Hello loves. Sorry I've been AWOL, I was on a road trip and I didn't have my laptop with me. Stupid, stupid brothers. Anyways, I'm back but I'm ridiculously bust getting ready to leave for UC Santa Cruz, so I just thought I'd at least post a mini-chapter for you guys. I'm not dead yet...

Fucking late again. Reid had to resist the urge to smash something as he leaned against the gym wall, fingers tapping dangerously. It was 6:20, and Holly hadn't shown up at the pool yet.

And she had been getting so much better… the girl had managed to make it from one side of the pool to the other just the previous day. He hadn't expected to feel anything like pride at her small smile. Yanking a hand through his hair roughly, Reid pushed off from the wall and stalked towards the dormitories. He wasn't upset because he liked teaching her to swim, liked the light and accidental touches they shared… No.

Who was Holly Donnelly to stand him up? Stand him up? Like it was a date, or something? No. He was done with her. Stupid whore.

Tyler looked up, brows quirked quizzically as Reid slammed into their room and fell with a huff face first onto his bed.

"PMSing again?" Reid groaned into his pillow, and turned his face to the wall.

"Fuck you. Let's go get faded." Tyler grinned as his friend's words and stretched languidly, hauling himself upright.

"Don't need to ask twice, but I'm driving, douche."

"Whatever." Tyler watched the fair boy out of the corner of one very blue eye. This was… interesting.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"Kyle- hurry up!" Holly let one hand rest on the closed bathroom door. "We have to do a sound check before they open up the bar." Shimmying uncomfortably to keep the very thin and very short black tank top Kyle had loaned her from riding up, she turned and shuffled out of the kitchen, the hems of her too-large pants dragging on the filthy floor.

"She's coming," she announced to the two boys who were bent over a keyboard and drum set, respectively. Jeremy nodded, testing his symbols as Adam abandoned the now-ready keyboard for his guitar. Holly sat on the small stool behind Kyle's instrument and absently began riffing the intro to "Clocks," humming.

"Holly?" She looked up at Adam. "Shouldn't you be, you know, tuning your fucking bass?"

"You're always so testy before we play, Sweetie," remarked Jeremy from a safe distance, ducking out of Adam's firing range behind his drum kit as the curly-haired boy heaved a half-empty water bottle at him.

"Right," she drawled, adding extra syllables to the word. Kyle had frozen in the doorway, face still in an expression somewhere between amusement and disgust. She arched an eyebrow at the dark-haired girl. "You look perfect, Messier." Kyle's lips twitched, opening involuntarily to expose two rows of even, irritatingly perfect teeth. Her white bangs were clipped to the side of her face with an oversized barrette-a look that reminded Holly of another era- and she looked like a flapper in her gold dress. "You're really sort of annoyingly perfect, Kyle."

"But dude," Jeremy called up from somewhere under Adam's thigh squeeze of doom. "Your last name is Messier. Messy. Hah." Adam giggled, and Kyle made sure to step on him with her- Holly was sure- sharp heels. He whined, clutching his thigh as Jeremy sat up, panting and victorious.

"It's actually pronounced Messy-ay, you know," Kyle grumbled to Holly. "It's French."

"Mmm," Holly agreed without listening to what she was agreeing to. One of Kyle's large dark eyes remained fixed on her friend's face from underneath her hair as the younger girl fiddled with the strap of her guitar. Even for Holly, this was out of it…

"Adam!" The voice was unfamiliar, and snapped Holly out of her reverie. The singer's cousin had ducked out of the kitchen. "You guys have to go on!"