Sunday night finds me in Dutchy's room, again. We've spent the entire day together... not that I'm complaining. We're accompanied now by Blink and Mush, who are arguing about the choreography for Bye Bye Birdie. Medda made the mistake of making them assistant choreographers, in addition to their parts as the bartender and Harvey Johnson, respectively. I'm drawing a rather ridiculous comic of the two of them, and Dutchy is giggling over my shoulder as he observes.

"Mush, we don't have room for the entire cast to do the damned Charleston."

"We do too! If everybody gives themselves enough space, and controls their kicks, and keep their legs to themselves..."

"Somebody's gonna get kicked in the balls, Mush."

"Yeah, and it's gonna start with you in about two seconds."

My comic ends with Blink ripping Mush's head off and eating it, though the real Blink and Mush continue to argue. Dutchy cracks up, but the two of them don't need to know about it. Unfortunately, our entertainment is cut short as Crutchy strolls in.

"Hiya, fellas." He drops his backpack onto his bed, and looks around. "Oh, hey, Specs. Wasn't expecting to see you here."

I grin and shrug. "Have fun with your folks?"

"Yeah. Hey, what happened to your neck?"

Blink and Mush erupt in laughter. I shoot them an icy glare.

"Specs was accosted by a vicious, man-eating vacuum cleaner," Mush says as he tries to stifle a giggle.

"A very unfortunate accident. It was horrific. He's lucky he got out alive, let alone with all his limbs." Blink snickers, and he and Mush fall together, laughing, forgetting all about their fight not two minutes ago.

"Uh... huh..." Crutchy arches an eyebrow, then shakes his head. He sits down on his bed, sighing happily as he pulls out his laptop. "So, how'd the first rehearsal go?"

"Not bad," Dutchy says, laying back on his pillow, "aside from having to get up at the very ass-crack of dawn to be berated by a crazy redhead."

"Well, that's Medda for ya."

"Hey, Crutchy, how come you're not in the play?" I look up at him, over the top of my sketchbook.

Crutchy looks at his crutch, leaning against the wall, and back at me. "Oh, it's just that I'm too good of a dancer to be seen with the likes of these yahoos," he says, raising his eyes to Blink and Mush. I laugh a little at their clueless stares. "Besides, I take care of most of the lighting and sound work."

"Crutchy is the self-proclaimed god of computers," Dutchy says.

"That fact is substantiated by several witnesses," Crutchy mutters as he tinkers with his laptop.

"Must be true, then," I say, shaking my head. I look at the clock, see it's quarter to ten. "Ugh. I need to be getting back to my room."

"Oh," Dutchy says, trying to mask the disappointment in his voice. "Well, uh, I'll walk you up to your room." We stand up and head for the door.

"Dutchy, you're walkin' kinda funny. You okay?" Crutchy is looking at us from over the top of his computer.

"Huh?" Dutchy stalls for time as he comes up with an excuse. It's kind of cute, the way I can almost see the wheels turning in his head. "Oh, um, I kinda hurt myself at rehearsal yesterday."

"Jeeze, what the hell did Medda make you guys do?"

Blink starts to snicker, but Mush elbows him. I know they've figured it out by now, they had to have. At least they aren't saying anything. Under the jokes and the insanity, they're pretty okay guys.

"Later, guys," I say, and Dutchy and I leave.

Dutchy takes me up the back staircase, in order to keep us from being seen.

"Sorry you're still sore."

He shakes his head and smiles a little. "It's totally worth it."

I bite my lip, and smirk. "Better than girls?"

Dutchy laughs. "Definitely." And he stops me, halfway between his floor and mine, and kisses me. His kiss his hot and sweet, ongoing as he pushes me up against the wall. He pulls away after a couple minutes, panting. "Um... I'll see you in the morning."

I laugh, shaking my head to clear it. "Yeah. Goodnight," I say, leaning in for one more kiss.

"Oh... Specs?" Dutchy pushes his hair out of his face, blinking. "Thanks for today."

"You're welcome," I say with a smile. "And thank you, too."

I walk into my room still smiling like a fool. Jack smirks at me as I come in, and David glares at me like he's plotting how to kill me and make it look like a suicide. I shrug off David's laser vision and get stuff to go take a shower.

Heading down the hall to the bathroom, I laugh to myself.

Today has been amazing.

Morning comes far too soon and really kicks my ass. The weekend must've worn me out more than I realized. I drag myself to breakfast, where I sit and stare at my food and mumble greetings to people as they come and sit down. I'm so entirely exhausted that I don't even realize that Dutchy doesn't come down until about twenty minutes after I do.

I find myself suddenly awake when he sits down next to me and casually rests his hand on my thigh under the table. "Morning," he says cheerfully.

I smile at him. "Morning," I say back. This boy is better than coffee.

"Sorry I'm late. Slept in." He shrugs and steals a piece of my toast. "Hey, I wanted to remind you that we have rehearsal this afternoon, right after seventh ends."

"Yeah, I know."

"You ready for class?"

I sigh and finish what's left of my coffee. "Yeah."

He squeezes my thigh lightly before he gets up. It's quite possibly the most intimate thing I've ever experienced.

A/N: This chapter is short and sweet because I wanted something to cheer me up. I just wanted to let everyone know that I start college tomorrow and will not have a ton of time for updates. Yes, I will still update, but you will be lucky if I post one chapter a week. I won't forget you guys, I promise. I'm just going to be really busy. Bear with me, okay? -Layne