A/N: Thanks for the reviews on the first chapter. I am glad to have such a positive response to my first attempt at fanfiction! Oh, and I kind of pictured Maddie to look like Alexis Bledel, but like she did in Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants just so you have a visual reference.

Disclaimer: I own nothing except for the characters you don't recognize.

Chapter 2

The next day she drove to Gettysburg College to visit her father at camp and pick up Cheryl. She knew it was time for lunch so she went into the mess hall and walked right in channeling Audrey Hepburn with her outfit, jeans, a white button up, pearls, and flats. She walked straight to her dad "Hey Coach" she hugged him. "Who is that?" asked Julius "That's Yoast's other daughter, Maddie. She always comes to camp for a day or two." "Here she comes." She walked over, "Hey Gerry, can you give me some room? And your pudding?" she grinned. "Sure Maddie." He went around the table introducing her to the new players, then he got up "Hey Maddie, come here will ya? I have to ask you something." "Sure, what is it?" "Ray was talking about asking you out, did you say yes?" "Well, yeah. Why?" "I mean, he's my friend and all, but I don't think you should go with him." "Well why?" "Well, because, well he has a reputation for… just don't go ok?" "Gerry, I can take care of myself." With that, she walked away and went towards Alan, "Introduce me to some of the new players before I slap Gerry?" she asked nonchalantly, he looked at her questioningly "Ok… no problem." He went around introducing her to Blue, Petey, Rev, Louie, and Sunshine. She smiled at them "Ok so I assume Sunshine is a nickname for something, your hair maybe?" "I don't know, either that or because I'm from California. But my real name is Ronnie, Ronnie Bass" She took a seat next to him, not noticing Ray's evil glare. "Wow, California. That's awesome. What's it like there?" He continued to explain about his home state. "So what brings you here anyway?" "My dad got a transfer, so here I am. He's in the service." Ray had enough of seeing Maddie flirting somewhat with Sunshine so he came over and interrupted them, "Maddie, can I talk to you?" She looked at Sunshine, "Well it was really nice to meet you, but I should probably go. I'll see you around." She shot him a warm smile and walked away with Ray. "Hi, so… what did you need to talk to me about?" "Well, I…" she could tell that he was looking for something to say, when he gave his rushed answer "I wanted to tell you that I am looking forward to our date." She squeezed his upper arm "That's sweet, Ray." "When are you leaving to go back home?" "Early tomorrow morning, probably the same time that you guys have to get up, that's when we'll get up to leave." "Well do you maybe want to meet me on the roof of the dorms tonight at midnight? I'll bring some pudding." She smiled "Sure." Gerry saw their exchange and knew something was up, and he knew that he would get to the bottom of it.

Gerry asked Alan to find out what was going on between Madison and Ray. So, at about 8:30 Madison heard a knock at her door. She opened it up "Hey Alan, come on in. What brings you here?" "Oh I was just seeing what you thought about everything today… and why you were so upset with Gerry." "Well, I loved everyone; I think that you guys have a great team this year, probably the best I've ever seen. And Gerry, well he's trying to make decisions for me, and I don't like that." "Decisions about what?" she motioned for him sit on the bed next to her. "I'm going on a date with Ray." "Well I can understand his concern, but I know that if you have any problems, you can handle it, or get some help." She leaned her head on his shoulder "I'm supposed to meet him on the roof at midnight." "Who? Gerry?" "No, Ray." "Well do you need an excuse to get out of it?" "No, I'm going; I'm just worried that Gerry will be really mad at me for it." He sighed "Don't worry about him, I'll talk to him. And if Ray gives you any trouble at all, you know he'll have to answer to all of us." "Thanks Alan." Alan grinned, "Besides…you should have seen the faces on some of the new guys when you walked in, priceless." She grinned, "So how has camp been, anything exciting?" "Well at first we didn't get along, but somehow we all came together. Louie announced to all of us that Blue likes to wear leopard spotted bikini underwear, we all sang in the locker room, oh and Sunshine kissed Gerry." Madison nearly choked on that last one, "What, he kissed Gerry? Why?" "Well, when Sunshine first got here, he had really long hair, like yours. Gerry called him a fruitcake, and I guess he just wanted to mess with his head a little. It was pretty funny if you ask me." "Sounds like it, I wish I were there to have seen that."

That night on the roof, Ray was sitting there when Madison walked up to him. "Hey" she said, "Hey, have a seat." Little did the two of them know Gerry, Alan, and Julius were spying on them. Ray handed her some pudding with a spoon "Here, just as promised." She smiled at him, "Thanks Ray." "Anytime." He kissed her cheek; from their hiding spot, Alan and Julius had to hold Gerry back. Madison had gotten a little pudding on her lip and Ray said, "Uh Maddie, you missed your mouth a little, here, I'll get it." He leaned in, kissed her, and deepened the kiss right off the bat. Madison pushed him away, "Stop it Ray." "Oh come on baby nobody will see us, besides it's just a kiss." Gerry was seeing red, but was glad that Madison was handling herself. Ray tried a few more times to kiss her, and she pushed him away and finally got up and left, storming down toward her room, tears welled up in her eyes.

The next morning she said goodbye to everyone, well everyone but Ray, hugging most of those that she had just met, as well as hugging her friends. While they were hugging Alan asked, "So, how'd it go?" knowing well the answer, but wanting to make sure that she didn't know they were spying, "I'll tell you about it later." Then she went up to Coach Boone, "Bye Coach Boone, work them hard these last few days." she grinned. After saying goodbye to the other two coaches she went to her father, "Bye Daddy, I miss you already."

When everyone got back she was the first to greet her dad running up to him and giving him a huge hug. "I'm going to rush back to the house and I've got to start cooking. The boys have already been asking me about the annual spaghetti dinner." He smiled, "I'm sure they have, you run back to the house and I'm sure they'll all go change clothes then take over our house." "I'll see you later, Daddy, I'm glad you're home." With that, she grabbed Cheryl's hand and led her to the car for the short drive home. Once they arrived, Madison immediately got to work in the kitchen, setting some water to boil and making the famous Yoast spaghetti sauce. She had just put the bread in the oven when she heard the first knock on the door. She walked over to answer it and saw that it was Gerry, Julius, Petey, Sunshine, Blue, Louie, and Rev. They all gave her big bear hugs as they came in the door. Gerry offered to help in the kitchen, and Madison accepted knowing the only reason he wanted to help was to fish for information about her and Ray. To avoid his questions for at least a minute, Madison asked Gerry "Hey, I don't think I'm going to have enough to drink for everyone, would you mind making some more sweet tea?" "Sure," he replied, and set some water to boil, placing some tea bags in it. She knew what was coming next "So what was the deal with you and Ray? You didn't say goodbye to him or anything when you left." "Gerry, I know you're looking out for me, and I appreciate it, I really do. But I need to make my own mistakes sometimes, and this was one of them. You were right, Ray did want me for anything but… well you know." She felt the tears spring to her eyes and he wrapped her in a hug, "Don't worry about him, I'll take care of him." "Gerry, don't ok, don't do anything that will jeopardize your spot on the team." She pulled away when the teapot started hissing and she poured the hot tea into a pitcher, added some sugar and filled the rest with water.

By the time the food was finished, all of the usual boys had arrived, Alan and some others had shown up as well; Ray was nowhere to be seen, and Madison was relieved at that. Madison had gotten the boys to set up picnic tables in the back yard and used one to set the food out and had the boys sit at all of the others. When they were finished with the spaghetti, the Hammond players knew what was next, dessert, Madison's homemade cakes and cookies and some ice cream. The other boys had started to get up when Madison stood on a table and cleared her throat. "Boys, where are you going? A dinner isn't a real dinner without dessert. Now who wants to help me bring it out here?" Sunshine, Alan, Julius, and Gerry all elected to help bring out the desserts and set them on the table. Madison grabbed a cookie knowing that nothing would be left in the end. After everyone was sufficiently full, they had the annual game of football.

When Gerry and Julius were picked as captains, Madison knew it was going to be a good game right away. She also knew that the new boys probably didn't realize that she was playing. When Gerry called her name first and she saw the shocked expressions on the faces of the new boys, she knew it was going to be an interesting game. She ended up having Alan, Louie, and Petey on her team as well as some of the other boys. The game was supposed to be two hand touch, but, like always it ended up being tackle. After they had been playing for a while, the team went into a huddle Gerry spoke, "Maddie, I want you to get Sunshine, just follow him. He's pretty fast." "Ok Gerry." When they broke the huddle, Madison lined up across from Sunshine. When the team snapped the ball and handed it off to him, Madison was ready. She ran after him and jumped on his back and caused him to fall and drop the ball. She jumped up and extended her hand with a grin and helped pull him up.

Since her team recovered the fumble, they now had the ball. In the huddle Madison spoke, "Gerry, throw the ball to me, you know I'm a good catch." "Ok, they won't be expecting that." They broke the huddle and Madison got on the line with her team, again Sunshine was across from her, she figured he wanted revenge. This would be the last play of the game because it was getting too dark to play. When the ball was snapped, Madison tore off running, her feet pounding the grass. She turned around to look for the ball, it was coming towards her. She stretched out her hands and she didn't see Sunshine running up to her, all of a sudden she was on the ground and he was on top of her in a push up position. She looked up at him noticing for the first time his full lips and the way his hair fell in his face just so. He looked at her, seeing her brown hair fanned out on the ground behind her head, he saw that when her lips were slightly parted her teeth could be seen barely peeking out, the spray of freckles across her cheeks that were too light to be seen from afar, just as he was noticing her long eyelashes that framed her bright blue eyes he heard a wolf whistle from Petey. "I'd say Maddie needs a little Sunshine in her life." Maddie blushed furiously. Sunshine got up and pulled her up as well. Shortly after, Sunshine kept thinking to himself about the "moment" he and Madison had shared, he knew that he didn't know her, but she was different… he noticed the day she met him that she was different than other girls he had met before, that there was more to her that most girls, more that he definitely wanted to get to know.

As part of the tradition, Alan stayed to help clean up after all of the boys had left. "So what happened with you and Ray?" She bit her bottom lip absentmindedly, "On the roof that night he tried to kiss me, and I said no. He didn't listen. It's my fault, I should have listened to you guys." He hugged her, rubbing her back knowing his best friend enough to know she was fighting off tears, "It wasn't your fault, you needed to make your own mistake. Besides… you and Sunshine" he trailed off. She splashed some water from the sink at him "You shut up." This progressed into an all out war with both of them soaked. "Alan?" she asked, "Hmm?" came his reply. "Do you think we'll all still be friends after this year, I mean we'll all be parting ways." she looked at him seriously and he replied, "Maddie, we'll always be friends, always." "Alan?" she asked again. "Hmm?" he replied. "Can you believe this is our last year in high school? Our last homecoming, our last chance to win state, our last prom…" she trailed off, "Don't go getting all weepy now" he said and started singing, "I know you wanna leave me, but I refuse to let you go" she couldn't help but grin and laugh at his singing and crazy singing and dancing. He grabbed her hands and started pulling her around the kitchen with him before picking her up and slinging her over his shoulder and spinning around until she squealed out loud.