Hello everyone!

Thanks so much for your reviews, please keep on reviewing, it keeps me writing ;)

So today I'll start off another kind of downward spiral, to give you some more storylines to guess about what might happen in the future ;)

Steffi

Please R/R, as always!

Me And My Girls

"And then we went to the restaurant. It was extremely posh and I kinda didn't like it there. But hey, who am I to interrupt a great date like that?" Annie asked while one of the agency's make up artists was working on her eyeshadow. She was talking to Summer who sat next to her, getting her hair done, about the date she had had the night before.

"Okay, and so we went in there, we sat down, the waiter gave us the menues, we order… and I have like no idea why in the fucking world I wanted snails… no, excuse-moi, 'escargots'… so these slimy gilbbery things come, I have one… and find myself puking in the champagne cooler seconds after that."

Annie's face turned into a theatralic gaze as she went on. "Well then, after that cute little puking thing, Christian wanted the cheque. He paid and left the restaurant without even looking at me. No good night kiss, no 'I'll call you'… nothing!"

Summer smiled as her friend told her the story about only one of her failed dates. The thing about Annie was that Summer had never heard from her about a good date. One that was actually a success. She shook her head. "So why did you order snails at all? I thought you never wanted to eat anything you don't know."

Annie shrugged. "Well, yeah, I guess I kinda liked the guy, and I wanted to sort of please him or something."

"Well, that didn't work out, I guess." Summer said and grinned over to her friend teasingly. The two girls looked in each other's eyes in the mirror that was in front of them and broke into a laugh simultaneuosly.

"I suppose not." Annie giggled as the make up artist told her to sit still. Right next to Annie's seat, Summer's hair was finished and she turned her chair around to face Annie.

"So you won't call this Christian guy again?" she asked.

"Freakin' God, no! This was the top of my date embarrassment list."

Summer laughed and checked her hair in the mirror. It was almost an art form, culred and tucked in different ways all over her haid. She fumbled for a pair of earrings that laid in front of her and put them on.

Suddenly, Annie's hand grabbed Summer's arm, pulling it closer to her face.

"Wow, baby, this is an amazing bracelet! So cute… are those real diamonds?" she asked and turned Summer's wrist as best as she could, examining the bracelet thoroughly.

Gently, Summer pulled her arm out of Annie's grip and looked at the bracelet with a dreamy look on her face. "Yeah, it's three diamonds. Seth bought it for me last Chrismukkah."

In the mirror, Summer saw Annie raising her eyebrows questioningly at the word 'Chrismukkah'.

"What the-"

"It's Seth's favorite holiday." Summer interrupted Annie and started to explain. "You see, Seth is Jewish, as is his father. His mother's a Christian, so he kinda mixed those two holidays – Christmas and Hanukkah – into one…" she stopped when she saw how Annie frowned, a thing that the make up artist didn't really like.

Summer shook her head and laughed. "Well, I guess you'd have to know Seth better to understand that."

"So let's go out together… take the girls with us… then I can meet him." Annie proposed with now closed eyes.

Summer let that idea run through her head for a while. Why not? After last weekend, with her throwing up and being tired and everything, Seth was already sceptic towards her job as a model… this was the best way to show him that the job wasn't so bad at all.

"Great idea. When's the day we only have to work til noon?" Summer asked and continued to put her earrings on.

"Saturday. At least they have some mercy with us on weekends." Annie answered and stood up as she was released out of her make up chair.

"Cool. It's settled then. Saturday. The 'Hippy Chix'?"

Annie nodded. "Sure, 'Hippy Chix'. I hope I don't embarrass myself again." She said, and, giving Summer one of her broad and happy smiles, she exited the room to get dressed.

Robots were never tired. Right? So why couldn't Summer just be a robot?

Philosophing about the weaknesses of the human body, Summer lay on the living room couch, her eyes closed, as she waited for Seth to get ready. After a long week with almost no sleep, all that Summer wanted to do was to stay at home and relax.

But Seth, the girls and her were supposed to meet at their favorite club, the 'Hippy Chix', in… Summer glanced at her watch and jumped from the couch when she saw that there were only 20 minutes left for them to get out of the house, into the subway, and to the club.

She ran over to the bathroom door and knocked on it impatiently.

"Cohen, what the hell are you doing in there? I tell you, putting on make up won't help anymore."

At that comment, the bathroom door opened and Seth, raising his eyebrows, stood in front of Summer. "Haha. So funny." He said and made a face towards his girlfriend.

Summer shook her head and grinned at him innocently. "I know. I'm funny."

Now Seth broke into a grin as well. No matter how serious the issues were they were talking about, when Summer gave him one of her angel-like smiles, all he could do was to smile as well.

He leant over to kiss her, but Summer shoved him away. "Nuh-uh, Cohen. We're like a zillion minutes late, no time for things like that." She said and headed over to the apartment door while Seth remained standing in the bathroom doorframe.

From out of the living room, he heard a stressed "Come on!", grinned again and followed his girlfriend to meet "her girls".

Seth knew why the club was called 'Hippy Chix'. Never before he had seen so many pseudo-stylish girls who thought they were beautiful or hip or whatever. Each of the young women who were in the club seemed to be totally arrogant and way too much convinced of herself for Seth's taste.

Except for the girls that were with Summer and him. Annie was a sweet, tiny person with wild red curls and deep green eyes, Keira an even tinier girl with long blonde hair that was pulled in a ponytail, Sarah was also blonde, but not as tiny as the two girls before, and Macy was the biggest of the dwarf parade around him, with chin lengthed, brown hair.

And of course, Summer. Without any question, she was the most beautiful out of 'her' girls, even if Seth couldn't help but notice how thin and breakable she seemed to have become during the last few weeks. He knew that Summer didn't eat properly, and her only explanation for that was that she was always too tired to eat… Seth knew that there had to be different reasons, but he didn't want to worry about that tonight. Not now that Summer was so happy.

Almost all evening, Seth stood in the circle of the girls, just listening and nodding to what they said. Most of the time, they were talking about fashion, about their job, make up and all that stuff that wasn't really interesting for a guy. Well, at least not if he wasn't gay, Seth thought and smiled to himself.

He found his thoughts drifting far away, back to California, back to Newport, to his playstation, and most important of all, Ryan. Never before in his life he had felt a more urgent need to be with a man, a brother even. The day he had to wait for Summer at the agency among all those women newspapers hadn't been so boring and mind-numbing as the situation he was in right now.

Seth really liked the girls he was with right now, and he was glad that Summer had found some new friends she could hang out with and so on, but all he wanted to do now was either sleep or do something really heroic, a thing only a real man could do.

And since he knew that he couldn't be doing anything male or heroic around here, he pulled Summer away from the goup in a silent minute for a little make out session.

After sharing a couple of loving kisses, they broke apart, still their arms around

each other, and Summer smiled at him. "So… what do you think about them?" she asked, her eyes showing that she really wanted Seth to like the girls.

"They're nice. All of them. Although I think that that Keira chick talks way too much." Seth answered and grinned innocently.

Summer laughed and turned her head to see Keira gesturing in one of her monologues. "Yeah, she really likes the talk… typically girl, huh?"

Seth leaned over and kissed Summer again. "True." He glanced at his watch unsurely and looked back into Summer's eyes. "So… um… have you been thinking 'bout when you wanna leave?"

Summer backed away and frowned. "Cohen, it's only like ten p.m. I stayed up longer when I was in Elementary."

"Yeah, but, you know, I need my solid eight hours of beauty sleep, otherwise I'll be having those dark rings around my eyes when I wake up… and you know how much I hate them…" he trailed off when Summer laid her finger on his lips, grinning at him.

"You can go home if you want to." She said. "But if you don't mind, I'd like to stay a little longer."

Seth pulled his girlfriend closer and shook his head. "Nope. Don't mind. As long as I can go home now." He said with a pleading look in his eyes that made Summer smile all over again.

"You're cute when you're impatient." She said and ran a hand through Seth's wild brown curls.

Seth grinned and kissed Summer again. "I know."

Their kiss was interrupted when a someone bumped into them and caused them to lose their equilibrium.

"Ooops, I'm so sorry you sweethearts! I didn't mean to interrupt!" A very tipsy Macy yelled as she balanced two cocktails in her hands, giving Seth and Summer a broad grin, showing all of her teeth.

Seth laughed. "No problem." He focused his attention back to Summer. "Just don't stay out too long, okay? Maybe we can do something when you come home…" he suggested in his seductice voice Summer loved so much.

She grinned broadly. "We'll see. Maybe I'll need a massage." She said and winked.

Seth gave his girlfriend a last goodbye kiss and left the club, waving at the other girls as he headed for the door.

With jumping steps, Summer went over to her friends only to find a drink being pushed in her hand by Macy. "Bought this for you. We decided we need to celebrate, ya know."

"Celebrate what?" Summer asked.

"Hey, California, we don't care what we're celebrating." Annie said and laid an arm around Summer's shoulder. "We just do it."

Grinning into the round of girls, Summer raised her glass, for the first time in weeks actually feeling great.

As the evening proceeded, the girls got more and more drunk, first and foremost Macy who had one drink after the other.

Just before things got really crazy among the girls, Summer and Keira went away from the others into a quieter corner of the club.

Before their buns even touched the couches, Keira had already started to talk. "God, I hate it when they do that." She said and pointed over to Macy, Annie and Sarah who we're just having another toast on something they probably didn't even remember.

Summer smiled and sighed. "Yeah, I think they should know when to stop." She said and put a hand on her neck to massage it.

"You okay?" Keira asked and frowned at Summer.

Summer sighed again. "Yeah… I just…" she turned around and faced the blonde. "Don't you ever feel like, so exhausted you think you're not gonna make it through the day?"

Keira hesitated and shrugged. "Well, sometimes yes, sometimes no. It depends on so many things. Why?"

Summer bit her lip. "I don't know… I… since the new job began, I feel nothing but tiredness… last week I couldn't even keep my eyes open during dinner with Seth. And I guess it's just the exhaustion and everything, but I have to throw up almost every night, and I have those terrible nightmares of people wanting to kill me…"

Keira pressed her lips together as she listened to Summer. When Summer was finished, she took her hand and looked her in the eyes intensively.

"I always wondered how you manage all the stress… you should know that WE all…" she pointed over to the three other girls, "have little helpers to get through it."

At the words 'little helpers', Summer's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"

Keira held up her forefinger and reached for her purse, looking through it. After a while, she pulled out a tiny bag with little pills in it, always careful to hide it from the other's sights.

"This is some new stuff." She said conspirationally and grinned. "Helps you to stay focused, gives you energy."

Summer's jaw dropped as she slowly realized that Keira was just offering her drugs to improve her mental and physical state.

She held up both of her hands and moved away a little from Keira. "Do ALL you girls take that stuff?" she asked in a disbelieving voice.

Keira shook her head. "No, this is new, like REALLY new. You're the first one to have it." She said, almost a little proud of the offer she was making Summer right now.

Summer shook her head and stood up. "No, Keira, I never took drugs. And I never will." She said and reached for her purse.

"Will you excuse me, I think I need to get home now. Seth's waiting."

Without waiting for an answer, Summer ran over to the club's exit and headed for the subway station as fast as she could, trying to get away from the club and Keira's little bag as far as possible.

Next chapter: Life Goes Down