"Man, that was one long flight," Summer said, irrritably as she stepped into the crowded airport.
"What are you complaining about?" Seth grumbled. "You ate 3 bags of peanuts, 2 whole sandwiches, your lunch…and mine!"
"Hey," Summer said defensively. "It's not my fault. They serve very small quantities."
Marissa smiled at her friend a little sadly, thinking about how cute they were together. She and Ryan could never be like that.
"Hey," Ryan appeared a minute later, holding all four bags. Two were balanced precariously on his back, while the other two were in each of his hands.
"My hero," Marissa beamed at him as she relieved him of the small purple rucksack he was carrying slung over his shoulder.
"Yeah, that." Seth grabbed the big dark brown bag from his left hand and begun walking toward the exit, Marissa following close behind.
"Well, what are you waiting for?" Summer said impatiently, sauntering off, ignoring the fact that what was weighing him down the most was her ridiculously huge hot pink suitcase.
Ryan sighed and walked after her.
"Really, mom," Lucas said, panting as he came up the short flight of stairs leading to the porch, his arms so full of bags that he could barely see the door in front of him. "You might as well have just bought the whole shop and be done with it." He carefully placed the bags from his right hand on the doormat and reached into his pocket for the key.
"Sorry, Luke." Karen came up behind him, holding a single bag in her hand and trying to conceal her grin.
Lucas turned the key in the lock and pushed open the door, taking the bags in with him. The first thing he noticed was that he had a message. Dumping the bags on the table, he went over to the answering machine and pressed the button. Haley's voice filled the room.
Hey, Luke. It's me. Things are…I don't know…good, I guess. I mean, the tour's going great. It's just…I miss you and Brooke. And Nathan, even if he really hates me right now. Anyway…how are things with you and Brooke? It's her birthday this Saturday, right? Even if I can't be there, I'm glad she has you. Uh…Chris, one sec, okay? Look, I gotta go. But I'll call as soon as I can. I love you.
Lucas turned around and saw his mother standing in the doorway, smiling sympathetically. He smiled briefly at her before turning back around and pressing Delete.
Peyton lay on her bed. She could hear her cell phone ringing somewhere in the house but she made no move to answer it. Maybe if she lay there long enough and wished, then she could make everything that had happened in the last week un-happen. She would go back to that day in the library and tell Lucas that he should be with Brooke and that was all there was to it. She would hold in her feelings, pretend they weren't there. She could control it, she knew she could.
Downstairs, the doorbell rung. Peyton took a deep breath and raised herself off the bed and walked downstairs, her feet dragging and her face resigned.
She threw the door open, briefly wondering who in the world would want to see her after the things she'd done. She froze when she saw who it was outside the door.
"Hi, Peyton." He said, smiling shyly.
"Hi, Jake." Shakily, she stepped away from the door and let him in.
"So where are we staying anyway?" Summer said, bouncing in the backseat of the taxi, in a considerably better mood than she had been in before.
"Uh, it's with this friend of my mom's from high school," Seth said. "She was like, her best friend or something."
"Really?" asked Marissa. "Do they still keep in touch?"
"A little bit. They stopped really talking after my mom met my dad and her friend met some ass who got her pregnant and than left her. My mom helped her deal for a while, but than she got married and moved away. They write letters to each other and talk on the phone occasionally, but they haven't met in over 15 years."
"So are we staying in her house?" Ryan wanted to know, glancing back from the passenger seat.
"No. Apparently, her restaurant is like the town hang-out and so she decided to rent out a couple of rooms above it. She reserved both of them specially for us and we're getting them dirt cheap, so be nice, okay? Summer, this means you."
Summer playfully swatted him. "When am I anything but?"
"So what about her kid?" Ryan asked. "How old would he or she be right now?"
"About our age, I guess." Seth shrugged. "That's pretty much the extent of my knowledge about her. Turn left here," he instructed the driver.
Summer settled back in her seat, staring out of the window. She was thinking about what Seth had just told them. A kid our age, she mused, that could get interesting.
"Hey, Luke," Karen came into her son's room. "Busy?"
"Not really, no." Lucas looked away from his computer. "What's up?"
"I have some work down at the café and I was wondering whether you might like to join me. There are some people coming that might interest you."
Lucas considered it for a moment and than shrugged, standing up and switching off his computer. "Sure. Why not?"
"So what are these people like?" Lucas asked, as Karen drove them both down to the café.
"Well, I've never met them, but do you remember Kirsten?"
"Sure," said Lucas. "She used to come around the house when I was little. She even babysat me sometimes. Why, is she coming?"
"No, no. She's living in California now. Her son and his friends are coming for a couple of weeks. I offered them the two upstairs rooms. That's okay, right?" Karen asked, parking by the curb.
"Yeah," said Lucas. "So how old would these kids be?"
"18 or so. Kirsten had her son the same year I had you. In fact, you and Seth were born only a few days apart."
"Seth, huh?" Lucas said, unbuckling his seat belt and opening the car door. The two of them walked in.
"Oh, they're not here yet." Karen looked around the buzzing café. The youngest person there looked to be about 25. Lucas hoisted himself up onto the counter.
A few minutes later a car pulled up and a boisterous looking brunette got out of the car and pushed open the door, looking around, her big dark eyes wide and searching.
"Hi," Karen called, making her way over to the girl. "Are you, by any chance, a friend of Seth Cohen's?"
"Oh my God," the girl squealed, attracting the attention of a couple of customers. "You must be Karen. I'm Summer. Seth told me about you." She stood on her tiptoes and hugged Karen. Karen looked bemused, surprised that someone that little could have so much energy. Summer released. "Wait right here. I'll get the guys."
Lucas smiled. Summer still hadn't noticed him standing behind his mother.
A moment later Summer burst through the door again, dragging a tall and slightly lanky dark haired boy with curly hair. "This is Seth."
"Hi, Mrs. Roe," Seth said, a little shyly.
"Hello, Seth." Karen gave him a quick hug. "And please, it's Karen."
A beautiful tall girl with long wavy dirty blonde hair and startlingly green eyes came in next. She also seemed a bit withdrawn, not quite as outgoing as Summer was with strangers.
"Hi. I'm Marissa."
"I remember you!" Karen exclaimed.
Marissa looked confused.
"You're the girl who lives next door to the Cohens. Kirsten told me about you. Don't worry, she only said good things, like how she wished Seth would just go over and make friends with you because you would be such a good influence of him."
Marissa blushed. If only Kirsten knew what kind of things she had gotten up to in the last few years.
"I'm Karen," Karen introduced herself and hugged the nearly painfully slender girl.
The bell above the door rang once again as a shorter but slightly more muscular boy pushed through, carrying what seemed to be all the luggage.
"Here, I'll get someone to take that up for you." Karen took the bags from Ryan's hands, one by one and gave them to Lucas. Still mostly concealed by his mother and unnoticed by the gang, Lucas trudged upstairs.
"Ryan." Wiping his sweaty hands on his jeans, Ryan extended one of them to Karen. Karen took it, beaming.
"I'm Karen Roe. Now your rooms are upstairs. Lucas," she said, motioning to her son, who turned in his tracks. "Will take you there."
Lucas walked back down to the bottom of the stairs, smiling because he didn't know what else to do. Ryan, Marissa, Seth and Summer's jaws all dropped at the same time.
Karen chuckled, noting their expressions. "Sorry I didn't introduce you," she said. "This is my son."