Hi hi hi! I just wanted to say thank you for the reviews! I appreciate them sm! So, last chapter as a look into the girl's current lives, and this chapter will be the boys! There's a slight time jump of a week, but nothing major.

III

Andre Harris wonders how he got here.

Here, explaining to his grandma yet again that her reflection in the window was just that, a reflection, and not living on campus at UCLA like he should have when he had the chance.

"Grandma, you cannot skip your meds." Andre repeats for what has to be the billionth time as he hands her the two little white pills. He watches as she pops them in her mouth and then swallows some water. "Tongue check." he says, and his grandma lifts her tongue, showing that the pills are not there. "Alright. I have to get some homework done, so can you please try not to run outside again? I don't have time to chase you."

"OKAY ANDRE!" his grandma shouts, and she's running off in the direction of her bedroom. He knows she won't stay there very long, so he hops on his laptop immediately.

Andre loves his grandma, she's the reason that he's the man that he is, and he likes to think that he's a good man. But man, taking care of her isn't easy.

He doesn't know any eighteen year old who has to do the things he does. His friends sure don't. He loves Tori, he really does, but he envies the fact that she could be quitting school and focusing full time on her music career. That's something he couldn't do, not right now. He has a part-time job, because he has to help out with the bills (his grandma's disability checks only go so far), as well as classes. He barely has time to write music anymore, and when he does have the time he's so tired that he just sleeps instead.

He can't believe that he misses high school. Everything just seemed so much easier then.

He pushes those thoughts out of his head. He doesn't have time to dwell on the past, he needs to focus on finishing this paper.

He writes for about fifteen minutes before he has to go and calm down his grandma and explain that the toilet is just that, a toilet, and not something that's going to take her and swallow her whole. The whole explanation takes damn near an hour.

When he has time to get back to his paper, his phone starts ringing. He sighs before he looks at it, and sees that Tori's calling. He taps the green button and brings it to his ear.

"Hey Tori, this really isn't a good time-"

"Andre! I need you." Tori says.

Andre sighs as he rubs his forehead. He knows he should tell her he has a paper, that he can't afford any more distractions. But still, he finds himself saying, "What's going on?"

"I have this demo I need to get to Mason tonight and I have stuckkkk on the bridge. Do you have time to come help me?"

No. He doesn't have the time. He needs to finish this paper.

"Please Andre." Tori whines, and Andre sighs as he slams his laptop shut.

"I'll be right there." he tells her. "Lemme just make sure my grandma can't do anything crazy while I'm gone."

"Andre, you are the best friend a girl could ask for!" Tori exclaims before she hangs up, and Andre shakes his head with a soft smile.

He does his routine he always does before he leaves the house, which is making sure the house is basically childproof, which makes it Grandma Harris proof. And then he heads to UCLA's campus, and to Tori's dorm. Tori's already waiting for him outside.

"Thanks for coming on such short notice." Tori says.

Andre waves a dismissive hand. "Anything for you, girl."

He doesn't know when his relationship with Tori became this, something where he jumps at the thought of her even needing him. Although, he knows he doesn't do this just for Tori, he'd do it for any of his friends. Tori's the one who always seems to ask him for something.

"Have you talked to Beck lately?" Tori asks, making idle chat while they make their way to her dorm room.

Andre shakes his head. "Not lately, maybe a week - no, two weeks ago. He was excited about his pilot being picked up." Andre tells her. "Why, have you?"

Tori shakes her head, and Andre notices just how disappointed she looks. "He hasn't reached out in over a month. I mean, sometimes he likes my Splash posts, but I don't know, that's not really reaching out."

Andre feels he need to make her feel better, so he just bumps her with his elbow. "You know, he's probably just super busy shooting his show."

Tori looks at him then. "He's been talking to Sinjin."

Andre furrows his brows. "I know you can't be talking about the Sinjin I think you're talking about."

Tori huffs out a laugh before she pulls out her PearPhone and starts typing at her screen furiously before she turns towards him and shoves the phone in his face. Andre takes a step back just so that he can see the screen properly and finds himself looking at a post from Sinjin;

Spent the whole day talking to my pal BeckOliver about drag racing. Man I love drag racing. Also my friend is gonna be in a show. But not about drag racing. I did watch the pilot though, and it's about something almost as cool

Below that was a comment from Beck;

SinjinVanThief Glad you liked it!

"He sent Sinjin the pilot?" Andre asks, and Tori nods almost violently.

"How could he send Sinjin the pilot of all people!?" Tori asks incredulously. "I mean, we are his best friends."

Andre thinks about that. Were they Beck's best friends? Of course they were close in high school, but Andre knows that Tori was his best friend, and then that was followed by Robbie, interestingly enough. Beck… he hung out with Jade mostly, and then spent a lot of time with Tori but Andre wasn't sure if that was all… platonic. But were he and Bek best friends? Back in high school, he might have thought so, but now, not so much.

Maybe that's why he wasn't so broken up about not seeing the pilot. Surprised, but not too upset. He could see that Tori was.

"Maybe he just wanted an unbiased opinion." Andre tells her. "As his friends, we'd probably tell him it was good even if it was boo boo."

Tori scrunches her nose up. "Who says boo boo?"

"I say boo boo!" Andre defends.

Tori rolls her eyes. "Well, I could be honest with Beck. And I think you would be too. I just… we all feel so distant from each other. I mean, when's the last time you talked to Robbie, or Cat, or Jade?"

Andre doesn't tell her that Cat texted him earlier that day raving about her possible deal from the Dingo Channel, because if Tori didn't know, it meant that Cat hadn't texted her. So instead he says, "Yeah. It sucks. But hey, we're still close."

"Promise me that'll never change." Tori says softly.

He doesn't have to lie about that, because he doesn't want it to change either.

"We'll always be best friends Tori. Always."

Tori grins at that, looping her arm with his. "Great. Now, let's write this song." she says as they end up right in front of her dorm room.

Since Tori's roommate was hardly ever there, they were able to start sitting down and writing almost immediately. The process of songwriting is a long one, especially when there's no inspiration. Tori doesn't even know what she wants to sing about, she just knows she needs a song for Mason before the deadline. They try several times, several starts and stops, before Tori throws herself onto her bed.

"Lets just go to sleep and admit I'm a failure." she whines.

"Stop whining." Andre tells her.

"I'm not whining." Tori says with a pout.

"You are whining. You're being a whining baby." Andre teases her.

Tori rolls her eyes as she pushes at his shoulder. "Shut up. If I'm whining it's because I can't think of anything worth singing. I'm not heartbroken, I'm not embarrassed, I'm not thinking of a way to get back at someone. I have nothing."

"You don't have nothing." Andre says as he moves so that he can sit closer to her. "You have this," he says, tapping her temple. "And you have that." he says, motioning towards her heart. "You can make any song you need to with that."

Tori sighs as she looks at him. "I don't know Andre. You can write. I just… can perform." she says as she looks at her hands.

Andre sighs as he pulls his laptop into his lap. "Alright, well you know what, why don't you just sing one of my songs?" he suggests.

Tori blinks as she looks at Andre. "Wait, what? No, I can't do that. I mean, Mason wants me to showcase my skills-"

"And you'd still be doing that. It'll be you singing. It'll be your talent. I just wrote the words." Andre tells her as he pulls up a song. "Just see if you like it, and if you do, then we can rehearse until you know it."

"Thank you so much Andre." Tori says softly. "You're really the best friend a girl could have."

"I know." Andre says with a smile before he turns towards his laptop. "Alright, come on girl, let's rehearse.

They rehearse for hours until Tori knows the song backwards and forwards, and even then Andre still emails her the lyrics in case she needs to rehearse them even more. It's pushing four am when he finally decides that he needs to go home and get a few hours of shut eye before he has to get to his nine am class.

"You sure you don't wanna stay here?" Tori asks.

Anddre shakes his head. "I have to make sure my grandma eats her breakfast, and her morning meds, or you know, she'll lose her mind."

Tori smiles softly, shaking her head as she climbs into her bed. "Alright. Well, I'll see you later for lunch?"

"Later alligator." he says as he walks towards her door.

"In a while, crocodile!" she calls after him as he leaves.

When Andre gets home, he checks in on his grandma, and then he bullshits his way through his paper before falling asleep a little after six am, only to have to wake up forty five minutes later.

Roobbie loves New York.

He loves everything about the face paced city, and he loves everything about hiss school, NYU.

But most of all, he loves how much he's changed since moving here.

He was going to stay in LA even after getting accepted into one of the best performing arts colleges in the country, all because he wanted to be there for Cat.

Honestly, he has to thank Jade for talking him out of doing that. She may have had her own reasons for doing it, but it was the right thing to do for him.

Robbie had friends. He wasn't popular by any means, but he had a really good group of friends. And he had friends that didn't think he was some annoying dweeb, like Jade and Tori did, or even sometimes Beck and Andre did, despite what they might've said.

And he had a girlfriend.

Molly also went to NYU, and she was in the creative writing department. She was super sweet, and pretty, and she really liked him.

Sometimes he couldn't believe it.

So life has been good for Robbie since he left LA, and yet…

Well, he would be lying if he said he didn't think about Cat. They were still friends, and he still had a weak spot for the redhead. He was pretty sure that he always would. So whenever she needed him to edit something for her Splashface page.

And now he has been video chatting with her for over two hours talking about her possible deal with the Dingo Channel.

"Maybe you could work on the show too Robbie!" she says gleefully.

Robbie smiles as he shrugs. "I don't know Cat, I have school."

"But you're going to school for filmmaking. If you worked on my show you would already be doing filmmaking. It's perfect!" Cat tells him.

He has to admit, it makes sense, but still, "You don't even know if you're gonna have the show yet."

"Well, Sam knows a lawyer, actually it's her lawyer, I didn't know she owned one but she does! And we're gonna meet with her next week and see if everything is okay. Then I'll be able to have my show and you can be my director! Oh! Maybe I can get Andre to write my theme song, and maybe Beck will act in my show. And Jadey! Jadey could play my best friend, which won't be hard because she's already my best friend, and-"

"That sounds great Cat." Robbie interjects with a smile.

Cat smiles happily. "It would be so great," she says before she looks at him. "Have you talked to Jadey?"

Robbie shakes his head. "Why would I talk to Jade?" he asks.

He and Jade were never really friends. He knows for the most part, Jade just tolerated him for Cat's sake. Just because they were the only ones in New York didn't change that.

"Jadey seems sad." Cat says. "I know she's usually angry, but this is different. I think she misses Beck. But she would never say that. And I don't think she likes Julliard either."

"Why wouldn't she like Julliard?' Robbie questions. It was one of the best performing art schools in the world, and Jade had gotten in on a full scholarship.

"She never wanted to go to Julliard, her dad wanted her to." Cat tells him.

Robbie furrows his brows. "Then why did she apply? She had to want to go, even if it was a little bit."

"He wouldn't pay for the rest of her applications if she didn't apply." Cat informs him.

Robbie doesn't say anything, because he doesn't really have anything to say. It sounds like a sucky situation.

"Well what do you want me to do?" Robbie asks.

"I don't know, just, be friends with her. When you go places take her with you." Cat says before she adds, "I see you hang out with new people."

He nods. "Yeah. I made a couple new friends."

He hasn't told her about Molly. He doesn't know why, because he should be able to tell the girl who is his best friend (and yeah, maybe still, so much more) that he has a girlfriend. But he hasn't, and he doesn't know when he will.

"Well Jadey needs some friends. Not a best friend," Cat says quickly and firmly. "I'm her best friend. But. Just a friend. Just until I can see her in person again."

Robbie nods as he shrugs his shoulders. "I'll see if she wants to hang out." he tells her.

It won't be too bad. He'll over Jade the opportunity to hang out, she'll say no, and he can tell Cat that.

Easy peasy, lemon squeezie.

—

Beck had missed LA.

He loves that his show shoots in Canada, specifically Vancouver, because he gets to visit the family he has there, but LA has become his home, and he's happy to be back.

He can't lie though, things feel… different now.

Tori, Andre, and Cat are all still in LA, but he hasn't reached out to any of them. Of course, it's been a grand total of three hours since he's been home, but he still hasn't bothered to send a text. He will, eventually, of course, because he still wants to check in with Cat about what she texted him about some show on the Dingo Channel, but his co-stars wanted to meet up tonight, and honestly, he's become good friends with them.

And then he told Sinjin they could hang out when he got back, because somehow, he and Sinjin had become friends. Probably because Sinjin was super insistent, but Beck also found him pretty interesting.

"So Beckett," his dad says, bringing him out of his thoughts. "What do you do next?"

Beck raises an eyebrow. "Dad, I justfinished filming a season for a show."

"Half a season right? Your mom said it's thirteen episodes."

"Yes but-" Beck starts, but his dad interjects.

"So you don't know that it'll work out. You have to have something to fall back on Beckett. I've always told you that."

"I know." Beck says. Because he does know. His father has been telling him the same thing ever since they moved here from Canada Beck's eighth grade year, when Beck met Andre, then Robbie, then Cat, and finally Jade. And then, even though he had already known he wanted to be an actor by then, he knew for sure that he wanted to go to Hollywood Arts.

His dad was the child of Indian immigrants, so Beck understood why his dad valued hard work above all. He didn't understand why his dad thought that the work that he was putting into his work wasn't as hard.

"So, do you have some other gigs lined up? Or something else to occupy your time?" his dad asks.

"Uh, I was kinda just gonna chill until I have to start doing press." Beck tells his dad. "Nothing too serious. Probably do some writing."

He knows his dad doesn't like his answer. Beck and his father are completely opposite; Beck has always been good at hiding his emotions, and his dad's are written all over his face.

"Maybe you should take some classes," his dad suggests. "You could take them online."

"I could. But I don't think I will." Beck tells his dad.

At that moment, they pull into their driveway, where his RV has been for months. He's finally home.

Beck starts to get out of the car, but his dad grabs his arm. "Beckett, you know, I just want the best for you."

"I know dad."

His dad nods, before he lets go of his arm. Beck hops out of the car and heads into his RV.

It feels… different.

Maybe it's because of how clean it is.

Beck tosses his suitcase on his bed and then flops down beside it, before he pulls out his phone.

He's gotten a few texts from his co-stars, asking which club he wanted to go out to tonight. Beck isn't a club guy, he's barely a party guy. He's more than content enough to stay in the house and watch reruns of Full House or Celebrities Under Water.

But he supposed that partying is just another perk of fame. He knows plenty of young celebrities do.

He tells them that he's down to go anywhere they wanna go, before he decides to look at his socials.

He has to scroll through five thousand pictures of Trina, who seems to post every hour. He remembers when they found out most of her followers were bought.

Who is she posting these selfies for?

He sees some posts of Cat's, of Andre's and Tori's, and then he has to log into his side account to look at Jade's account, considering she blocked his main one.

He doesn't think it's that weird. It's not like he's stalking her or anything. He just… he wants to see how she's doing. They were huge parts of each other's lives, as he still cares, even if she doesn't.

Jade doesn't post a lot, she never did, but Beck notices that when she does post, there's the same guy posting in comments.

Kieran.

There's no posts of him on Jade's page, so they're obviously not dating, because Jade likes to claim her boyfriends. But the guy is clearly interested, and considering the fact that Jade isn't threatening him in her comments, Beck thinks she might be interested too.

And that's when he logs off.

He can't think about Jade being with someone else. Not when he doesn't even know why she broke up with him. He knows what she said, but… he just feels like there was more to it.

He ignores that though, and focuses on where his cast members decide. They settle on going to a club that he knows is very well known and popular.

He decides to take a nap before going out.

When he wakes up, he spends extra time on his hair, and while he doesn't over dress, he makes sure to wear his best casual clothes.

He hears a car horn, and he peaks out of his bulletproof window to see his co-star, Lacey, in her convertible.

Lacey is a gorgeous black girl, who plays his love interest in the show. Well, one of them anyway. But if he's being honest, he wants his character to end up with her, because he likes Lacey, she's a cool person.

Her boyfriend, Jacob, is in the passenger seat and is another one of his co-stars. He likes Jacob well enough, but he really didn't work with him that much to spend time with him, but from what Lacey tells him that he's cool.

He leaves the trailer and waves as they wave at him.

"You live in a trailer dude?" Jacob asks as Beck hops into the back seat.

"Yeah."

"How long have you lived in that?" Jacob wants to know.

"Since my freshman year." Beck answers as Lacey pulls out of his driveway. She looks at him through the rearview mirror.

"Seriously? You've lived on your own since you were like fourteen?" she questions.

Beck nods. "I don't like living by other people's rules. Even if those people are my parents."

Jacob grins as he nods. "That's awesome dude. Screw the rules!"

Lacey laughs, and Beck grins.

Screw the rules. Words to live by.