NEW CHAPTER. Kindda short...sry bout that. The next one is longer.

I got back from the scrimmage, which we dominated in, and it was about 10:00. Courtney, a friend from the team, and me had gone and gotten a bite to eat, so I was later than I normally was.

Dad wasn't home, which I already knew, since he was out of town on business. Joyce's car was in the driveway, so it was a safe bet that she was home. Good thing too, since I didn't want to have to go get her at 3:00am or some crazy hour of the night. I found a note in the kitchen from Jon.

J—

Staying the night at Thane's house. Don't worry – we'll get some

sleep. Hope you did good in ur game. See you tomorrow

3 Jon

HAHA! Oh wow, I just drew a heart. Damn, how girly of

me was that? Hah.

I smiled and grabbed something to drink before going out to sit on the front porch. I stared across the street at the Toretto house, the fort as they call it, and the living room light was on and so was the TV.

My eyes moved from the window to the side door as it cracked open and someone stepped out. I smiled as that someone walked down the driveway and across the street to me. It was Jesse.

We did this quite a bit. I don't know how it started, but now it happened a lot. He'd come over and we'd just sit and talk. Sometimes a quick chat and sometimes we'd talk for hours. We talked about anything and everything, and we knew a lot about each other. We shared lots of secrets. Nobody really knew, so it was pretty much out little secret. It wasn't like we went out of our way to hide it, but no one asked so no one knew, I guess.

"Hey J"

"Hey Jess"

He sat next to me on the steps and rested his arms on his knees.

"Win your game?"

"Killed em"

"Good, I knew you would. Good job"

"Thanks"

"Yea, I just wanted to let you know that Vince didn't mean anything by what he said. Just in case he don't tell you himself."

"I know, I just don't like talking about it. Ya know?"

"Yea, I know," he said quietly with a nod.

He did know. He could hardly get me to talk about it, if at all. He never pushed it though, for which I was grateful, knowing I'd talk about it when I wanted to. Sometimes I wanted to. It upset Jon to talk about it too, so we mostly avoided the subject, but sometimes I felt like I needed to talk to someone about it; I just didn't know who.

After a few quiet minutes, Jesse straightened up some. "Well, I just came over to make sure you were cool with everything."

"Yea, it's ok"

"Good. I'm gonna get going then, see ya tomorrow"

"Later"

He got up and was half way across the lawn before he turned back around. "Going to the races this weekend?"

"Maybe. All depends"

"K, you should," he prompted, before walking away and back into te house.

I went to bed shortly after that.