Sorry about the wait. I went to the beach (where I got sunburnt, that was painful, but turned into a very nice tan, which now, to my dismay, is peeling) and then I had a bit of writer's block. But here's the next chapter, if you could let me know what you thought of it, I'd truly be appreciative. Thanks!

Disclaimer: Oh, they aren't mine. Not mine at all.

When Ryan woke up the next morning, it took him a few seconds to remember where he was. He knew immediately that he wasn't at home. For one thing, the mattress wasn't lumpy, and for another, he could hear the sounds of the ocean and not the sounds of traffic. He sat up, and looked around the pool house. Throwing his legs over the side of the bed, he wondered if he should stay in the pool house, or go into the main house. Finally, he decided that he would go into the main house, thank Mr. and Mrs. Cohen one more time if they were still there for letting him stay, and seek out Seth to see what he had planned for the day.

Ryan had to admit that he was excited about not having to work that day. He wasn't inhuman, and he did appreciate the break. Another thing to thank Mrs. Cohen for. He sighed, and opened the door to the main house. Mr. Cohen was holding Mrs. Cohen from behind and leaving a trail of kisses up her neck. Ryan had clearly walked in on something, and they had been so involved that they didn't hear the door open, but they heard him when he shuffled in and stopped suddenly at the sight in front of him.

"Oh, I'm sorry," he muttered as they guiltily jumped apart. "I didn't…" He started heading back to the door, wishing more than anything else that he had just stayed into the pool house until Seth came and collected him.

"No, it's fine," Sandy said smiling at Ryan, and giving Kirsten a kiss on the cheek. "I have to go anyway. Have a good day today, honey. Oh, and Ryan, have fun with Seth today." He grabbed a travel mug of coffee and bowed out of the kitchen. Ryan noticed that Kirsten was slightly red as she poured herself a cup of coffee.

"I'm sorry," Ryan repeated.

"No, we should know better. If it had been Seth that walked in, we would have heard about it for weeks, and we would have heard how, 'gross, and disgusting it is' and how we should 'act our age.'" Kirsten shook her head. "So thank God it was you, because I've heard that speech enough for one lifetime." Ryan had to smile at the image of Seth walking in on his parents and yelling at them about it. Ryan thought that it was a nice change of pace to see a loving couple instead of his mother and her string of boyfriends. He could see that Sandy clearly adored his wife, and after years of marriage they were still in love. It was nice. It was certainly different.

"Well, I'm glad to have been of service," Ryan said mirroring her smile.

"I called Mr. Gregory this morning," Kirsten said as she grabbed another mug and offered the coffee pot to Ryan who accepted it gratefully. Ryan was almost afraid of what his boss had to say about him taking the day off. "He said that you could work for me as long as I needed you. He was very nice about it." Ryan breathed a silent sigh of relief. He still had a job to go back to when this little vacation, or whatever it was, ended.

"Thank you for calling him," Ryan said. "Thank you for letting me stay here last night. I'm going to head back to Chino later today." Kirsten wasn't known for impulsive actions, that was usually Sandy's area of expertise. Especially when it came to big things, but she found her mouth opening and her suddenly insisting that Ryan stay with them.

"No, stay here," Kirsten said. "I mean, we have plenty of space, and there's no reason for you to go find somewhere else to stay. You can stay here. As long as you need to…" Kirsten felt a little like Seth the way that she was babbling, but it seemed vital to her that Ryan stay with them. Who knew what they were sending him back into if they let him go back to Chino?

"I can't…" Ryan started to argue. He turned and looked out the window. He wished that he could say yes. He wished that he could stay here forever waking up to the sound of the waves crashing against the shore. He wished that he could spend every night on those expensive Egyptian cotton sheets that he could definitely see himself getting used to sleeping on. He wished that he could smile and accept her offer and set up camp in the pool house. He did really wish that it was that easy. But he couldn't, because it wasn't that easy, and he couldn't just stay here. He couldn't just pretend that he didn't have a life in Chino.

"I know that you aren't eighteen," Kirsten said softly. Ryan's head jerked up. "You're sixteen. You were born the same year as Seth. Two months after Seth actually." She paused and studied Ryan's face for a second trying to determine what he was thinking. His face was expressionless. Whatever he was thinking was a mystery to her. "What I don't know is why you aren't in school. Why you lied about your age to get a job, and why you have a black eye and why you called me last night to pick you up. I don't mind," she said quickly as he started to apologize. "I'm glad that you called."

"What are you going to do now?" Ryan asked quietly. "Are you going to call the police? Social services?"

"I don't know what to do," Kirsten admitted. "I don't think calling social services will make things any easier on you." Ryan shrugged. He had been in the foster care system before, when he was nine and his mother fell apart. It wasn't the most pleasant place to be, and at his age he would rather take his chances out on the streets.

"No," Ryan finally answered. "It won't."

"Why don't you stay here?" Kirsten suggested. "For a little while at least? We can get you enrolled in Seth's high school. He'd love that." Ryan didn't know whether or not to laugh or cry. He shook his head.

"I can't," he said for the second time in that conversation. "You don't have to…you don't owe me anything."

"Yes I do," Kirsten said. "But that's not the point. I'm not doing this because I owe you anything."

"Then why?" Ryan asked and he suddenly looked like a little boy to her. He didn't look the world weary sixteen year old that had pretended to be older than he was for so long that it was entirely possible that he had forgotten that he was only sixteen. He looked like she imagined he would if the world hadn't thrown so much shit his way at such a young age.

"Because," Kirsten said moving closer to him. "Because I've only known you for a few days, and I can tell already that you are smart, and kind, and thoughtful, and you don't…you don't…" Kirsten struggled to put what she felt into words. Sandy was so much better at this than she was. She imagined that if Sandy had brought Ryan home instead of her, then everything would have gone a lot smoother. "…deserve your family and the cards you've been dealt."

"Mrs. Cohen," Ryan started. He gripped the counter and wished that Teresa would have just let him stay at her house the night before. It would have made everything less complicated.

"Call me Kirsten," Kirsten interrupted.

"Mrs. Cohen," Ryan said again pointedly ignoring her requested. "I can't…I just can't pretend that I'm a normal sixteen year old. So I go to school and finish out the year? What good does that do me? Eventually I'm going to have to leave here, and then I'm back in Chino only this time without a job or a place to stay."

"Ryan, I want you to finish high school. At the very least, I want you to finish high school. I want you to go to college and…"

"College?" Ryan snorted in disbelief. "Mrs. Cohen, I'm never going to be able to go to college."

"Why not?" Kirsten demanded.

"Kids like me don't go to college."

"Yes they do. You're a smart kid, and smart kids go to college. Don't you want to do something with your life? Isn't there something that you dreamed about being when you were little?" An architect, Ryan said in his head. He had always dreamed of being an architect. But he was smart, and being as smart as he was, he realized that he could never fulfill that dream. "What do you want to be Ryan?"

"Seventeen," Ryan answered automatically. The answer took Kirsten off guard, and so she sighed and replied,

"So do I." Then she shook her head, and looked at Ryan again. "But that's what I'm offering. I'm offering you a chance to be sixteen, and then seventeen." She looked expectantly at Ryan who just shook his head sadly.

"I can't Mrs. Cohen, I'm sorry. I have a life in Chino, and while it may not be the greatest in the world, it's mine. I have friends, and my family, what's left of it anyway, down in Chino. I can't just…it's very nice of you to offer, although I don't think you fully thought about what you were offering. It's nice, but not realistic." He dumped out his now cold coffee and placed the mug in the sink. "I think I should go get my things together and go home."

"No, please stay until the end of the day at least. Go with Seth to the beach," Kirsten pleaded.

"I think it would be better if I just left now," Ryan said. "If you could just tell me where the bus station is?"

"Let me drive you there, at least," Kirsten said.

"You have to work." Kirsten shook her head.

"It doesn't matter. Let me drive you back to Chino." Just as Ryan was about to respond, a sleepy Seth stumbled into the kitchen.

"Dude, are you ready for the awesome day that I have planned?" Seth asked grinning when he spotted Ryan. Ryan froze, and looked at Kirsten who hung her head, and then back at Seth who was grinning enthusiastically. He was afraid that if he didn't leave now he would never be able to bring himself to leave, and while it was nice what Kirsten was offering, he knew that it wouldn't last. It would be fun for the Cohens at first, a nice little project, and then they would inevitably get sick of it, sick of him, and he would be back where he started. Better to cut his losses and run while he was ahead.

"Let me just get a shower," Ryan said. Seth nodded, his head bobbing up and down as he continued to smile.

"Take your time, we have all day. I'm smelling a little rank as well, so I'm going to head to the shower. Mom, have a lovely day at work." Kirsten nodded and allowed a little smile. Ryan was at least going to stay until the end of the day. She would have to call Sandy and they could decide the best course of action. Seth bounded out of the kitchen and up the stairs, and Ryan looked at Kirsten.

"I'll get the first bus out after Seth's day of fun," Ryan told her.

"No, Sandy can drive you home," Kirsten said shaking her head adamantly.

Home, Ryan thought. Would he be allowed back into his home? Had sufficient time passed that his mother had mellowed and forgotten all about how she kicked her sixteen-year-old to the curb?

"Okay, thanks," Ryan said. He hurried out of the kitchen before Kirsten could offer him anything else that would be impossibly hard to pass up.

Ryan discovered, pretty early on in the day, that Seth liked to talk. Sometimes, Ryan assumed, it was just because Seth liked the sound of his own voice, but it could be, and this was what Ryan feared, it was because Seth really had no one but his mother and father to talk to, and he was using up all the words that he should have spent on friends on Ryan.

Seth babbled the entire way down to the pier, continuing his favorite topic of the dayso farabout Summer and his big plans for the two of them. Ryan had spent the day replaying the conversation with Kirsten earlier in his head, and wondering what would happen when he went back to Chino. He was worried about his mother, he was worried about AJ, and he was worried about his job at the construction site with Mr. Gregory. He was trying to pay attention to Seth, but it was getting increasingly harder, and he had to remind himself to listen to his curly-headed companion every once in awhile.

"So what do you think?" Seth asked catching Ryan completely off guard.

"Oh, that sounds great," Ryan said hoping that he was answering correctly. They had spent part of the day on Seth's sailboat, and then in the pool, and then Seth had gotten hungry, and while there was plenty of food in the Cohen house, insisted that there was nothing to eat, and they had headed to a diner that Seth claimed made the world's best chilli fries.

"Great," Seth repeated with a grin. Man, Ryan thought, this kid is easy to please. They walked toward what looked like a diner, when a few kids coming out bumped into Seth and Ryan.

"Move it queer," a kid who, in Ryan's opinion, looked like an oversized Ken doll, sneered at Seth.

"Hello, Luke," Seth said amiably, and was rewared with his polite smile with another shove. Luke and his cronies moved away from Seth and Ryan and Seth sighed as soon as they were out of earshot. "Poor boy. Lost most of his brain cells playing water polo and holding his breath under water too long. It's amazing he doesn't fall down more when he walks."

"Do they bother you a lot?" Ryan asked looking out the window to where Luke and his friends were standing.

"Depends on what you mean by a lot...and what you mean by bother," Seth shrugged. "If you call urinating in my gym shoes every day since the sixth grade bothering me a lot, then yes, I suppose they do. You can see why I was more than willing to skip school today." Seth shrugged again. "I got used to it you know? I kept hoping that they would turn their attentions elsewhere, but alas, no one better to torment came along. I take it in stride, I figure it will just be good fodder for the tell-all that I plan to write someday." Seth grinned at Ryan. They ordered the food and ate with Seth talking once again aboutcomics or something else that Ryan had little interest in, before heading back to Seth's house.

Kirsten and Sandy were both home already when they walked in. They had ordered Thai food and were eating when Seth and Ryan walked in.

"What? Nothing for us?" Seth complained as he stole a dumpling off of his father's plate.

"You left us a note saying that you were going to grab some food," Kirsten pointed out. "We figured you had already eaten. There's plenty left if you two want to make up a plate." Seth didn't need to be told twice, and he grabbed a plate and loaded up the food.

"When I'm done here, we can go grab your stuff and take you home," Sandy told Ryan.

"Thanks again. For letting me stay here last night, and for driving me home."

"You don't have to go," it was one last plea from Kirsten, but Ryan shook his head.

"I'm going to go get my stuff," he said before leaving the kitchen and heading towards the pool house. Kirsten sighed.

"This is so frustrating," she complained to Sandy who nodded his head in agreement. Seth, who hadn't been privy to the conversation between Kirsten and Ryan, or between his parents, had a confused look on his face, and kept looking from his father to his mother to see if he could understand what was going on.

"I'll talk to him in the car," Sandy said. "See what happens." Kirsten nodded, not completely sastisfied, and a few minutes later, Ryan reappeared with his book bag and Kirsten stood to give him a hug goodbye, and then told him again to call if he needed anything, knowing that he would never call her again. Seth and Ryan said goodbye, Seth giving Ryan a few CD's and comic books to take with him, and then Sandy and Ryan were gone.

"This is it," Ryan said pointing to an old house. Sandy pulled up in front of it, and reached into his wallet to pull out his own business card.

"Just in case you need something, and you can't, or won't, get ahold of Kirsten," Sandy said handing it over.

"Thanks for the ride," Ryan said as he jumped out the car and headed towards the front door. Sandy watched him go, and waited a minute when he saw Ryan pause in the open doorway. Sensing that something wasn't right, Sandy got out of the car and headed towards the house. When he reached the door, he saw what had caused Ryan to stop.

Everything was gone.

There was nothing in the house except a note on the counter.

Sandy crossed over to Ryan, and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Let's go home kid," he said, and, to his surprise, Ryan simply nodded and followed Sandy out the empty house.

Sorry again it took so long. Stupid writer's block! So anyway, please let me know what you thought. I'll try to be quicker on the next update.