preparations for the party that was to take place that evening. "Do you think we need some decorations?" Hailey asked.

Kirsten shrugged. "Sure, what did you have in mind?"

"I don't really know, just something to give it more of a party atmosphere."

Seth came downstairs in a T-shirt and boxers, his hair sticking out in every direction. "Morning."

"Seth, I need a headcount."

"Mom, I'm not your hitman."

"What?" she asked, then figured she wouldn't understand anyway. "How many of your friends are coming tonight?"

Seth shrugged lamely. "Alex said she'd come."

"Jimmy said that he and Marissa would be here," Hailey chimed in. "And Marissa's bringing her boyfriend."

"Luke's in town and I'm sure he's got nothing better to do."

"Did you guys invite Lindsay?" Kirsten asked, suddenly wishing Hailey wasn't in the room. She wanted Lindsay to feel like she was a part of the family, but it was inevitable that if she were there, Hailey would find out. Kirsten had tried to get Caleb to come over for dinner the previous night, so that he could break the news to Hailey, but she'd been unable to reach him.

Seth's eyes darted between his mother and his aunt. "He didn't know if he should; he was going to talk to you about it."

"Is she his girlfriend?" Hailey asked.

Seth shrugged non-committally. "They're lab partners."

"Lab partners," Hailey rolled her eyes dramatically, "Right."

Kirsten gave Seth a questioning look, but she wasn't about to ask him in front of Hailey. "Did you invite Summer yet?"

"Mom, she's dating Zach."

"So invite him too. You guys are friends, right?"

Seth gritted his teeth. "Right, because that won't be awkward at all."

"Won't it be more awkward if you don't invite her?"

Seth looked at Hailey, with a sarcastic grin. "I love holidays."

"Seth, make yourself useful and go get some snack food for tonight," Kirsten requested, "but take Ryan with you." She knew that if she wanted the job done properly, Seth couldn't be trusted on his own. Seth headed to the pool house to get Ryan.

"Are we going to be able to get all this ready by tonight?" Hailey asked.

Kirsten looked uncertain. "Probably not." Seth and Ryan walked through the kitchen and Kirsten stopped Seth. "But Marissa and Summer are really good at throwing together a party at the last minute."

Seth pretended he hadn't heard her, but Ryan could always be counted upon. "I'll call Marissa and make sure she calls Summer."

"Thank you, Ryan. Tell them I need their help with decorations."

"Will do."

A few hours later, Summer and Marissa were at the Cohens' house, hanging streamers, blowing up balloons and waiting for the boys to get back with the snacks.

"It looks great, girls!" Kirsten exclaimed. "It's going to be so nice to have everyone here tonight. Summer, is Zach coming?"

"Yeah, I think so. He sounded weird on the phone, but he'll probably be here. I hope you don't mind, but I invited Anna too."

"She's in town? That's wonderful! I haven't seen her in almost a year. Marissa, what about your boyfriend?"

"Yeah, he'll be here," she said in an almost snippy voice.

"Don't try and sound so thrilled there, Coop. What's wrong?"

"Nothing. So Caleb and my mom are coming?" Marissa was looking forward to her mom seeing her dad and Hailey together. She'd determined that the reason her mom had been with her dad was because his financial situation was looking better than Caleb's was, but now that Caleb wasn't going to jail, his wealth would far exceed Jimmy's. Marissa doubted that her mom loved either man, but Jimmy was a much more likely candidate.

"Yeah, I finally got ahold of them."

"And Lindsay?"

Kirsten nervously nodded, and gestured to Marissa that Hailey still didn't know. "It'll be fun."

After running the errands Kirsten had asked him too, Ryan stood in the kitchen, arranging the snacks on plates. He could hear Kirsten, Summer, and Marissa talking in the kitchen, but he was thinking about Lindsay. He still hadn't called her to invite her. He wanted to see her, but he didn't want to put her in an awkward situation with Caleb and Kirsten.

"Want some help?" Marissa asked, breaking his train of thought.

"Sure," he smiled at her, handing her a box of crackers to arrange on the plate. His encounter with DJ two days ago sprang to mind. He debated about whether or not he should mention it to Marissa. "So how are things with DJ?"

Marissa wrinkled her nose. "Weird."

"How so?" Ryan wasn't usually one to ask her a lot of questions, but he was trying to figure out if he should be worried.

"Just calling a lot more than usual, stuff like that."

"A few nights ago…" he started, taking in a deep breath, and running a hand through his hair. "He came over here looking for you."

Marissa's eyes widened. "What?"

"He was freaking out because he hadn't talked to you in a few hours. He thought you were over here with me. Did you talk to him yesterday?"

Marissa thought back to the night she'd spent with DJ. It had made her feel better at the time, but now it made her cringe. "Yeah."

Ryan looked nervous. His instincts had been right before, and he hoped they weren't again. "Be careful."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean...when he thought you were with me, the look he gave me was familiar. Maybe it's nothing, but I don't want what happened with Oliver to ever happen again."

When Oliver had come along, Marissa hadn't trusted Ryan, but this time, she knew his motive wasn't jealousy. He was really just concerned. This, in addition to her own suspicions led her to one conclusion. She had to break it off with DJ as soon as possible. "Okay. Thanks Ryan."

He draped his arm over her shoulder and pulled her to his side in a hug. "Anytime."

Lindsay stared at the photograph of the man she'd been told was her father. Mark Gardner. With a sudden wave of rage, she jumped up off her bed and stormed into the living room where her mother was working on her laptop. Lindsay held out the photograph angrily. "Mom, who is this?"

Renee felt her heart break for Lindsay again and gestured for her to sit down. "Mark Gardner was a good friend of mine." When Lindsay continued to glare, Renee realized she was going to have to explain more than that. "He was the man I wanted to spend my life with."

Lindsay's face softened and she sat down on the couch beside her mother. "Why didn't you?"

"We'd been best friends for many years. One night we got a little tipsy and..." Renee refused to say it. "Anyway, a week or so after that we finally faced each other. I told him I loved him; he told me that he was gay. He hadn't come out yet and he was just realizing it. I was a mess after that. I was heartbroken...and Caleb was there." She looked down at her hands. "Well, a few months later he was there," she amended. "But after I found out I was pregnant, he said he would help me financially as much as I needed him to, but he didn't want to risk his family finding out, so that was the only way he would help me. The deal was if I didn't tell you, his family, or anyone else that he was your father, he would support me to whatever extent I needed. If I told, then he would refuse to support me financially, and I knew I wasn't making enough money to support myself and a child."

"Wouldn't he have still had to pay child support?"

"In theory, but that's not always the way it works out. Caleb was a very powerful man. I was scared and I didn't know what to do. I'm so sorry."

Lindsay offered her mother a weak smile, then returned to her room and pulled out her journal.

Ryan sat in the pool house, staring at his phone. His feelings for Lindsay had grown a lot and he was surprised at the fact that he was having feelings this strong for someone other than Marissa when he'd spent the entire summer dreaming about going back to her.

Marissa had always been a princess in Ryan's eyes, and he was the prince that saved her. Though he would never admit it, he had really liked being her knight in shining armor. He liked being loved, needed, trusted and depended upon, but Oliver had changed things. And maybe if Ryan hadn't had to go to Chino, they could have worked things out. But he did go to Chino, and when he came back, she'd lied to him. It was basically a harmless lie, assuming that she would have quickly ended things with DJ, but with all they'd gone through the previous year still fresh in his mind, it was enough to set him off.

With Lindsay, it was completely different. She'd grown up an only child of a mother who had lied to her for as long as she could remember. Until a week ago, she'd never met her father, but in spite of her family situation, she was determined to make a good life for herself. He never thought a girl like Lindsay would give him a second look and he never imagined he would fall for a girl like Lindsay. Then again, he also never thought he'd be taking advanced classes, have any stability in his life or smile on a regular basis.

As he continued to analyze his feelings for Lindsay, his head began to spin with possibilities, good and bad. Pushing them all out of his mind, he picked up the phone and dialed her number.

"Hello?" Her voice sounded a bit far away, as if she'd just woken up.

"Hey Lindsay, it's Ryan."

"Ryan!" her voice seemed to perk up, but she quickly toned it down. "What's up?"

He noted the way her voice had jumped and grinned. "The Cohens are having a New Years Eve party and I was just seeing if you wanted to come."

She hesitated and he could picture her nervously biting her bottom lip as she weighed out the pros and cons in her head. She wanted to spend New Years Eve with Ryan, but what if Caleb was there? "Are you sure that's okay?"

Kirsten had told him to invite Lindsay, and that it didn't matter if Caleb was okay with it or not. Ryan thought it would be best not to go into any detail about that. "Yeah, I'm sure. Come by around 7, okay?"

"Okay." She was smiling now. He could tell. "I'll see you then." They were both thankful that 7 o'clock was only a few hours away.