Disclaimer: I don't own them, I just like to make up stories about them.


Lea froze when she heard Bradin speak the words.

This is one of the few times in her life when she found herself speechless. She quickly forces herself to process the information to find the correct analysis.

Bradin watches Lea for a second and then turns to face his pizza. Good going Westerly, you freaked her out. He scolds himself silently. He must have been insane to think that Lea will agree—why did he ever think that he'd be good enough for her.

And then the sound of her voice brings him back to reality, "Sure, Bradin."

Bradin's head snaps up, and he looks at Lea incredulously. Did she just say yes? He's sure he heard wrong.

"You need an excuse to get out of unsolicited date offers, right?" Lea nods.

"Wha—? No, I mean..." Bradin rushes to explain himself.

Lea holds up a hand, "No, don't worry about it. It must be hard to fight off the masses." She grins at him impishly.

Bradin's heart had soared when he first heard her agree to his offer, but it instantly plunged when he realized that she didn't understand his implications. Doesn't she know what she does to him?

"Look Lea..." Bradin starts to explain himself. But one look at her sparkling eyes left his thoughts jumbled like a ball of rubber bands.

"It's fine Bradin. Lots of people go as friends." Lea picks up her paper plate and cup of finished drink. "Who knows, I might even make you have fun."

Bradin doesn't doubt that he'll have a good time with Lea. But he wants to tell her that he isn't just asking her as an excuse, but he's also scared to tell her that he likes her. It took him a while to gain her trust. Although Lea is a friend to everyone, she didn't consider everyone a friend.

Bradin found out quickly that her 'inner circle', so to speak, is in fact very small; he isn't even sure if he has established himself in it yet. To jeopardize their friendship is something he doesn't want to do. He's fallen too hard.
Lea lays on her back on a comfortable queen size bed in her baby blue and yellow decorated room. The Noels live in a comfortable to say the least, massive in actuality, mansion in the so-called hills; where the proverbial rich kids reside.

She's contemplating the events of tonight—now she's going to homecoming dance with Bradin Westerly. The thought scares her. Despite her mental protests, she's beginning to see why Callie harbored 'a thing' for him the entire summer.

Bradin is attractive, to put it in the mildest description—okay, so he's a major hottie. The crooked smile, the clear azure eyes, and that mop of blonde hair is enough to categorize him as a regular teen heart throb.

But Lea has never been impressed by just good looks alone. She has lived with Playa Linda's resident Adonis for her entire life, and it's given her a good dose of immunity towards it.

The truth is that Bradin isn't like the brawny, albeit occasionally hot guys that pass in and out of her kitchen trailing after J.B, showering her with the occasional "looking sweet, Lea!"

Those are the same guys who don't care for her use of big words and absurd love for books. Usually it made their eyes glass over, or they'd look at her like she had two heads on her shoulders.

Lea has always hated the idea of just being the banal girl from the beach town. True, she shops at Abercrombie and Fitch. Yes, she tries to tan even in the winter, and has a collection of flip-flop sandals to supply for a small Amazon tribe, but that doesn't mean that she can't have a brain.

And Bradin seems to respect that. He listens to her when she talks. Although she's not always sure that he understands or cares, he's always interested. He asks questions rather than just agreeing with her.

On top of that he makes her laugh—whenever he uses phrases or expressions that he used to use in Kansas, or when he tries to hide her coffee tumbler because he insists that caffeine will be the death of her.

It's just that she didn't think she'd take to him so quickly... and she hates the idea that she's become this conventional dewey-eyed teenager who's fascinated by the new boy in town. Even though somewhere deep down she knows that she is very much that exact description—but she'll deny it for as long as she can.

Just then, a tapping from her opened doors caused Lea to look up from her queen sized bed.

"Hey L," it is J.B., Lea's older brother.

"Yea?" Lea says in a slightly testy tone.

"Ugh, are you PMS-ing?" J.B. rolls his eyes.

Ignoring her brother's crude comment, Lea rolls over on her stomach. "Did you just get home?"

"I pulled in a little after you did." J.B. plops himself down on the sofa in his sister's room. "Where'd you come from?"

"Bradin's," Lea answers. Did she mention that she loves his name? It is unusual, unique, and she enjoys the sound of it.

J.B.'s brows furrow slightly. "You're there a lot lately." He states.

Lea shrugs, she can sense J.B. is about to get protective of her. Annoying, somewhat, but she appreciates the fact that J.B. looks out for her. "It's... lively..." Lea tries to describe the beach house. "Erica's there sometimes." She grins mischievously at her brother. Erica Spalding is basically the object of every teenage male's hormonal fantasies in Playa Linda. "I think she's with Jay Robertson."

J.B. raises his eyebrow in surprise, "the surfer?"

"I don't think he competes anymore, but he runs the surf shop, you know, next to uh... smoothie planet on the boardwalk?"

"Ohh..." J.B. answers in recognition. Before his sister can deftly change the subject, and J.B. knows that she's good at that, he gets to his point. "So like, I heard some things about Westerly in the locker room."

Lea rolls her eyes, "the origin of all accurate knowledge on earth."

"Lealana," J.B. refers to her by full name to let her know he's serious.

"Okay, okay! Impose your sagacious wisdom big brother."

"He went out with Sarah Borden."

"I know."

"Well..."

"J.B., you've said yourself that Sarah is a pretty girl." The Noels and the Bordens are family acquaintances.

"Yeah, but I wouldn't date her." J.B. prefers girls that are uh, well, sane. "And never in a million years would I sleep with her." Nice one big brother, really eloquent. J.B. inwardly rolls his eyes at himself.

Lea is silent for a second. She doesn't know why she is shook up about it. She knew that lots of her peers were having sex and she has never been one to judge. People make their own choices and it's not her place to be a critic. But somehow, the idea that Bradin has been that intimate with Sarah made the acid in her stomach reflux like there is no tomorrow.

But she tries to hide her uncertainty, "J.B.!" She puts on her best flippant tone, "that was like, way too much information. Bradin's just my friend. You know, like Larry or Ryan," she mentions platonic guy friends that are mutual friends of her and her brother.

J.B. groans silently. If only Lea knew how he's got a death threat on the entire male population of Playa Linda High to stay away from his sister.

J.B. knows from, well personal experience, that the male species is ultimately inappropriate in their hormonal fantasies, and he will personally emasculate anyone who dares to disrespect his little sister. Hypocrisy, yes. Does he care? No. As long as it gets the point across.

"But the fact that he slept with Borden..." J.B. starts to plead his case.

"Proves that he's a normal, healthy, teenage boy? J.B. you're no angel yourself." Lea inwardly frowns at herself for defending Bradin's stance for sleeping with Sarah.

"Yea but I didn't sleep with Playa Linda's answer to Paris Hilton."

"J.B.! That's wrong! Sarah used to be our friend!"

"In elementary school!"

J.B. takes a breath to reorganize his arguments. "Look Lea, he's not from around here."

"Well, the globe consists of many places outside of Playa Linda. In fact, I doubt we'd even register as a pin prick from the view of a space probe." Lea looks at her brother disapprovingly. She knows her brother is better than the typical Playa Linda snobbiness.

"I don't trust him."

"Why because he may just get as much attention from the girls as you do?" Lea snickers.

J.B. rolls his eyes, "No. I don't trust him because he puts on this... All- American boy act. And I'll have you know he's got nothing on me." Please, he is J.B. Noel. In Playa Linda, and the surrounding suburbs, the sound of his name makes girls weak.

"Is there a point to this?" Lea isn't in the mood to listen to his brother's vanity tonight.

"Yea..." J.B. recollects himself, point, point... "look, I don't like the idea of you getting too close to this... really hormonal boy..." J.B. says lamely.

Lea snorts slightly, "So what, is there some J.B.-approved standard now?"

"Yes," he answers, once again, very lamely.

"Ugh... okay whatever." Lea can see that this conversation isn't going to go very far. Stubbornness is a fatal trait in their family. "We're just friends anyways.

"Totally platonic." J.B. needs confirmation.

"Yes, just platonic friends. There-is-always-a-one-foot-space-between-us platonic friends." Lea assures him while she had an internal debate. "Uh, but I'm going to homecoming with him." She says the words quickly and under her breath, hoping that her brother won't hear her, correctly at least.

J.B.'s eyes widens, "No, you're not?" Wasn't the girl listening to anything he had just said?

Lea's suppresses the urge to roll her eyes, "J.B.! It's not a thing. We're just going as friends. He's getting approached by girls and this way it's easier for him to say no."

"Oh yea, that's an original one." J.B. can't believe the innocence of his little sister sometimes—although it is partly his own fault because he's kept her so protected, but you can't blame him, she is his little sister.

"It'll be boring if I go alone. You get to be homecoming king and all that stuff. So sue me if I want a friend around when everyone starts fawning over you." Good job Lea, turn the tables, she cheered herself on silently.

"I thought you usually go with like, Adam or someone." Personally, J.B. has a suspicion that Adam well, swung the other way, and that his thing for Callie was a front; so he felt safe when Lea was escorted by Adam to events.

"Well, yeah. But Adam mentioned that he might finally work up enough guts to ask Callie this year. I don't particularly fancy going alone." Despite her intelligence and opinions, Lea is still an old-fashioned girl in some ways.

"You can't go with him."

"I'm sorry, do I have some physical disability that I didn't know about that will prevent me from doing so?"

"Lea!"

"J.B.!"

They glare at each other.

Lea sighs softly, "look, I know you're just trying to... fulfill your brotherly duties or whatever. I understand that you don't trust him because he hasn't been around us our whole lives. But Mom and Dad don't even tell me who I can or cannot see. It'll be fine. We're just friends."

"Okay, listen Lea. You don't understand the way a guy's mind thinks." J.B. began.

"Thank God for that, I might need brainwashing to return to my good senses." Lea wrinkles her nose.

J.B. gives her a look of warning. "Guys don't uh, always think with... their heads..."

Lea can already feel another too-much-information conversation already. "Okay, stop J. I don't wanna hear it." She takes a minute to muffle her face in her pillow before looking up again to address her brother.

"I assure you it's platonic. I don't like him that way, and I'll bring pepper spray." Ugh, the whole rhyming thing must be what makes her argument sound unconvincing in her head.

J.B. is silenced for a moment by his little sister's adamant statements.

Seeing that she's got him by the shirt tail, Lea moves in for the subject change. "Anyways, who are you going with? You know Jen from my grade... the cute volleyball player...?"
A/n: uhh.. yes this is still a Summerland fic. I'm sorry the scoobies are not in my stories as much as they should be. I will try harder to incorporate the beach house crew (if anyone has a better name for them, let me know! suggestions WANTED) But I wanted to write this story because I wanted to write about Lea and Bradin... so... yes. (what was my point?) Oh yea! read and enjoy! Review if you want to make my day!