Thanks again for all the comments and reviews. I'm happy people are enjoying. I really have nothing else to add, so to the chapter.

Chapter 8: Reunited

"We should get engaged all the time," Summer panted to Seth as she tried to fix the sheets around her.

"Are you kidding me? I stressed over this for weeks, I annoyed Ryan to the point where he was about to kill me, and I had lunch with your father. I don't think I can afford to get engaged all the time."

"Fine. I'll ask you to marry me next time, as long as we get a bit of whatever that was that just happened here, I'm happy."

"Yeah," Seth agreed as he moved lower on the bed so his head would be at the same level as Summer's and they could look at each other eye to eye. "But that wasn't just engagement sex. That was engagement, reunion, forgive me, and make-up sex all in one. Plus, it was just long overdue."

"It doesn't matter what it was. I'm engaged and you're not lost anymore." She reached out and smacked him on the arm that lay over the sheets. "Never disappear like that again, by the way. What the hell were you doing losing your cell phone?"

"Would you believe me if I told you that Che took it from me so I wouldn't run away from him?"

"No."

"Why not?" Seth pouted.

"Because Che said you forgot it there and he's proved more trustworthy than you."

"The guy who got you kicked out of Brown is more trustworthy than I am?"

Summer shrugged. "He didn't lie about getting me kicked out of Brown… Your truth record is a lot worse off than his."

"But you're engaged to me. You have to take my side in all fights now."

"I don't think so. You lost your phone. You've been acting like a dumbass because you were nervous about this engagement. And Superman is better than Batman."

"I did… Whoa, what? Superman is not better than Batman."

"Of course he is," Summer insisted, biting the inside of her cheek to keep away her smile. She'd had this argument with Seth many times, mostly when she was too mad at him not too annoy him, and too hurried to find anything she actually felt passionate about to use as an argument.

Seth sighed and rolled his eyes.

"Superman is the worst of—"

Summer pressed her lips against his to cut him off before he could get much further into an argument she was sure would last much longer than she could stand.

"Doesn't matter," she told him, pulling herself against his body and letting her hands roam against his skin under the sheets. "I've always been partial to Spiderman myself."

"Spiderman? He's—"

"Spiderman in the rain, to be more specific." Summer's eyebrow rose, daring Seth to pretend he didn't know what she was talking about.

"Well that," he shrugged, "I can't argue with."

Summer smiled victoriously, but only for a moment as Seth moved to be over her and wiped away her expression with his lips.

He groaned when they were interrupted by the chime of a cell phone.

"Do you have to get it?" he whined when he realised it wasn't his.

Summer sighed. "It's Taylor."

"Uh, don't answer. She'll never shut up."

"She's going to Berkeley and I think Kaitlin is forcing her to see Ryan. She's a mess."

Seth scratched his cheek as he looked down at his watch. "She must be there already. She's seen him by this time. She's just freaking out. Let her. Maybe it'll do them some good to have to deal with one another."

"You just don't want me to pay attention to anyone but you."

"That's absolutely correct," Seth agreed with a nod. He grabbed Summer's phone and threw it onto a chair across the room. It stopped ringing.

"Must have gone to voicemail," he shrugged. "What a shame."

"Yeah, what a—" Summer didn't get much further before Seth's lips were keeping her quiet once again.

"Well," Sandy sighed as he brought his bottle of beer to his lips for another swig, "all I know is that Kirsten is not going to be happy when she finds out. So, if it makes you feel better, I'll be in even more trouble than you are for whatever it is that you did."

"But I don't even know what I did," Frank answered with a shake of his head. "I don't even think I did anything."

"Doesn't matter, Kirsten will be madder."

"Daddy!"

Sandy cringed at the sound of his daughter's voice. He loved his daughter and he was nothing but happy that she was bouncing into the living room toward him, but a bouncing Sophie with arms full of something he couldn't quite make out meant a nearby Kirsten, and Sandy could only hope that she hadn't heard his last words.

"Look what I made," Sophie told him proudly.

"I see." Sandy dropped a kiss on her head as he got up from the couch. He looked at the cardboard in her hand, unable to tell what it was she had made despite the fact that it was only a few inches from him. "Did you leave any paint in the pots for the other little girls at the birthday party to use?"

"I don't know." She shrugged. "Who's that?"

"That's Frank," Sandy said. "You remember Frank, right? He's Ryan's father."

"Other father," Sophie corrected without a thought, having heard Ryan's protest each time Sandy talked about Frank. "Hi, Uncle Frank."

"Hi, Sophie. Don't you look pretty."

"Yes, I do," Sophie agreed. "Did you come to take Aunt Julie away?"

"I'm sorry?"

Sandy reached out with one hand to cover Sophie's mouth as he gently pushed her away. "Why don't you go put that away and then come back down for supper? I'm sure you're mom must have picked something up on the way."

"Thai," Sophie called, already making her way out of the room.

"Children are precious, aren't they?"

Frank laughed as he shook his head. "Julie doesn't always have the greatest way with children. She's good with Kevin, but her and girls… Don't worry. I'm well aware. Besides, the way she looked when they stalked out of here to pick up Sophie… I think that would have scared me if I had been on the receiving end. And I've seen her first thing in the morning."

They settled back into the quiet they had found before Sophie's arrival. Sandy almost worried about how much stuff the women had actually purchased if it was taking them so long to gather everything to bring into the house, but more worried that his wife was avoiding him because of something she had overheard.

Finally, their patience was rewarded as they heard the women shuffling toward them.

"Sandy, we brought supper," Kirsten called to him, her voice icy enough that Sandy knew she'd overheard.

"Great, baby."

"Um…" Kirsten's eyes wandered as she watched first Sandy than Frank. She nodded her head toward the kitchen. "Julie's in there if you want to see her."

"I guess… Maybe she knows where Kaitlin went."

Sandy smiled a wide grin as he watched Frank leave the room.

"Frank's here," he offered his wife.

"I saw that when I walked in earlier and you were grilling yourselves some lunch." She shook her head as he approached. "Sandy, what did you do?"

Sandy shrugged. "Nothing. He just showed up. I didn't call him or anything."

"I know you know I heard," Kirsten said as she moved toward him. "Why am I going to be mad at you?"

"Not for anything that awful and not for anything that you won't quickly forgive."

"But I'll be mad first, so why don't you tell me about that?"

"Can you just please trust me when I say that it would be best if we waited until we were alone?"

"Sandy…" Kirsten warned, her hands moving away from his when he reached for her.

"I—"

"Frank!" they heard Julie scream from the kitchen.

Kirsten narrowed her eyes. "You should be thanking God for Julie. That's all I'm going to say."

She left the room in quick, angry steps. Sandy let his eyes roll up to the sky and contemplated what Kirsten had just said. Finally, he shook his head and decided to go watch the action in the kitchen rather than acknowledge Julie's help in any way.

"So where were you before this?" Kaitlin asked after a meal where Ryan and Taylor had spent most of the time averting their eyes from one another rather than have to engage in any real conversation. Colin hadn't been much more helpful, trying unsuccessfully to steer the conversation with questions about their past together, seemingly finding one landmine to hit after another.

"Baby shower for my cousin," Taylor answered. Her eyes lifted at the same time as Ryan. They both turned away before their gazes could hold one another.

"I didn't know you were leaving France," Ryan said, offering his first words of the evening.

Taylor's eyes fluttered up to him with something resembling hope, but quickly hardened when she didn't meet Ryan's, his eyes on his food rather than on her. "I just came down for this. I don't know if I'm going to stay yet."

"I'd be shocked if you did," Ryan muttered in his food.

Kaitlin sighed and slumped in her seat. This wasn't exactly the conversation she had been trying to start.

"Well, I don't know what I would do here. I don't even know what Seth and Summer are going to be doing, so I can't really plan around them."

"I didn't think you planned around people," Ryan shrugged.

"Well, I certainly don't plan around needing people or people needing me. I grew out of falling in love with the first person that came to my rescue. People can grow up, you know. Unlike you, I see. You're still rushing out to help every damsel in distress you can find."

"Okay, I am not in distress," Kaitlin protested, picking up her purse and plunging her hand inside.

"I haven't felt the need to save anyone in a long time, thank you very much. Kaitlin came to me looking for help, and I told her I would always be a brother to her, so I was more than willing to help my family."

Taylor said nothing, but let her eyes drop to her plate. Ryan instantly felt bad at the lonely look on her face he had seen too many times.

"I'm just gonna go. We're," Kaitlin corrected, grabbing Colin's hand and throwing money on the table before either Ryan or Taylor could protest, "just going to go. I have some friends around. We'll be back late."

She was gone with Colin before they could protest. Ryan and Taylor said nothing and let their eyes meet for a moment. Finally, they both went back to their food.

"I'm sorry," Ryan eventually told her.

Taylor cleared her throat before she tried to speak. "About what?"

"I didn't mean it the way it sounded. The family thing… I know that you—"

"That I what?" Taylor challenged, her back straightening and her chin lifting at the question. "That I don't get along with my family the way you do with the Cohens? That while you can just find yourself a surrogate family, I have to keep trying to get along with my biological one despite the fact that everyone knows my mother is the queen bitch and really isn't worth trying to get along with? Any of those things, Ryan?"

"Yeah, I guess that's what I was trying to say."

"Oh." Taylor shook her head quickly. "Well, don't you worry. Everything's fine. In fact, I just saw my mother a few days ago. I went to my cousin's baby shower—because she asked me to—and I saw a lot of family. I have family that loves me."

"Sure."

"And they were all happy to see. My mother was very happy I was there."

Ryan waved his fork in her direction, smiling at the news. "That's great, Taylor."

"She was happy because she was trying to set me up with some pathetic, disgusting man because she thinks that's the only kind of person that would ever love me, but she was happy to see me all the same."

"Oh, I—"

"I think we talked for almost two minutes, so that in itself is wonderful, isn't it?"

"If you—"

"And I mean, it's not like she really ever abandoned me, I'm the one that left, so really my family is fantastic and I don't see where you have any right at all to feel sorry for me when—"

"Taylor," Ryan finally interrupted, his voice raising. He looked around the restaurant quickly, blushing at the number of people who had turned at the sound of his outburst. "Taylor, I'm sorry. I really didn't mean anything by it."

"I'm sure you didn't."

"I'm sorry your mother was a bitch."

She laughed, bringing a small smile to Ryan's face. "I'm sorry as well, but I guess we can't be blamed for that since she was a bitch way before either of us came into this world."

Ryan reached over and patted her hand, holding on to it longer than he had to. "I'm glad you're taking it well."

"Well, I'm used to it by now. Besides, like I said, I've gotten over the whole hero thing and decided I can take care of myself."

"And, I've gotten over my whole hero thing and am happy—as your friend—that you have moved on from letting your mother ruin your life."

"So, I guess we've done really well for ourselves."

Ryan shrugged. "I guess we have."

Taylor took a deep breath and squeezed his hand which was still holding hers. Ryan glanced down at their joined palms and then back up at her. She licked her lips. He tried to clear his throat with what came out as a low growl. They both looked up at once.

"Check, please."