Adam was in his room, lying on his bed, when his father came home. He had been practicing outside for most of the morning, but around 2:00, he decided to call it a day. He was just had no energy to put towards anything.

It was one of his worse days.

He missed Jesse every day he didn't get to see or even talk to him, but same days were worse than others.

On the decent days, he could focus all his effort on his practice, so even though he was upset it wasn't at the front of his mind; and when it did spring up in his head, he was able to use his emotions towards what he was working on.

Then there were days like these; days where he was so lonely and upset he couldn't even find the energy to practice.

He sluggishly made his way up to his room, his mother casting him a quick glance of surprise that he was coming in already, but nothing more, and collapsed onto his bed, staring at the ceiling.

This had to stop. He felt like a prisoner in his own house. Even if you took Jesse out of the equation, he still was pretty much stuck in this one place every day. He knew he'd eventually go crazy if something didn't change soon.

Today turned out to be his lucky day.

He heard the phone ring downstairs and glanced at the clock, surprised that he had been lying there for over four hours already.

When his dad called him downstairs, he didn't know what to expect.

As James left for work that morning, he continued thinking about a way to somehow reunite Jesse and Adam. He had to think of something that Adam's father would both buy and approve of.

By lunchtime that day, he had it all figured out.

After they got off work, he and his friend Jack went back to Jack's place. He and Jack had worked together for years and were pretty close, so he figured he was the best accomplice. Not to mention, being in the line of work he was, Jack knew how people like the Bankses looked down upon people like him. He may be white, but he had no more money than James. He could imagine how hard it must be for the boys with someone like Mr. Banks to worry about. After explaining the plan to him, Jack agreed, laughing as he shook his head in amusement.

"And you just thought of this today? Wow. Yeah, I'll definitely do it. It'll be fun. Jesse should make you dinner for a month or somethin'."

James laughed, knowing just how happy his son would be.

James wrote out a script for Jack to read from once they arrived. He knew they had to make it sound as legitimate as possible. Once they had everything written, they dialed the number for the Banks residence, waiting for someone to pick up.

When he reached the kitchen, he looked around and spotted his father, sitting at the table.

"Sit down, Son."

His voice gave nothing away, causing Adam to become even more nervous.

"That was one of the directors of the National Junior Hockey Summit. He said that after watching you in the Junior Goodwill Games he feels you have major potential. He's invited you to the Summit, which, from what he told me, is a place where they take the best of the best of young talent and let them practice together, offering advice and lessons on improving your skills. He said that since it's a public organization and they want to encourage independence in young people, you would go to your school every day and someone, most likely one of the directors, would pick you up there. He said it would be held Monday through Friday from 7 am until the early evening. What do you think?"

Adam didn't quite know what to say. He was confused. Yeah, it sounded okay, and it got him out of the house, but someone drilling his hockey every day? And why would they have to pick him up from the school? He got the whole 'public organization' thing, so they were probably tied to the school system, but it still seemed odd. But, he figured it would please his father, even though he had been slowly but surely realizing that that just didn't matter. Nevertheless, he would be getting out of the house, so he agreed.

As Jack hung up the phone, he had a smug look on his face.

"So you think he bought it?"

"Oh yeah, he bought it," he replied with a chuckle.

James smiled in satisfaction. He was almost as excited as he knew the boys would be.

Once he got home that night, he pulled Jesse aside and asked if it was okay to let Terry know about him and Adam.

Figuring that since his father now knew, it would most likely be impossible to keep it from his brother for very long, Jesse decided it was okay.

He was surprised by his brother's reaction.

He had told Terry to sit on the couch while he stood in front of him, their father choosing to give the boys some privacy by going to his room. He didn't go into all the details he had when explaining to his father, but he told his brother the gist of everything. Though Terry was surprised that it was Adam Banks of all people his brother liked, he was happy for him. He loved his brother, and more than anything, he looked up to him. He knew from his still somewhat new relationship with Tammy that now Jesse would be happy. He hadn't been completely blind to his brother's moods lately.

Once they were done talking, they easily fell back into normalcy. They both sat on the couch, watching some old black and white horror movie neither of them knew the name of.

The weekend came and went without much excitement. Adam became nervous about the whole 'National Junior Hockey Summit' thing. He was contemplating faking sick, but he knew he'd still have to go the next day. He just wasn't looking forward to it.

His father dropped him off in the front of the school and he waited for a few minutes when a roughly familiar car pulled up. The door opened and a man walked toward him. He lifted his head and Adam could clearly see who it was.

"Hey, Adam."

"Mr. Hall?"

As he was getting ready that morning, the excitement was building in James. Not only was he anxious to see Jesse happy again, but he couldn't wait to be able to talk to Adam one-on-one, to be able to get his perspective on things.

As he pulled up in front of his sons' school, he saw Adam Banks sitting alone on a small ledge outside the front office.

As he approached, he saw the boy lift his head and a look of recognition mixed with confusion cross his face.

"Mr. Hall?"

"I've told you, Adam. Call me James."

"James. What are you doing here? What's going on?"

James sat beside Adam on the ledge before he spoke.

"I was going to find some subtle way to ease into this, but I'm just going to be honest with you. Jesse told me about the two of you."

Adam's eyes widened in both surprise and panic.

"He...He did," he barely stuttered out.

"Yes. Well, to be fair, he didn't fully voluntarily tell me, and he felt bad for telling me before talking to you about it first, but I had thought I had figured it out. See, I thought Jesse had a crush on you and I was going to talk to him about it, but when I asked him if he did, he told me that you two had already been dating for quite some time and then he went on to tell me everything about how you two started out as mutual crushes who eventually got together and about your trip to California."

Adam was too scared to look into James' eyes. He had always liked Jesse and Terry's dad; he was always so nice and helpful, but this was a time he was severely uncomfortable; he didn't know what he would see if he looked up at his face.

"And...are you upset?"

"I'm not and I am. I'm not upset at all that you two are dating. You both found someone you can trust and care about, and that's so rare in this world, I couldn't even dream of being against it. There is something that is bothering me, though. Do you know how I figured out that there was something Jesse was hiding from me?"

When Adam shook his head, James continued.

"He's been so depressed all summer, ever since you all got back from California. He still tried to act like nothing was wrong; he is Jesse, afterall."

At this, James smirked and Adam had to laugh. He understood all too well.

James sobered and continued.

"But I still could tell something was wrong. I hated to see my son hurting and I wanted to figure out what was causing it."

James paused for a moment and Adam had time to process everything. He felt both relieved and guilty that Jesse was feeling just as miserable as he was.

James watched Adam, seeing the emotions play across his face. Finally, he decided it was safe to ask.

"So, Adam, I have to ask you, and be completely honest with me, please. How have you been holding up? How has your summer been?"

For once in his life, the first thing that came to Adam Banks' mind was the first thing out of his mouth.

"Miserable. To be honest, I've been absolutely miserable. I miss Jesse like you wouldn't believe, and I'm stuck at my house all day, with my mother, who doesn't really even pay attention to how I'm feeling, and the only thing I'm allowed to do, pretty much, is practice hockey. And then my dad comes home and he doesn't really say anything to me unless he's giving me orders or asking how much I practiced that day. And then at night, it's hard for me to even sleep. While we were in California, I got so used to having Jesse there that I haven't been able to sleep normally since."

Once he was done venting, it seemed his brain finally processed his words. His eyes widened in horror. He had said too much, let too much out. He was just about to tell Mr. Hall...James...to just ignore what he had said and to just know that he missed Jesse, but, as if James could read his mind...or maybe his face...he beat him to it.

"No. Adam, I'm glad you were that honest with me. That's how you should be all the time. You can't keep stuff bottled up inside of you; it'll only cause you pain and drive you crazy. You need to let your emotions out from time to time."

Adam just stared in amazement. This was an adult who was telling him to let out how he felt, to be honest about what he was thinking. No one had ever encouraged him to do that before, especially not any sort of authority figure.

"And, this just proves that I need to do what I had planned. Not just for Jesse, but for you too."

"Yeah, now that you mention it, what exactly are you doing here, James? What's going on?"

"Well, once I learned that the reason Jesse was so depressed was because he missed you, and after he told me that there's pretty much no way to get you out of your house, I came up with 'the National Junior Hockey Summit'. Your parents would think you were at the 'summit' during the day, but really you would be at our place, or wherever you boys decide to go. It would just be a good excuse for you two to see each other. So I got one of my friends from work to pose as a 'director' for the 'summit' and he called your father."

Adam couldn't believe it. He truly was speechless.

"You did that? For us?"

"Yeah," James said as if it were the most obvious thing to do in the world. "I couldn't stand to know you two were going to be miserable the rest of the summer when the problem could easily be fixed by you two simply being able to spend time together."

Deciding to take up James' advice about letting his emotions out, Adam reached out and hugged him in appreciation. "Thank you. Thank you so much."

James smiled and hugged the boy back.

"Don't thank me, Adam. This is what I'm supposed to do."

As they headed back to the Hall apartment, Adam couldn't keep the smile off his face.

Summer vacation was starting to look up afterall.

TBC