Hello again. Thanks for all the reviews and comments. This chapter is still a little ambiguous about what is going on with Sandy, but it will get clearer in coming chapters.

Chapter 9: The morning after

"But I don't want you to go," Summer whined, her head leaning against the doorframe and her hand holding on to Seth's as though he wouldn't be able to escape her grip.

He smiled at her and leaned in to land a lasting kiss on her forehead.

"But I have to go. As much as I like to say that my job is flexible and allows me to travel, I have to be there some of the time, and from the sound of my boss on the phone yesterday when we were talking about my latest drawings, this is one of those times. If I make my flight, I can actually put some time in at the office today."

"I don't care. Quit and stay here with me."

"I'm not going to be able to replace that ring with the one you want if I quit."

"So I'll get my father to buy me the ring I want." She rested her head against his chest, her forehead plastered to his shirt and her eyes staring down at their shoes. She wrapped her arms around him. "At least take me with you."

"You know you don't really want that. You don't want to be the girl that went this far and gave up just a few weeks before she was really done. Besides, these people rely on you. What are they going to do if you just disappear?"

"I don't care."

Seth chuckled as he pushed her hair behind her shoulders and lifted her face up so he could look at her. "You do care. You're just tired now. But I'm going straight home and you have my new cell phone number, so you'll know exactly where I'll be. You've got a calendar with a countdown of how many days you have left. And you have a ton of decisions to make about this wedding of ours."

"What decisions?" Summer asked with a laugh. "I've known what my marriage is going to look like for years now."

"Aw, you've thought we were going to get married for years now?"

"Who's talking about you? I knew what my marriage would look like way before I met you, Cohen."

"Hey," he reached out and bumped her nose with his finger. "You watch how you use that name. It's going to be tacked on to yours one day."

"One day soon," Summer told him, up on her toes.

"One day soon," he agreed.

She sighed and stayed perched on her toes so she could rest her head on his shoulder.

"You didn't stay long enough."

"I know. I wish I could have been here longer, but there was so much going on."

"And you were being a chicken."

"And I was being a chicken." He nodded.

She smiled up at him, a tight, sad smile.

"I'm going to miss you," she finally told him.

"You're all right though, right, Summer? I mean, you're doing fine here? You're just stressing about everything that's going on."

"Yeah. It's just a lot."

His eyes travelled her face and he tried not to break at the unshed tears he could see in her eyes.

"If you're really asking me to stay, I will."

"You have to get back to your job," Summer told him, shaking her head.

"If you're really asking me to stay, I will," Seth repeated.

Summer smiled her first genuine smile since Seth had told her he had to leave that morning. And her day had started off so well; waking up next to Seth, sharing a shower, fighting over which clothes he should wear for the day…

"You have to go. And I have to let you go and do this on my own. It'll take a month longer for me to get ready to leave if you're here distracting me."

"Me? A distraction?"

Summer laughed at him before reaching up for a quick kiss.

"Go away now. I'll see you at the graduation party in a few."

"That you will. And then I'll see you every morning for a long, long time after."

"Good." She gave him another kiss and smiled, finally looking around the hall when she noticed a few GEORGE members squeeze by Seth to make their way to the elevators. She had forgotten they were in the hallway, in public, where anyone could see them. She tightened the bathrobe that surrounded her body. "So go. Call me when you land."

"All right." Seth was the one to lean in for a kiss that time. "The next time I see you, I'll have that ring of yours."

"In gold," Summer called after him, swatting his butt as he turned his back to her. She ducked back into the room quickly, not wanting to see him walk away or prolong her sadness by watching him wait for an elevator.

Seth shook his head as he left her.

"Hey, man." He nodded at one of the GEORGE guys standing outside his room. He'd met the guy before during one of his visits, but he'd met so many that they were too hard to keep straight and he simply resigned to calling them man or dude during his visits.

"Visiting the missus, where you Sean?"

"Yeah." He paused and bobbed his head a few times. "Did you call me Sean?"

"Isn't that your name?"

"My name's Seth."

"Oh," the guy shrugged. "Sorry. Summer doesn't really talk about her boyfriend all that much, so you could understand how I would get the name wrong."

"I sure would, Paul," Seth answered, hoping he was right in remembering that Summer had never introduced him to a Paul.

"It's Matthew."

"Right," Seth nodded. "Yeah, Summer really doesn't talk about anyone else all that much when we're together. She says my name a lot. Loudly. Kind of screaming it. Or she calls to God sometimes. You know what I mean." He offered Matthew a wink.

"Yeah, I get the picture." Matthew nodded quickly, his eyes narrowing.

"Well, I have to get back to my job now. But I'll see you around. It was nice seeing you again."

"You too," Matthew called after Seth. He watched as the guest pressed the button to call the elevator, then sent a glance in the direction of Summer's room. He growled as he let himself back into his room and slammed the door behind him.

Taylor quickly averted her eyes when she saw Ryan start to stir. Sleeping with Ryan Atwood was one thing. It was one thing that she had done many times before and one thing that she could justify since she could barely remember the last time she had slept with anyone, much less slept with someone and enjoyed it. Staring at Ryan while he slept after a night together, that was something else.

Sure, she had done that as well in the past, but Taylor knew well enough that that was just one more of the things that she did that wasn't necessarily considered "normal." She thought Ryan would probably understand—he usually did, or he at least pretended he did to make her feel better—but she still didn't want him to catch her doing it.

She was only able to turn her eyes away for a few moments, however, before she had to look over at him. Just to see… Perhaps he was looking at her as well.

And he was. Except from the big grin on his face, Taylor wasn't sure that she was going to like the reason why he was staring at her.

"You were watching me sleep again," he told her.

"What?"

"You were watching me sleep again. I know you were, Taylor. Don't deny it."

"I didn't deny it." She shook her head. "What makes you think I was staring at you anyway?"

"It woke me up," he answered, rubbing a hand over his face and then reaching over to the night table for his watch.

"I didn't realise my stare was so loud," Taylor huffed.

Ryan laughed as he sat up and looked around the room for his underwear. "It isn't loud. I guess I'm just not used to someone other than Seth watching me while I sleep."

"What?"

"Seth gets up really early, and for some reason he has a key to my dorm room. At least he usually brings coffee now."

Taylor nodded, then changed her mind and offered a few quick shakes of the head. "No, that's weird."

"Taylor, I don't think you're in any position to call Seth weird."

"What does that mean?"

Ryan shrugged. "It just… It means nothing. Just leave Seth alone."

He had to bite back the sigh of relief from his lips when his cell phone rang. He found it in the back pocket of his discarded jeans.

"Speaking of… What? This isn't Seth's number." He offered Taylor a confused look and brought the phone to his ear. "Hello?"

Taylor watched carefully, trying to guess who was on the other end of the line from Ryan's part of the conversation.

"Oh, no, sorry man, I forgot that you lost your cell phone. It's Seth," he offered Taylor with a hand over the phone.

"I didn't ask." She shrugged.

"Give me a minute." Ryan put on some boxers and left the room, leaning against the door that he hoped would block most of the conversation from Taylor's ears. Thinking twice, he moved toward one end of the hall, all too aware that Taylor could very possibly be leaning against the door, listening to his end of the conversation. "So what's up?"

"Well, I have to head back to work because Sam said there's absolutely no covering for me anymore. I was wondering if you wanted to do dinner tonight. I could tell you about my adventure with Summer, you could tell me about how much fun it is to study for exams."

"Yeah, sounds great, buddy, but I don't know if that's going to be good for me."

"Since when do you have a life?"

Ryan sighed loudly. "Since Taylor's naked in my bed right now."

"You're still in— Hey. I think your story might be better than mine. Well, maybe not better, but more eventful anyway. Are you guys back together now?"

"No, I mean, maybe… I don't know. She's just here to help out with the Kaitlin situation and we should have known better than to let our hands touch."

"I still thought Kaitlin was over the teen drama stuff. I can't keep these Coopers straight. More importantly, hand touching, huh?"

"Long story."

"So short version."

"I'm not sure even I understand it at this point."

"That sounds very promising."

Ryan sighed as he sat with his back leaning against the door and dropped his head in his hands. "I know, but… it's Taylor, right? I mean, she's the queen of experimenting and just having fun in a relationship, right?"

Seth took a deep breath on his end of the line and paused. "No. No. Taylor was convinced that high school and college were times for experimenting, and she was all for that. But she isn't in college anymore, and soon you won't be either, so you won't have that going for you."

"Why did Kaitlin have to get married?"

"Hey, don't blame the kid. There hadn't been any drama in your life for a while now. It's about time something came along to bring the old kid Chino into action. Have you punched anyone yet?"

"Punched anyone? Who would I punch? This Colin kid keeps talking to me about anger management techniques. He'd drop if I blew in his direction, and I haven't seen any guys around Taylor, so that's out as well."

"All right, well, I have to go get frisked by security now, so I have to let you go. Keep a running tally of the punches for me, though, and we'll meet up whenever you're free."

"Sounds good, man. Have a nice flight."

"Hey, listen. What are the odds that this is my last one? I mean, how many times have I been on a plane in the last few days? Do you think I'm just pressing my luck?"

"Get on the plane, Seth. Call me when you land and you can tell me all about your proposal."

"All right. Talk to you later."

"Bye," Ryan said, already hearing a dial tone against his ear. He took a slow, deep breath before walking back into his room. "So Taylor, what— Taylor?"

Ryan shook his head at the empty room. He growled and swung at the door of his room.

"One," he mumbled.

He sighed as his cell phone rang.

"What do you mean, you lost her?"

"I lost her the same way I lost you. Where are you Kaitlin?"

"Oh, I'm visiting Sandy and Kirsten," Kaitlin said, shrugging though Ryan couldn't see her over the phone line. "It'd been a while, so I figured I'd come see what they were up to."

"What? I thought we were supposed to be solving this problem of yours and you just leave town?"

Colin laughed as Kaitlin pulled the phone away from her ear as Ryan's voice rose.

"Listen, we just got here," Kaitlin told him as she pointed to the driveway she wanted Colin to park in, "so I'm going to have to call you back, but if you and Taylor could get here today, that would be great. Sandy's also got legal experience, so I figured we could pull him in."

She hung up before he could say anything more.

"More people to lie to?" Colin asked as he watched her get out of the car.

"Nope. These are our allies. These people are going to get the truth, and are hopefully going to help. I know Kirsten isn't big on the lying, but I think she'll still have enough of the matchmaker in her to want to help." Kaitlin opened the door without knocking and let herself in. "Sandy? Kirsten?"

"Kaitlin?"

She froze at the sound of the voice.

"Kaitlin?"

She cursed at the second.

"Mom? Frank? What are you guys doing here? Where's Kevin?"

"With the babysitter."

"You're in trouble, young lady."

"You took my—" Julie and Frank's voices stopped as they heard the same three words come out of their mouths at the same time.

"She took something from you? What?" Julie asked.

"What did she take that was yours?" Frank answered.

"I don't think that matters," Julie decided with a shake of the head. "Kaitlin, you're in big trouble. What do you have to say for yourself?"

She froze. She smiled. She pointed in Colin's direction.

"This is my husband, Colin. Colin, these are my parents. Kind of…" She offered Frank a shrug. "We can yell about this later. I have to talk to Kirsten."

Kaitlin rushed past a confused Julie and Frank, leaving an even more confused Colin behind her. She grabbed Kirsten hand and began dragging her out of the room, stopping when she walked in front of Sandy.

"What are you up to?" Kaitlin asked.

"Me?" he responded with a laugh.

"You're up to something. You've got secret written all over you." Kaitlin shrugged. "We can talk about it after this. In the meantime, you should get the guest room ready for Taylor and Ryan. Make sure you only have one bed left."

She dragged Kirsten out of the room before anyone could ask anymore questions.

Sandy smiled at the three remaining people. "Anyone ready for lunch?"