Chapter 2

Allison babysat many times after that. In two months, she had become a real friend of the family. Jesse was right when he said she would fit in there. They sometimes invited her over, even if only one of the guys was going out, just to help with the kids and hang out. Or they would invite her to family picnics they had on the weekends. She never looked forward to the weekends before, because it just meant more work, but now she did. She loved being with them. There was so much going on and they had fun all the time.

By this time they all knew she lived at the homeless shelter and were a little concerned about that. She never told them, that she was thrown out of the shelter because she had over stayed. There were other people that needed to come in and she had been there the longest. When they dropped her off, she would go sleep in an alleyway of a building.

They eventually realized she hadn't been living there for a while because when they called the shelter, they said she wasn't there and they thought she was always at work when they called to ask for a job.

"You need to tell us your work schedule," Danny said.

"Why?" She was a little anxious.

"Because we can never get a hold of you when we call."

"Well, I've been working more lately," she lied. "How about you just tell me when you'll need me next when I'm already here. That would be more convenient, wouldn't it?"

The next Friday she babysat, Joey dropped her off at the shelter again. Thinking something was amiss, he drove away, to make her think he left, but he really drove around the block. He parked by the shelter and got out. He saw her turn into an alley. He followed her, keeping his distance. She lay down in a pile of newspapers. He walked up to her and grabbed her arm. Alarmed, she grabbed his upper arm and threw him to the ground, leaving him lying on his back. She was about to run away, when she caught sight of her persecutor.

"Joey?" She let her arms down. "Jesus Christ! You scared me half to death!"

"Yeah, I could tell," he said, after having the wind knocked out of him.

"Sorry." She outstretched her hand and helped him up.

"Man, you sure know how to defend yourself," Joey said, dusting himself off. "Where did you learn to do that?"

"You learn a lot when you live on the streets," she said. Joey looked at her and was about to say something, when she beat him to it. "So, why did you come here?" she asked awkwardly.

He decided to forget about what she had just said. "We noticed that you haven't been at the shelter lately when we called. We kind of had a hunch it may have been this."

"So, why did you come here?" she asked again, this time forcefully.

"I came to see where you went instead of the shelter. And now that I know, I want you to come back to the house with me."

She laughed. "Oh yeah? Why 'cause you have a crush on me and want to get me alone? Don't even try making a move on me, I can take you. You just saw that."

"Er…um what?" Joey said awkwardly. He didn't know she had noticed he liked her. "No," he said forcefully. "No, I came to take you home because I don't want you sleeping on the streets."

Home, he had said it as if that's where she lived too. She liked the sound of that word. But then she snapped back to what they were talking about. "I can take care of myself, okay?"

"No, it's not okay. It's dangerous to be out here at night. There are burglars and its getting colder at night. You could get sick."

"I can take care of myself," she repeated, her expression was hard as stone.

Knowing this is going nowhere, he uses a different strategy. "Allison." He said her name with such remorse in his voice, she softened. "Allison, please. You can't stay out here. Please come back with me."

He sounded so sad, she even felt sorry for him.

"I'm your friend. You can trust me."

She thought about it. Then nodded and walked past him towards the car.

They drove home in silence. After a few blocks, Joey broke it. "Allison, you know I would never take advantage of you."

She looked at him. "Yeah," she said half skeptically, half trusting.

The rest of the ride was silent. When they got back to the house, Joey told her she could sleep on the couch and he got her a blanket.

In the morning, Stephanie shook Allison awake. "Hello, what are you doing here?" she asked.

Allison sat up and opened her mouth, but didn't know what to say. Just then Joey walked in and said, "Steph, Allison slept over last night."

"You had a sleepover with out me?" she said upset. "How rude!" she yelled and then stormed off.

Joey smiled after Steph and then turned to Allison. "Did you sleep okay?"

"Yeah," she said. There was a pause.

"Well then," Joey said, "are you hungry? Shall we go eat breakfast?" he asked, offering his hand to help her up.

She looked at it and got up and walked past him into the kitchen. He stared forlornly after her, wondering what he had done to make her so upset with him. He thought he had done the right thing, but obviously she didn't think so.