A/N: I know this was shorter; much shorter than ANY of the other segments of this fan fiction. Well, you guys had a long one last week. Give me a break. I had my own finals to study for. After a whole bunch of long chapters, I know you guys would appreciate one that's shorter. Enjoy.

DISCLAIMER: Yes, yes, I don't own any of Meg Cabot's characters, Paul, Kelly, Brad.

CLAIMER: I own Jackie, and her related characters; the gangster ghost (as you shall see), her dad, etc.

DAD

JACKIE

I'd like to say the whole story ended here, and it was all happily ever after. I'd really like to. But, see, life doesn't just end where everything is fine and dandy, am I right? There's the good, the bad, and the ugly. And right now, it seemed like a whole mesh of the three, if you get my drift. First of all, the there were little things like, oh, me being the ire of Kelly and her clique. Truthfully, I could care less about what Barbie and her group said – or thought – about me. Kelly knew I did not steal Paul away from her, but she just can't handle the truth. It's sad, really. I kind of feel sorry for her…

"Hey, Grouchy Girl," Kelly cat-called while we passed each other on in the halls; "Why are you wearing so much black?"
… Then again, I don't feel as sorry for her as I thought. "You miss your Ken Doll, is that it Kelly? Sorry, but all exchanges are final. You don't get a refund, sweetie." I said, sugary.

I don't believe she understood a word I said, but after a whisper from a friend next to her, Kelly's eyes went wide, and I received a glare from her. It's so fun to mess with simple minds. Paul arrived on the scene, and swung his arm – protectively; almost like he was marking his territory – around my shoulders. I could trust on him to shut Kelly up if anything I said failed to (which rarely did – rarely failed to shut her up, I mean). "Kelly, maybe you should go max out your daddy's credit card somewhere," Paul suggested to her.

Kelly got a sour look on her face, but managed to stalk off away without saying another word.

"Geez, why are you so protective Paul? Are you like, my boyfriend or something?" I playfully pushed him away.

Paul gave a dazzling smile. "That's the master plan." Then he bent down and kissed me. It was really great to be kissed by Paul. What can I say? My boyfriend is impeccable at his art.

Another thing – besides kissing – that Paul excelled at was school. That's why, when the next big shadow of horror that occurred (the six lettered word, finals), Paul helped me out when we studied, um… make that, "studied."

Paul was panting roughly, and I wasn't breathing to easily either, later that day. "I think… we should go back to the books, Paul," I said, when I was over at his house. I slid off the couch, and started to walk not very steadily to the table.

"Yeah… books…right," Paul said, as if we were talking about a foreign, distant planet. He was still in the post-making-out stupor that we always seemed to find ourselves in. Hey, I can't say I wasn't much better. He shook his head to get out of his funk. Then he proceeded to walk over to where I was sitting at his dinning room table, where our still untouched books and papers lay, strewn across it.

Paul made sure he sat across from me, and not next to me. Why? Well, we've recently discovered that if we are within touching distance, we tend to get, shall we say… distracted.

"So, what are we going to do next?" I tried to get my eyes to focus on the blurry numbers, variables, exponents, and sines and cosines that were starting to mesh together in my mind. I couldn't believe it, but I was getting noxious from studying, and I hadn't been… studying… all that much. "Trigonometry? English?" I sighed.

"Um," Paul shuffled through his papers, not really looking for anything. "I guess we can do…?"

I felt a pang of pain growing from behind the temple of my forehead, a definite warning sign of a headache. I rose from my chair. "You know what? I'm just going to get some fresh air, I can't focus right now." I started stretching stiff limbs, which I hadn't been really using …, except maybe my lips, if that counts for anything. I started heading out his front door. Ten, fifteen minutes ought to do it. "Coming?" I asked, before I slipped through the foyer, and out the front door.

"In a minute…" Paul distractedly waved for me to go on without him.

With a shrug and a turn of the heel, I headed outdoors. I breathed in the ocean breeze that came right out in Paul's backyard. The sun was shining, and the sound of the waves that crashed could be heard in the distance. Outside, it was another gorgeous day, not like the muggy, sweltering, frying-eggs-on-the-cement days we got back in the L.A. County. The summers were hot as hell. But here, it was as luxurious as Heaven. Not bad. Not bad at all.

Before I got too relaxed, I saw a shimmer that made me groan internally. Ghost. A big, beefy guy, long pony-tail, many tattoos, was wagging his finger at me to come towards him. With a sigh, I slowly made my way over. What did the specters of the world want now?

He led me to the tree that was over in front yard, and then I faced him, and put my hand on my hip, "Listen, buddy. I need to study for finals, so if you could just hurry up and tell me what your problem is, we'll both be on our ways."

"Senorita. It's not my problem. It's yours," he roughly grabbed me by my shirt collar. Then he breathed on my face – or at least, what would have been his breath, I'm sure – the words, "Tell your father," he spat. "That we are waiting for him. If does not have the money by next Friday, that we will get rid of all of his problems. Permanently." To emphasize his point, the filthy gangster held his hands like a pistol, and cocked from his head to mine.

I was paralyzed by fear and wasn't able to do – much less say – anything. The creep, I suppose, took my silence as agreement, and with a nod of the head, he dematerialized into thin air, leaving as quickly as he had come. I finally found myself breathing again. I wasn't scared for my life, if that's what you're thinking – okay, maybe a little; no one's that excessively stupid.

No, if was for something much, much horrifying for me. I panted. My father. My Father. My father. Those were the only two words that spun around and around in my head, like a vinyl record on repeat, getting faster, and faster, dizzier, and headier.

My dad.