Thank you for the love on the introduction to this story. This is the chapter as it's the only one so far that has set this little universe off and I am love with this one and I hope you all like this chapter. I do have a few different things planned that I want to incorporate into this story and I am going to say now that it is going to be a long road for Wade and Zoe to be friends as you will be seeing.

Enjoy!

With her head in her hand, her eyes following her feet swinging back and forth, her shoe laces dragging on the porch, she has no urgency to stop swinging her feet to tie them. A sigh leaves her pink glossed lips every few minutes, drowning out the chirping of the birds, the laughter from the kids elsewhere in the neighborhood, and the faint music she can hear otherwise, not to mention the laughter and the playful banter coming from her new home with her suddenly new but not so new family inside. She's hot, the fan in her room doesn't work, the AC needs to be fixed and sitting in the shade on the porch swing has her clothes sticking to her. As far as she is concerned there is nothing great about the tiny southern town she now calls home.

"Hey, whatcha doin' at Doc Wilkes place? You hurt or somethin'?" The strange boys voice makes her jump, her heartbeat erratic in her chest. She sends him a glare, looking him over. His shaggy brown hair could use a nice cut, his right eye is a light shade of purple, his jeans are tore at the knee. She can see his knuckles match his eye, a small cut calling his right cheek home. "If that ain't it, then you'd be the daughter," he says, getting uncomfortable under her eye. There is no other explanation to her being there. Not to mention she is the talk of the town, her mom included for the last two and a half weeks. In his own mother made sure he would be nice to her, he had no plan to actually befriend her, but seeing her sitting there looking lost as ever he felt sorry for her, and he did what his mom wanted him to do and extend that olive branch of sorts.

"What's it to you?" She asks squaring her shoulders. "Does it look like I'm hurt?" She nearly spits out at him, placing her arm in the cast behind her back, because yes she is hurt, but that was already taken care of before the big move, it is the reason the truth came out. No stupid time traveling machines could fix it for her. "Not like I'd be sitting on some random stranger's porch in a strange town, now is it?" She asks, her anger still in place.

She knows that this is not his fault; he did not make her mom have some love affair on a cruise which resulted in her. This strange boy didn't make her mother choose money and lie to her and play pretend for the last 9 years. He did not force her to be here in this little town to be the family they should have been. Taking her anger out on him it is the easy thing to do, knowing she can't yell back at her mother without punishment and the last thing she wanted was to be grounded. So this poor innocent boy who couldn't mind his business would have to do.

"You don't gotta be such a snob about it," he retorted, looking at her with a sneer. Zoe rolled her eyes, taking a step closer to him. He can see the once brightly colored cast that has faded on her arm, even if she tried to hide from him, but he had a feeling that she wasn't sitting here for an appointment, not when he has an office for that, not to mention he hasn't seen her around in the past 10 years of his life. What more could he do? He tried, and that was all of the trying he was willing to do.

"You can mind your business and not stick your nose in mine, where it clearly doesn't belong," she snapped at him.

"Good luck making friends with that attitude," he muttered, ready to take off on his bike.

"Like I am going to be friends with the kid that can't mind his own stupid business," she told him, having heard what he muttered out.

"Right, sorry, princess," he muttered, taking off on his bike.

"I'm not a princess," she whispered, watching him ride around the corner, a lone tear pricking the corner of her, showing her just how alone she truly felt.

She felt bad for taking her anger over this whole situation out on him, nothing she could do about that now. Looking around the neighborhood, she felt as if she would see him sooner rather than later. She would apologize then. She wouldn't and couldn't chase after him. She wasn't allowed to get off the porch. She didn't understand why, the town was tiny, she is positive that no one in town would steal her away and if some random stranger drove through and tried to kidnap her, she felt as if a towns-person would step in and intervene. The town is small enough to know your neighbors neighbor.

"Zoe, sweetie, can you come in and get your things unboxed?" Candice asked, stepping outside, holding the screen door opened for her daughter.

"Of course, mother," she replied sickly sweet, walking inside.

She rushed up the stairs, slamming her door on accident. The door did slip from her fingers. With a huff she looked around to see several boxes that held her life in them. She stalked over to her window, pushing it open, to let a gentle breeze in her room. She did catch a glimpse of the same boy that she was rude to minutes prior enter his own house, two houses down on the opposite side of the road. At least she assumed it was his house with the way he entered without knocking on the door. Pushing everything to the back of her mind, she got busy getting her new room set up in a way she would enjoy it to be.

When dusk hit, turning the earlier blue sky with an array of purples, pinks and oranges, she was done with her room and sitting at the table a plate of food in front of her. After a few minutes of mindless chatter between her parents things fell silent, forks scraping on plates the only noise there was.

"I was thinking tomorrow while your mom works, that I could show you around," Harley suggested. An easy smile on his face. Happy to have his daughter apart of his life where he could watch her grow. That is the one thing that Candice made sure of is that she would be able to do her job from Bluebell as she didn't want to give it up. She found an office she could work from in Fairhope, with the possibility of growing the business there if it came to that.

"Sure," she agreed, sending him a small smile.

"Do you have everything unpacked?" Candice asked her daughter. Zoe still mad at her mom for forcing her to give up her friends and the life she knew in the city, shrugged her shoulders.

"It's been a long day, can I be excused?" Zoe asked, already in the process of getting up, not wanting to talk to her mom.

"Of course, sweetie. Need anything, you just ask," Harley told her. She nodded and headed back upstairs.

She laid on her bed, looking up at the wrong shade of white for a ceiling. She closed her eyes, to stop the tears from spilling out. She was grateful that she was given a chance to know her real father, it was just that everything changed in such a short period of time. One day they we're a happy family in the city, the next day she was wearing a cast on her broken arm, her father packing his bags, what she didn't know then was the truth, that he was never coming back, that he was not her father, that he might not even love her anymore now that the truth is out in the open. Because of that she resents and dislikes her mother, she would hate her if hate wasn't such a mean and harsh word to use.

She didn't remember falling asleep, the second she opened them it is clear that she slept through the night, the sun now starting to peek over the treetops, the birds partaking in their lovely melodies for the day.

Changing from the clothes she wore yesterday into a fresh outfit; she makes her way downstairs to see her father, it felt too weird to call him Harley, a little less weird to call him dad, it is weird still.

"Morning," she says, slipping into the chair with the plate of food waiting for her. For her it is easier to be nice to her father. He had as much of a choice in the whole situation as she did. She can't blame him for her mother's lies, that would be wrong.

"Morning, Zoe. Heard you moving around," he tells her in way of an explanation to the warm food she is eating.

"Did you make this?" She questions between bites of toast. Nannies made her food, not so much her mom.

"Most the food in this house is cooked in that very kitchen," he replied with a smile and a nod to the kitchen. "Don't see a point in having a kitchen if you don't use it."

She smiled glancing to the kitchen, future moments made with her father making an array of things flashing through her mind. She would be okay with that.

"I guess not," she replied back. "What are we doing today? When we drove through yesterday the town didn't look all that big," she commented after her question.

"There is plenty to see and even more to learn about this little town," he chuckled. "It may not look like much from the outside, though, it is a pretty great town to be apart of."

"I will have to take your word for it, until I'm here longer," she concluded, finishing off her breakfast.

"Before I start the tour, I do need to stop by the practice for a second, if you don't mind," he told her.

"Not at all. I would like to see the place where you work, and where I will be visiting soon enough to get this removed," she told him, holding her cast up for him to see.

With her plate in the sink with the other dirty dishes from that morning, she headed out to see what all the hype was about this town. She may not have known her biological father very long, though she was happy to not only spend time with him, but also learn that they had plenty of things in common.