Okay, you've been warned that I'm not to happy with the way this chapter came out. I just could NOT for the life of me come up with a good way to introduce Carlos! This is the fourth time I rewrote this chapter, the fourth different story line....I just could not get it right. I've come to the conclusion that this is the best I'm going to be able to get it. So...here you go! It has Carlos, Ralphie, Tim, Wanda (kind of), Phoebe and Arnold. Keesha's the only one I haven't used so she will definitely be in chapter three! By the way, Phoebe and Arnold are dating. Just saying.

Chapter two

MSB

When he was little, Carlos hadn't cared for much. Soccer, funny jokes (well, he thought they were funny), and his friends. And food maybe. But not much. He liked to say he preferred the simple things in life as opposed to that he just didn't care. Because he did care, he just didn't want to save every dying animal on the planet (- cough – Phoebe – cough -) or win an award for the prettiest rock out there like a certain red head he knew. It just wasn't him.

Bringing his foot back once again, he swung it forward and kicked the blue and silver soccer ball towards the net in front of him with as much driving force as his body was capable of. It soared over Ralphie's head (despite the fact the 5'11 Italian had jumped and reached for the ball) and hit the net behind him moving so fast it threatened to knock the entire goal post over. Oh yeah, he cared about soccer.

"Geez Carlos, are you trying to kill me?!" Spinning around to face his best friend once again, Ralphie Tennelli stood gaping at the smirking Hispanic boy standing farther down the field. "If I had known I was going to end up in the emergency room I wouldn't have agreed to help you!"

"Stop being so dramatic" Toeing another ball closer, this one purple and gold, Carlos wiggled it around with his cleat until it was placed just so and backed up a few steps. He needed to practice kicking to the lower left; he'd always had issues getting the ball in that direction and was determined to fix that by the time soccer season started. "You didn't have to do this, you know. Considering the type of goalie you are it's not helping much more than an empty net would anyway"

Ralphie 'hmph'd', bending and placing his hands firmly on his knees, glaring at his best friend as Carlos chuckled. The two were best friends sure, but they were fiercely competitive and known to break out into stupid but intense arguments. "I heard that!"

"You were supposed to!" And, with that, Carlos sent this ball soaring for Ralphie's head. Sure, he was supposed to be going for the lower left hand corner of the net…but he'd never been very good at aiming in that direction.

Ralphie yelped – yes, yelped, like a puppy – before diving for the ground, firmly crossing his arms over the back of his head. The soccer ball, passing through the air in the exact spot Ralphie's head had been in just two seconds before, harmlessly bounced off the net and rolled across the ground, coming to a stop when it collided with Ralphie's side. Pushing himself up, he retrieved his hat and tugged it back down on his head before kicking the ball back in Carlos' direction. It didn't get anywhere near the laughing boy, Ralphie wasn't much of a soccer star, but he had made his point. He'd had enough with their 'practice'.

xXx

Half an hour later, Carlos was draped across the leather couch in his family room, flipping through the channels with his opened biology textbook sitting, ignored, on the coffee table. Ralphie was in the love seat, texting Wanda, and Tim was sitting on the floor with his back against the coffee table. He, however, was actually reading the chapter he and Carlos we're supposed to be doing their project on. They'd only been in the Ramone house for about ten minutes and already the artist was deeply engrossed in comparing plant cell's to those of an animal, and Carlos hadn't even bothered to read one sentence yet. Of course, it was safe to assume about an hour from Carlos still wouldn't have read that sentence.

It's not that he didn't care about his grades, because he did. A lot more than he had when he was little anyway (he got all A's and B+'s now). He was just a champion procrastinator. He liked to watch TV or play soccer or goof off with his friends until the very last minute (his homework was frequently done ten minutes before he had to turn it in) and despite the fact both his parents and his best friend, DA Parker, frequently chastised him for his habits, he had yet to change them. His strategy worked for him. They also bugged him to clean his room, go to bed before one AM, and be a little more careful. Carlos didn't see any of those happening either.

Still, he knew it wasn't right to let Tim work on their project by himself and reluctantly stopped flipping the channel (10 Deadliest Sharks wasn't a bad show to watch anyway) and lifted his textbook into his lap. He might have been more interested in this if it was on a topic he hadn't been studying since he was six. Glancing out the corner of his eye, he was pleased to discover Tim sketching the two cells on a free piece of paper he'd had in his binder. He was just as good an artist as he had been when they were kids (okay, he was a way better artist than he'd been when they were kids) and Carlos found himself thanking God that his partner could draw. He couldn't even draw a stick figure right!

"Um, should I just come up with the ten facts about each?" He asked, staring at the chart on page 182 of his book, which was comparing the two cells. He'd have to stretch it a little, re-wording the same fact, but he could get ten of them with out having to read the sections. Besides, he knew their biology teacher had a crush on him – who cared if she was married, Carlos had caught her staring at him plenty of times – and that he would get away with it. "Since you're drawing them?"

"Yeah, sure" Tim nodded, his pencil flying over the paper as he began to add the smaller details and label the larger ones he'd already put in. He'd won the county wide art contest over the summer, and as a result was a lot more confident in his work now. Even if it was just a biology project. "That seems fair"

"Know what isn't fair?" Ralphie interrupted, loudly and rudely, his gaze focused intently on the place where the warm maroon walls met the white ceiling. "When the girl you're after tries to tell you how she feels about another guy"

Rolling his eyes, Carlos pushed his book off his lap and left it sitting abandoned on the edge of his couch. He wouldn't be looking at it again until he got to biology on Friday. As long as he and Tim weren't called first, it'd be fine. Besides, he knew that when Ralphie started to complain about girls, he got so obnoxious about it that it was impossible to even entertain the idea of thinking about something else. And Wanda was his favorite girl to complain about. He and Tim were in for it, and he held back a chuckle when he noticed Tim sigh and settle in for Ralphie's no doubt pointless rambling about one of their oldest friends.

The two had dated in seventh grade, back when Ralphie still had some of his baby fat - that had disappeared when he went from 5'4 to 5'11 practically over night - and hadn't yet started playing football and therefore didn't have the muscle definition he now did (Carlos was not so secretly jealous of his biceps, although his own ab's were at least as nice as Ralphie's). They'd gone out for three months – an ungodly amount of time for thirteen year olds – before Ralphie had broken up with her.

Wanda, always a slightly wild and free spirited person, had developed into a unique mix of an athletic tomboy and a notorious flirt. When Ralphie had caught her flirting with Phil, the one boy in their grade neither he nor Carlos could stand, he had decided he'd had enough of wondering just how far Wanda would go with her flirting and still consider it to be 'okay'. Ralphie tended to get jealous when it came to his girlfriend. Unfortunately, two days after Ralphie had broken up with her Wanda had gotten together with Phil. Sure, she'd only dated him for about three weeks, but it'd been enough to crush Ralphie – who did have feelings no matter how much he liked to hide them. It'd taken at least five months before the gang had felt they no longer needed to take sides, and another three before Ralphie and Wanda would hang out with all of them again. Still, Ralphie had never quite recovered.

"- and she expects me to talk to him and try to help her. I mean, really! Me? She expects me to set her up with Phil?! What the f-"

"My parent's are in the kitchen" Carlos interrupted, smirking when Ralphie abruptly ended his rant and instead huffed and bought one of the olive green throw pillows down and held it over his face. "And Wanda probably just thinks because it's been three years its okay now. If you don't want to do it than don't"

Tim nodded, though he was collecting his stuff and putting it back in his backpack. "Seriously man, just tell her you don't want to get involved" He shrugged, slinging one strap over his shoulder as he stood up. "It's not like she can make you"

Carlos snorted at that. Wanda, who was the scariest person he knew when armed (even if her weapon was nothing but a plastic spoon) and still semi-terrifying without a weapon if she wanted to be, could get just about anyone to do anything. Although her whole 'provoking fear' strategy worked better on them than on the girls. Plus, she could get any other guy in their grade to do what she wanted just by flirting with him. It was funny to watch, really. With Ralphie however, she just had to ask usually and he would do it. That…well that was just sad.

"I wouldn't say anything if I were you Ramone" Ralphie snapped, standing up as well. Slipping his phone into the back pocket of his jeans he yanked his untouched back pack off the floor. "DA's had you whipped since fifth grade when she fell off the playground and broke her arm and you thought she was gonna die when Phoebe told you she went to the hospital"

"Hey!" Standing up as well, Carlos wasn't one to stay sitting down when provoked, he leveled Ralphie's glare with one of his own. "DA's my best friend of course I'm going to help her if she asks for it. At least my ex-girlfriend isn't cracking a whip over my head!"

"Guys!" Tim interfered, slipping between the two boys and glancing wearily between them. "I don't want to have to tell DA or Wanda that you two killed each other so can you just chill?"

"Notice how we're all talking about DA, not your girlfriend?" With that Ralphie, slipped past Tim and headed towards the back door so he wouldn't have to pass Carlos' parents on the way out. Of course, they were bound to notice the way he had slammed the door.

xXx

Humming to herself, Phoebe Therese scratched her dog – a black lab mix she'd adopted with a big white splotch on his chest that had been named Elvis – absentmindedly behind his ears and stared out the window. It had stopped raining for about four hours today, and she'd been glad for the break. The gloom had not let up for even five minutes however, and now, at eight o'clock at night, the storm had picked up once again. Sighing, she looked down at her dog and smiled at the happy expression on his face and didn't even notice how he had started to drool on the leg of her jeans.

"Well, Ralphie just stormed out of Carlos' house" Arnold sighed from his seat across the kitchen table from Phoebe. Picking up yet another cookie – Phoebe made amazing homemade chocolate chip cookies – and dunked it into the glass of milk in front of him before taking a bite. "They got in the Wanda/DA fight again"

Ignoring the crumbs Arnold had sprayed across the table when he attempted to explain why Ralphie would storm out of his best friend's house, Phoebe sighed and continued to pet her dogs soft head. "Of course they were. Isn't this the third time this month?"

Arnold nodded, this time choosing to swallow before answering her. Apparently he had noticed the crumbs he'd left last time he'd spoken. "I think so. But you know they'll be back to joking and laughing tomorrow like nothing ever happened. That's what always happens"

"They both need to just admit how they feel" Phoebe insisted, her eyes darting to Arnolds cell phone as it once against vibrated against the wooden tabletop. "It'd make things much easier on all of us. What happened now?"

"Nothing, Ralphie's complaining to me about how Carlos has the nerve to say something about Wanda when we all know about the hold DA has on him"

Phoebe rolled her eyes before looking out the window again. In her opinion, it'd be much easier if they would both just own up to how they felt. She might be biased, because she knew of how strongly DA felt for the raven haired boy, but she couldn't help the fact the fights that broke out between Carlos and Ralphie over the two girls annoyed her. To be fair, she wanted DA to own up to her feelings to. Not now, of course, it'd be wrong to make her move while Carlos was dating another girl – no matter how much they didn't like her (even Phoebe could say a few mean things about Shannon). She just wished they could all work these things out so that could be friends again and hang out the way they had before.

She was pretty positive most girls her age didn't wish they could go back to third grade.

MSB

Okay, the next chapter will have DA and Carlos together, I promise :) Oh, and by the way this is taking place their junior year. I realize in most places you take biology your sophomore year, but I'm trying to only write about them in classes that I've taken so I don't have to make stuff up that will than make absolutely no sense. I wanted them all to be sixteen soooo....yeah. Just letting you know. And the chapters should be getting longer as we get farther into the story, okay?

Please let me know what you guys think of my story, it helps me keep writing and makes me happy :)