Four hours and forty three minutes. That's how much longer Mitchie still had to endure the ever familiar presence of Shane Grey.

"So Mitchie, how was your school year?" Mrs. Grey asked Mitchie, to relieve some of the tension in the car.

"It was fantastic. I actually had a 4.0 average this year!" she replied enthusiastically.

"Fantastic…4.0 this year…" Shane mumbled childishly, so that only Mitchie could hear.

"Oh, please, Shane. You're just jealous because you hardly passed this year." Mitchie muttered wittily.

She looked at him for the first time since arriving, a small smirk playing on her lips.

Shane almost smiled for a minute, before catching himself, and whispering, "Maybe that's because I, unlike you, had a girlfriend to distract me from school."

The smirk on Mitchie's face quickly dropped, and she looked at him a second longer before turning to the window, fuming. That was a low blow, and he knew it.

"What are you two lovebirds whispering about already?" Mr. Torres asked, oblivious to the complete looks of shock he received from everyone else in the car.

She quickly turned and said, "Dad! That is not even a little bit funny. Seriously, don't joke like that!"

"But…I thought you guys were-"he began, before being very efficiently cut off.

"We are not! So don't say things like that. God."

A very loud silence followed.

Four hours and forty one minutes. Oh boy.

-------------------------

Sure enough, four hours and forty eight minutes actually passed before Mitchie could leap from the car safely. She had the car's trunk open before the car was even off, and had inserted her key card into the slot and made her way to her usual bedroom before anyone else had even exited the car. As she settled her suitcase onto her bed, the memories of last summer and all the summers previous began to come back to her.

She thought about the first time she walked into this room, toting a much smaller Strawberry Shortcake suitcase. She felt a sharp pang in her heart as she remembered everything that had happened in the room, meeting Shane, arguing with Shane, their first—She quickly shook her head, as if to shake the memories out of her head.

That was the past, and the only thing she could do to make this summer go faster was think about the future.

A few hours later, Mitchie decided to venture back downstairs. She figured it wasn't going to do any good to stay locked up in her room all summer, though that did sound like a surefire way to avoid Shane. With Mitchie's excellent timing, she was just changing for dinner when the door to her room burst open, and a very unhappy Shane burst through the door as Mitchie's shirt was just coming off over her face.

"My mom sent me up here to tell you—Oh God!" Shane quickly half shut the door, and tore his eyes away from Mitchie, and settled them on the holey sock on the wood floor, his face burning.

"Sorry…oh. Um, uh… wow. Sorry! My mom just sent me up here to tell you dinner is ready! Jesus Christ…uh, really, I didn't think about knocking, it's just a habit…I'm sorry." Shane quickly stuttered out, his face, turning slightly more colored with every word.

Mitchie just stood there for a minute, before putting a formfitting plain white shirt on, and sauntered right past him. Halfway down the hall, he heard her say, "It's not like you haven't seen it before anyway."

Shane just stood in the door, staring stupidly after where her body disappeared into the staircase.

-------------------------

At dinner, everything was a little less tense. Tentative speech was attempted, and even enjoyed by the adults. Mitchie, Nate, and Jason made small talk, and she even asked Shane to "Pass the mashed potatoes. Please".

Finally, when everyone was mostly finished eating, Mrs. Grey turned to Mitchie, "So, Mitchie, since you're seventeen now, I thought I would do you a favor and try to get you a job at the Camp Shane works at!"

"Oh, wow. That's…uhm…so nice of Mrs. Grey! What Camp is this?"

"Well I remembered that you and Shane used to love to make music together when you were younger, and thought Camp Rock would be a great place for you too! I just gave the Camp Supervisor that tape we made when you kids were nine, and he said that if you could sing like that at nine years old, you'd fit in beautifully at camp. Doesn't that sound super fun?"

Shane and Mitchie glanced quickly at each other, before replied in unison, "Super."