It's 4:30 right now. There's no sun yet but the stars are fading into the moon and the moon itself seems to be backing away from its rightful place in the night. I can hear the party dying down as the last few people make their way to the door to leave and as the dj spins slow and lush beats , like a party lullaby luring people off to sleep or back to their own homes before another day truly begins in this city. I've locked myself in this room; so much has happened in the last two hours, I feel like I can barely keep up. I'm sitting on this bed, surrounding by crumpled sheets and a worn black leather jacket that someone amazing left for me. Desperately wanting to replay the night's excitement in my mind, I choose another solution; I take out my journal and begin to write

The only thing worse than feeling regret or guilt in the moment you're doing something wrong is the feeling of the aftermath, also known as "The Morning After". So I haven't gotten to that 24 hour regret stage yet but I think I'm more than well on my way there. Ok so maybe I should explain seeing as how this journal can't read minds unless there's writing on its pages. Alright, oh great journal (sarcasm there) let me give you insight as to what happened tonight.

Tonight was Jenny's concert after party. I'm surprised my parents let me out of their site for this long but I'm assuming for some unknown reason that they trust Cissy to take care of me. Ok so I'm being spiteful, she hasn't actually been that bad for the past few days. I'm not going to go in to every single detail of my day because that has absolutely nothing to do with what just happened. Alright so I'm lying, I probably wouldn't be here if it weren't for Josh calling me and asking me to meet him here. I hadn't told anyone about him but after what they've seen I'm assuming they all know how I feel about him.

I didn't expect him to show up, but I wanted him to. For the second he put his hands over my eyes and asked "Guess who? " I felt my whole body come to life the moment he came near me. I can't explain it, its like for most of the night I was just floating through, smiling and laughing with people I knew but I didn't really feel anything but when he was there, my whole world lit up. Of course Rhys, who thank god knows how to take a hint, left me alone with "McHotness" as she likes to call him.

For a while we just stood out there on the balcony and we talked, the conversation just flowed and we never ran out of tings to talk about. I'm used to having that awkward lull in conversation during a first date but none of it was there. For the first time in a while, I laughed and Rhys wasn't the one making me laugh, it was a boy that I think I might be falling hard for. The bizarre thing is that I almost slept with him….that was until my fabulous sister came in and saw us and of course had to say something about it. And then Rhys who is incapable of passing up any kinky drama came running in and said "Well I see you and McHotness are getting along well". And then to make things even more awkward Jenny walks in all confused until she sees me half naked trying to hide behind Josh (it seems like I always end up behind him) and of course, because the gods love to torture me Zane tries to walk in but because someone up there has pity on me the girls all push him out of the room. So of course seeing as how the mood was ruined Josh and I just laid there until he started laughing. So I wanted to know what the hell was so funny and he told me that it was karma. At this point I'm wondering if he's high but then he amazes me by telling me that he doesn't want to skip to the end when we've barely had a beginning and that he's falling for me. And then he asks me if I want to go out tomorrow. I barely nod a yes because I'm so shocked and confused and surprised and head over heels ecstatic all at once. He puts his shirt back on, drapes his jacket over me and gives me a soft kiss on the cheek and walks out the door.

At this point I'm about to go into cardiac arrest here. I mean I think I might be… I'm not sure I'm so excited and scared and lost in translation but I think I might have someone else to figure it out with.

I close my journal and put it back in my bag, as soon as I do that I hear frantic footsteps coming down the fall that I'm positive belong to Rhys. She bursts into the room and starts talking at 90 miles a minute

"Oh my God you are such a hoe! Score! I am like so insanely proud of you right now it's not even funny. So are you guys like gonna hook up now or was that just like a "hook up" hook up? Ok why are you looking at me like I'm crazy, I mean you can't just disappear with a guy, have us all walk in on you and him and expect us not to ask questions. I mean, like HELLO, of course you know that I'm going to be the one to ambush you because you know that Jenny's too nice and Cissy's a bitch and Zane is….Zane and you obviously love me so start taking woman!"

Ry was babbling but only because she cares so I decided to humor her

"We didn't sleep together, but he did ask me out and he did leave me something."

Rhys looked at me completely lost until her eyes landed on the jacket draped around my shoulders.

"Oh my freaking God, is that his jacket!" she yelled

At this point Cissy had to run in with Jenny racing in after her waiting for my answer.

"Umm…yes" I answered truthfully

"Isn't that like so totally awesome, you guys?" Rhys asked with a giant smile on her face

"Ry, hon, the sky could be falling and you'd find it "so totally awesome "as you like to put it. " Cissy replied

Trust Cissy to be a royal bitch in my momentary spark of glory.

"Bitch" Rhys muttered under her breathe and I let out a small laugh

Cissy turned around and looked at her "If you have something to say to me, why don't you go ahead and say it to my face, Rhys. Don't be nervous now, Hon, just sound out the letters. God what are they teaching you people in school these days? Then again, you always were a slow learner."

Rhys looks completely flustered and looks my way for help. I figure the best thing I can do is look at Jenny and try to get her to calm things down. To fully appreciate this there are some things you should know about Jenny.

She's the oldest and most maternal out of all of us. She also knows the most about what went on when we were little kids. Even though she's really close to Cissy, there's still a three year age gap there. Our whole lives we've been a tight knit group, probably more so than all 6 of our parents which is saying a lot. Even in our close knit-ness, we've always been a little bit divided. My whole life it's been Jenny, Cissy and Uncle Luke and Brooke's oldest son Shayden. And on the other end there was Bailey (purely Uncle Lucas' broody spawn a.k.a. the so called deprived middle child) and the twins (even if they are opposites they still stick together). And of course there's always been Me, Zane and Rhys just desperately wanting to fit in somewhere; slightly wanting to be a "them" instead of an "us". Yes we were and in some ways still are divided by Jenny being the most maternal by pure instinct has always been the one to keep us together.

There have been countless joint family vacations where I can recall Cissy and I wanting to kill each other but of course Jenny was always there to pull us apart. She's the glue that keeps our group together. I guess one part of the equation is our parents being so close but the other factor is Jenny. There's never been a time when she wasn't there in each of our lives so without her we'd be altered in every single way.

Anyways, I looked Jenny's way for some help. She finished tying her hair up in a loose bun and quickly provided a distraction by asking.

"Don't you guys want to keep each other alive long enough to find out what going on with Jamie and "Mc Hotness" as Rhys puts it. Then again don't tell us too much because whatever you were doing happened in my bed which is completely gross and while I won't tell your parents, I'm so going to have to change my sheets"

Yeah, that's Jenny for you, trading in one awkward moment for another, and my awkward moment to besides. Just freaking fabulous, remind me never to ask for Jen's help again.

I look over at Rhys and Cissy, who've of course called a temporary truce to hear my account of my night with Josh. Meanwhile I hear them placing juvenile bets on what they think happened.

"Ry, I'll bet you 20 bucks that they did have sex, I mean look at her! She has that creepy yet so alluring after sex glow surrounding her" Cissy said

"Uh no dude, they so did not do it. But feel free to shower me in guilt winnings once we get the details. And FYI, C, this after sex glow you speak of can be found at your local tanning bed."

Cissy gasped in mock horror

"Rhys are you telling me that you doubt your cousin's skank factor?"

Rhys gave me the once over, taking in my scantily clad figure still hanging on to Josh's jacket.

"Oh no, I'm not doubting it for a second. I'm just saying that look at how they were when we all came in…I mean they obviously about to but do you really think after having three out of four collective family members barge in that they'd both still want to do it." she concluded smugly

Cis gave her a look that said "pure genius" and I had to hand it to her that she was clever; someone should tell her to become a sex therapist.

"Am I right? " Ry asked me

No use denying it, I nodded.

Cissy looked pissed as she sullenly handed Rhys twenty bucks.

I winked at her.

"That's what you get for betting on my love life, biatch" I joked

She half heartedly threw a pillow at me, in an attempt to make me shut up. That's how we spent the rest of our night.

We curled up in sleeping bags on the floor with tequila and left over party food and just talked. At times the talk was filled with heavy tension and long awkward silences and there were other moments when the conversation just flowed without any help at all. And then there were the moments in between where we just babbled absolutely gibberish, turned on the radio and asked stupid questions about or love lives or lack there of in Jenny's case and it felt exactly like the sleepovers our parents used to make us have when we were younger.

We all fell asleep well after the sun was up but sleep didn't last long when Zane came barging through the bedroom door.

"Ok people, chop chop vamanos ladies time to get on you guys…it's gossip time, the official meeting of the peanut gallery begins…NOW!" he called

I rolled onto my side and saw him waving a tabloid in my face. Assuming it was something about my parents I buried my face in my pillow and told him frankly

"Dude, you smell like the gym"

"Yeah well I doubt you'll be saying that after you see what I'm holding. Now come on get up" he nudged

"No" I whined

"Fine, I hate to do this but you asked for it, Jamie" My eyes were closed but I was still rolling them in annoyance at Zane's happy go lucky attitude so early in the morning, Peyton would so disapprove right now.

"Keller .vs. Scott: A love story for a new generation"

I looked at him completely confused, wondering what infantile joke he had to make about last night's events. He continued reading

"Now you think you may have heard this story before. Scott meets Keller, both sharing a deep musical bond. Scott happens to be married. Enter the jealous husband and you've got Hollywood's hottest affair 25 years ago" his voice faltered on the last part giving everybody in the room proof that he most definitely wasn't bluffing.

By now everyone was awake, I watched for the reactions on everyone's faces. Rhys eyes glinted with curiosity while she tried to keep a stoic face, Cissy seemed mildly interested even though she was in a coffee deprived state and Jenny looked nervous and a little guilty as if she knows more than all of us put together.

I grabbed the paper out of Zane's hands and looked for myself; sure enough in bold letters were mine and Josh's story and apparently our parents' too. I continued reading silently

We all know that reason stands to believe that Chris Keller and Haley James-Scott had a short-lived affair and musical partnership before they went their separate ways due to irreconcilable musical differences. While publicists on both ends say that their relationship was strictly musical and that the split was amicable, everyone has noticed the tension between both parties when asked about one another. The partnership between Haley and Chris was well before both were household names, although Haley was married to retired basketball superstar Nathan Scott and this was all obviously before their collective children. On one end, we have Chris Keller's illusive adopted son Josh and on the other end we have Nathan and Haley's four children Cecelia, twins Matthew and Noah and their youngest Jamie. Let's focus on Jamie and Josh. The two were seen at an A-list celebrity gathering of mutual friends of theirs, siblings Jennifer and Zane Jagielski. The two had never been seen together up until lastnight and our sources say the have very little in common except for the fact that their parents share the same tour bill until the end of the summer. Sources say that the couple was seen together chatting closely on the balcony and on the dance floor and that later on in the evening they disappeared together. Apparently a few hours later Josh left looking disheveled, we can't say for what reason but we do know that the two exchanged numbers and are planning on going out on a date soon. Before this unexpected hookup, Jamie Scott was reportedly linked to childhood friend Zane Jagielski and Josh was reported to have brief romances with several teen starlets. The question of the moment is, will this be the continuation to where Chris and Haley left off or is history bound to repeat itself?

"Holy Shit" I said to myself

Rhys snatched the paper out of my hand so she could read it for herself, when she was done she gave the paper back to Zane and whined

"I'm not in it"

"Are you for fucking real, Rhys? We have bigger things to worry about here!" I yelled

"Like?" she asked wryly

"Like what the hell she's going to do when Mom and Dad find out' Cissy said for me. "I really don't know much about the whole Mom, Dad, Chris Keller love triangle thing but that would make things a hell of a lot clearer as to why Mom and Dad hate him so much"

"Oh god" I said as I started remembering that night before the concert when I asked mom about Chris Keller.

"So what are you gonna do J-bird?" Cissy asked gently

"I don't know" I answered truthfully but before I even had time to think about my next move, Jenny's phone rang.

I saw her gingerly move to pick it up as if trying to delay my parents' wrath. She picked up the phone and answered it

"Hello" she answered weakly

I could hear my mother's voice about to crack loudly through the phone line, the only visible words I could make out were "Jamie" "Phone" "Now", all three of them being very bad for my situation.

Jenny passed me the phone and mouthed a sympathetic "sorry" to me.

I didn't even get to utter a hello first before my mother went off on me.

"Jamie, do you mind tell me how the fuck our family business, which I have to wonder if you knew about is being splashed all over the fucking media? And what the fuck were you doing lastnight with Chris Keller's son? Are you trying to kill me because if you are you're doing a fucking fantastic job of it, I mean really, I thought Cissy was bad but you just fucking outdid her on this Jam!"

This was the fourth time in my life that I'd ever heard my mother swear so blatantly and it was ironic that half of those times had something to do with Chris Keller.

"So you're not denying it?" I asked her stupidly

"Don't talk to your mother like that" I heard my father's voice boom on the other end.

"Daddy?"

"No, this is one time you are not using that on me. You know what Jamie, we tried to protect you and keep you from this. Your mom didn't do anything wrong, you did and that little punk you call a boyfriend and his father did. You know what I should go over there and fix this shit now!" he yelled

"Daddy, no, please don't do anything stupid"

"Why shouldn't I?"

"Because, I didn't know who Josh was and the tabloids are lying, we didn't do anything, I showed him to the bathroom and then I stayed with Cissy the whole night" I lied

I knew it was impossible to get away with such a shit excuse with my mom but I was my dad's pet, his baby girl, it this didn't work I had no idea what the hell would.

His voice softened "Baby, put your sister on the phone"

I quickly handed the phone to my sister and gave her a pleading look. I heard my dad ask Cissy about where I was and with all the gusto of a full fledged pathological liar she said

"Daddy, relax Jamie was with me the whole night, she barely talked to that Josh kid, I swear."

She passed the phone back to me and my dad began to talk

"Honey, I'm sorry your mom and I flipped out on you and we were just worried about you. You know that we love and only want what's best for you right?"

I still had no idea why they went schizophrenic over Josh, but I had to give them that much, they did care about me.

"Yeah, daddy, I do"

"I love you, ok? Always remember that"

"I love you too Daddy"

"Bye baby girl, I'll see you later"

"Bye Dad"

I heard the familiar click of the phone as it went dead. As soon as I put down one phone, my cell phone started to ring. I knew it was Josh right away, in honor of our first meeting I had set my ringtone to Jeff Buckley's "Eternal Life"

I fished the phone out of my bag and answered it

"Hey Josh"

"I am so so so so so so so so so sorry ! "

I giggled at his incessant plea for forgiveness.

"So I take it you've read the article"

"Yeah"

"So how'd your Dad take it, mine went fucking nuts."

"He blew a gasket and locked himself in his office; I don't think he's coming out for the rest of the day"

"So are we still on for that date today?" I asked

"I don't know, is it safe to go out?"

"Think of it as an adventure Josh, and seeing as I'm the brains in this couple I have an idea for this date of ours"

"Oh really?" he asked amused. I love it when I can make him laugh

"We are going to do some sleuthing about our parents."

"Well enough said, I'll pick you up in an hour"

"I'll see you then"

"Bye"

I hung up the phone and made my way to the shower thinking of possible theories about what happened to our parents. As I let the warm water massage my back, I realized that once again I was proven to that life with Josh was never boring.