Sorry, I meant to get this up sooner, but school started, and with all the unpacking and such, and then I had total writers' block, so hopefully you all approve of this chapter, and please review and let me know what you thought of it! Thanks

Disclaimer: I don't own the characters. I don't even own an umbrella right now, and it's been raining for the past three days.

Kirsten was home when the boys got home from their first day of school. She had been anxiously awaiting their return to see how Ryan's first day had gone. She was on her third cup of coffee, and she was tapping her foot nervously to an invisible beat when she heard a car pull into the driveway and Ryan's voice thanking Marissa for driving them home. Kirsten fought the urge to go stand in the front hallway to greet them as soon as they stepped in, and instead feigned interest in the newspaper that was in front of her. The front door opened and she heard Seth talking about some excitedly.

Ryan was good for him, she decided suddenly. She glanced at the clock. She hadn't been home this early from work in as long as she could remember. Ryan was good for all of them.

"Hey boys, how was school?" Kirsten asked glancing up as they walked in.

"Mother, you're home. To what do we owe the honor of seeing you this early?" Seth asked grabbing a pudding cup from the refrigerator. Kirsten shrugged.

"I just wanted to be here when you guys got home," Kirsten said smiling at both of them. Seth raised his eyebrows but said nothing.

"School was okay," he answered shrugging.

"How about you Ryan? What did you think of Harbor?"

"It was fine."

"How were your classes?" Kirsten pushed.

"Fine," Ryan shrugged again. Kirsten wanted to sigh in frustration, but contained herself.

"Well, did you have any trouble with any of it?" Seth was watching the exchange with amusement, knowing that Ryan's monosyllabic answers were driving his mother crazy.

"No," Ryan said. Kirsten knew that she wasn't going to get anything more out of Ryan, and instead turned to Seth.

"Anything exciting happen today?" She asked.

"There's that new girl," Seth said. "Anna? I was her escort at cotillion? Anyway, she's back from her little sailing trip. She's in a bunch of my classes." Kirsten smiled at her son, remembering the cute little blonde who had just moved to Newport from Pittsburgh and had required a date. Seth, as the only available boy who wasn't already paired up with someone, had been picked to be Anna's last minute escort. After all the excitement died down, Seth had told his parents he was going to walk Anna home. Kirsten had grinned at Sandy, and squeezed his arm, and watched as her beloved son walked away grinning and babbling on happily about comic books and Tahiti. He looked happy. Kirsten almost wanted to seek out Anna and hug her and kiss her for being the first person in Newport his age to make him smile like that.

Now Ryan was the second, and Kirsten thanked whatever deity was listening for allowing her to meet Ryan, and setting up the circumstances that led to him staying with her family.

"Oh, and Marissa totally has a thing for Ryan," Seth said.

"She does?" Kirsten raised an eyebrow wondering if this was going to be a good thing for Ryan. Ryan started vehemently shaking his head.

"She does not," he said.

"Yes she does," Seth argued back. "She even sat with us at lunch." Seth had actually sat outside with the rest of his fellow classmates, instead of hiding out in the library during lunch hoping not to be spotted by Luke or any of his cronies. Marissa had approached the table where he and Ryan and Anna sat and asked if she could sit with them, and Summer soon followed, not wanting to leave her best friend. Ryan gave Summer credit for that, however shallow she was, and she was, she was a good friend. A loyal friend. She had stopped being friends with Holly as soon as Tijuana happened, and she knew that Marissa was currently on the outs of the popular crowd, but Summer still chose her friend over popularity. They had actually had a nice lunch, even Summer smiled and laughed along with the rest of them.

"She does not," Ryan said firmly.

"It's okay if she does," Kirsten said giving him a small smile, all the while thinking to herself that she prayed that Marissa would get interested in someone else and not drag Ryan down into her and her family's current downward spiral.

"We just have a lot of the same classes," Ryan said defensively. "She's not into me." He gave Seth a death glare, and Seth wisely shut his mouth.

"So what's for dinner?" Seth asked changing the subject for Ryan's benefit.

"I was thinking Thai," Kirsten said handing over the menu to Ryan and Seth. "Circle what you like. I'll go pick it up." As the three of them poured over the menu, Sandy came home.

"Hello family," he said as he gave Kirsten a kiss and clapped Ryan on the back. Ryan flinched, and Sandy's smile failed. Ryan berated himself silently. He had to remember that this wasn't his old house, and Sandy wasn't like the men in his life before. He was a good guy. Ryan wondered if he could say it enough so that it would stick in his head. He's a good guy. He's a good father, and a good husband.

"I'm sorry kid, I didn't mean to startle you," Sandy said immediately, looking at Kirsten for some clue as to what to do.

"No, I'm sorry," Ryan forced a smile. "I'm just being…stupid."

"You're not being stupid," Kirsten interjected. "This house…it's different from the ones you've been in before. But it's going to take some time for you to understand that and accept it. And we understand that, Ryan, we understand how hard it is. Take as much time as you need to, and don't apologize." She looked then at Sandy and gave him a smile. "We all just need to remember that it's all new. For all of us." Ryan nodded his head slightly, and Sandy smiled at his wife. God he loved her. He couldn't help but pull her into his arms and give her a kiss on the cheek. Seth had been silent throughout the whole exchange, and he finally spoke up.

"Hey, I'm starving, are we going to order food or what? Before I have to go ask the neighbors for thirty cents a day to feed me," Seth quipped. "Adopt a Seth."

"You think you could live on thirty cents a day?" Sandy asked laughing at his son.

"Sure. I'm a simple man, Dad. I'm not held down by worldly possessions." Kirsten knew that Seth was putting on a show to lighten the mood, and she could have kissed her son for it.

"Right, so if I took away your Ipod, and your Playstation, and your comic books…"

"Okay, so maybe I'm not that simple," Seth conceded. "But I am hungry."

"Okay, okay, give me the menu, I'll go get the food," Kirsten said snatching it out of Seth's hands. "Do you have everything circled that you want?"

"Yes," Seth nodded.

"Does anyone want to come with me?" Kirsten asked. No one spoke up immediately until Ryan said softly,

"I'll come." Kirsten beamed.

"Great, we'll be back with the food," she said leading the way to the car. "Thanks for coming with me."

"No problem," Ryan said.

"I just hate going alone, and I already told Seth he was going to the party on Saturday, so there's no need for him to suck up to get out of it. Generally bribery or blackmail is the only way to get Seth to do anything with me."

"So this party on Saturday," Ryan started as Kirsten backed down the driveway. "What's it for?"

"What do you mean?"

"Why are you having this Monte Carlo thing? Just to have it?"

"Oh, you mean the Vegas Night party," Kirsten said smiling at him. "Well, it's for charity."

"What charity?" Ryan asked. Kirsten frowned as she tried to remember, and then giggled.

"You know, I don't know," Kirsten said. "I'm not in charge of this one, thank God. I did the last one."

"You have these a lot then?"

"More than I think my boys would like," Kirsten said. She offered Ryan a sympathetic smile. "You'll get used to it. Marissa is coming with her mother…" She thought that she saw Ryan turn red slightly, but she wasn't entirely sure. She pulled into the parking lot of the Thai restaurant a second later saving Ryan from any more embarrassment that day.

"I'll be right back," she promised as she hopped out of the car and headed inside. Ryan sat back in the Range Rover and admired the inside of it. Kirsten had left her phone in the car, and it started ringing, and he leaned over to see "Home" flash on the screen. He wondered if he should answer or not, and finally picked up the phone and carried it inside to Kirsten.

"You could have answered," she said as she took it. He shrugged, and shoved his hands in his pockets as he listened to her side of the conversation. "It was just Seth wanting me to add some egg rolls." She rolled her eyes. "That kid has a bottomless pit for a stomach, I swear." She added a few egg rolls to their order, and after a few minutes the man behind the counter handed her the bag of food, which Ryan knew could easily have fed him for a week back at home, and she thanked him, gave him the money, and ushered Ryan out of the restaurant.

They chatted about the party and about Kirsten's job on the way back home, and before they knew it, they were back home again.

Kirsten noticed the car in the driveway, but it was really Ryan's sharp intake of breath that caught her attention. Kirsten parked her car next to Sandy's and climbed out. Ryan was still sitting in the front seat, his knuckles white from where he was gripping the arm rests.

"Honey are you okay?" Kirsten asked concerned. She looked at the car again to see the door open and a woman with bleached blonde hair climbing out.

"What is she doing here?" Ryan asked. It only took Kirsten a second to realize who it was that was standing in her driveway. The woman made her way over to the car, and Ryan slowly undid his seatbelt and climbed out.

"Mom, what are you doing here?"

Okay, so please review and let me know what you thought. I'll try to get the next chapter up soon. Thanks!