A/N: Updating quickly while I revise for my retake of my Frankenstein Exam on Monday, I take a moment of my time to give you this chapter and check out some stuff I've put on my blog about my new novel I'm currently working on. The Link's in my profile give me some feedback to what you think.

I've got loads of work to do and I'll only be updating chapters that I've already written until the work dies down. I have to get my photography project done by next week too as well as my revision. Plus, somewhere in all this time I have to jump in a car to go visit my brand new cousin who was born on Friday after a emergency c-section a week later after he was supposed to be.

So… busy, busy, busy

Reviews are lovely ;)

xo

Chapter 9 – Boys Will be Boys

Miley had spent the entire time apologising to Joe. She wasn't sure who she was apologising for, and if she hadn't been busy doing so, she would have attempted to make a list. She always had to apologise for other people and soften the blows of other unkind and unthinking people. She was always the one that had to deal with the crap that was blown accidentally into her face, forcing her to deal with it when it wasn't even something that she should have had to deal with. She had come to terms with the fact, however, that her life was never going to be as fair and kind as she wanted it to be. It was sometimes simply too hard and all she wanted to do was curl into a ball and forget about everything. She had a father who hated her, a creepy ex-boyfriend and a career that was slowly declining. Friend problems was all she needed.

"You don't have to apologise for her Miley!" Joe said as they climbed from the plane at the Burbank airport and walked across the asphalt to get to the Million air glass doors.

"She's my best friend Joe…" she mumbled as they wheeled her huge cases behind them, "I kinda do have to apologise for her, especially when she doesn't realise that she's the one in the wrong."

Joe laughed and turned around, "But she's not in the wrong. I'm the one who dumped her because of a brother that I couldn't ignore. I'm the one whose brain was too small to have some independent and coherent thoughts other than what I was going to have for breakfast! She should be mad at me! I don't deserve her…"

Miley stared at him and let out a sigh. She didn't know what to say because everything he had said was half true. He had been an idiot, he shouldn't have listened to his brother and Mandy did have a right to be mad at him because of it. But Mandy loved him, and he loved Mandy… and there was no other way to say it and there was no way that either of them were going to respond to each other just because of those three words that they were so desperate to believe, that the whole entire world were desperate to believe, and there was nothing Miley could do to help them until they could fully understand.

"I gotta go…" he wrapped his spare arm around Miley's shoulders and hugged her tightly for a moment. She felt the drop of his lips pressing a brotherly kiss to the top her head and she sighed when he released her and walked away. She hated goodbyes. He turned around and gave her a wink and a smile. She only returned his gestures when he shook his cell phone at her, indicating that he would call her later. She waved goodbye at him as her mother walked behind her telling her to hurry. She sighed momentarily before following her deep in thought.

What would it take for them to understand?

"You are an idiot!" Miley yelled as she stormed into Mandy's apartment with the key that her best friend had given her months ago as a way of her not having to hang around so that the paparazzi could snap away their cameras at her. She had hardly used it and always forgot it because they hardly ever went to Mandy's place. It was so boring compared to Miley's huge house and Mandy knew that she could always find food there.

"What the heck are you doing!?!" Mandy squealed as she tugged her bathrobe tighter around her. Her wet hair was slick to her cheeks and she didn't look too happy that Miley had just barged in on a wonderful Monday afternoon halfway through her "Mandy day" and telling her she was an idiot.

Miley didn't care.

"You're an idiot!" Miley repeated with a stutter of a laugh that could have meant a million different things, "He's in love with you and you're just gonna tell him to fuck off and forget that you haven't been moping after him for about as long as I moped after his goddamn godforsaken brother?!"

It took Mandy a moment to compose herself after she heard those words leave Miley's mouth. She blinked herself out of it and shrugged her shoulders, ignoring the fact that in her own special way she'd encouraged Miley to speak like that. Miley wasn't meant to speak like that.

"He's doing it for publicity…" Mandy shook her head walking into her bathroom as Miley followed her, "He isn't in love with me… he only gives a crap now that I'm actually known by people…"

Miley gawped at her and shook her head, "He's in love with you." She nodded quickly and put her smart-ass head on. Her voice was laced with anger and annoyance that she didn't really want to be there while she was talking to her best friend. She was just deeply pissed that her best friend was so damn stupid. "He's in love with you and has been since his dumb ass younger brother told him that you weren't good enough for him and he believed him. If you're gonna hate him for anything… hate him for being loyal to his families opinion and wishes!"

"I don't hate him, Miles… I just think he's a dick…"

Mandy sighed and walked back through her apartment until they hit the kitchen and Mandy switched on her coffee maker to keep her mind of the fact that Miley was following her around on the tips of her heels and telling her everything she didn't want to hear.

"'Fuck you Joe Jonas' is you not hating him?" Miley spat at her and Mandy flinched against the wishes of her need not to, "He poured his heart out to you and that was all you could say, Mandy… I sat for three hours watching him write that speech like his life depended on it… and then I watched his heart break when you said your little piece on national TV last night…" she was angry at her best friend. It was her own tactic of making her realise what she was wrong about. She'd apparently inherited this tactic from her father, and he'd never been successful at this tactic and it always flew back in his face. She guessed that he didn't help that he was always the person in the wrong, "You're being stupid…"

The older girl spun on her dancer's feet to look at Miley now annoyed. Mandy laughed at her and shook her head slapping her hands together in a sick form of unnecessary applause, "I'm being stupid… I'm being stupid about a Jonas brother?" she leant on her kitchen worktop and pointed at Miley looking furious, "How am I being stupid about Joe when nearly a year after Nick left you you're still so madly in goddamn love with him that you're kissing him at benefit concerts and making childish pacts with his brother! I told you then, I'll tell you now, Miley…" she paused and glared at her, "The Jonas Brother's are all liars Miley… everything they say is bullshit… complete bullshit…

"Don't trust them…"

"Yeah… well…" Miley shook her head at her best friend and screwed up her face furiously, "At least I admit it…"

She threw the key at her best friend and turned on her heel quickly leaving the apartment with only one thought and one memory. As she kicked out the stand of her bike and rode along the street, it was the only thing that lingered in the corners of her mind. As the wind whipped her in the face almost as harshly as the few thoughts she had bubbling with in her, she felt them same old reminiscent tears return to the corners of her eyes.

Miley lay next to Mandy in the huge hotel room. They were in New York and it was the day before they were playing Rockin' Eve. Mandy was seeing her family tomorrow and was still buzzing after her date with Joe. He'd taken her to his favourite restaurant and she couldn't remember the last time that she had laughed so much with a guy. He was so funny and it had all started with his ingenious idea to wear disguises and act like idiots for the six hours that they were on a date. She had been so glad he'd had some time off to spend with her. It was always them hanging out backstage after the shows and in tour busses when everyone else was there and Miley and Nick were arguing. When he'd asked her out that day a week ago she'd been so glad and excited. She'd been waiting for him to do something for months.

And now, she was still happy because she was sure that sooner rather than later, Joe was going to ask her to be his girlfriend. He'd insinuated it and he'd pretty much almost asked her already. He was leaving to prepare for his own tour soon and he was going to have to ask her before he left. There was no way he could ask her over the phone. He was a Jonas. They were all about chivalry and being gentlemen.

"I can't believe it Miley!" she hissed for about the hundredth time that hour. They were lying in Mandy's bed talking and it seemed that Mandy was the only one talking. Miley was as silent as a mouse, smiling every so often, but not with that same old sparkly grin she often gave people. It was a smile filled with thoughts and feelings and deep-set confusion that it was highly unlikely she would try to talk about whatever it may be.

Mandy, however, didn't notice the in-deep thinking that her best friend was currently performing, and was instead wrapped up in her own world of Rockefeller centre, department store antics and crappy cups of dollar coffee. She didn't realise that Miley hadn't said a word in an hour or that she had already silently cried to herself once without her realising.

"I'm going to actually be Joe Jonas' girlfriend!" she laughed, "Joe of all people… Joe freaking Jonas…" Mandy grinned and grabbed the sheet to pull it over herself and hide. She shook her head widely from side to side in excitement and gave a tiny little squeal of happiness before peering over the white sheet to see the still smiling face of Miley. She sighed suddenly and sat up looking down at Miley, "Why are you being so quiet and unexcited…?

The younger of the two young women found her eyes rolling subconsciously into the back of her head as her legs started to make a move out of Mandy's room and back to her own where she could cry again… for yet another time that week.

"I'm tired…"

"You haven't said anything about me and Joe or what you think…"

Miley turned to her as she opened the hotel room door and leant against the wood of the doorframe. It was cold and unwelcoming, almost as much as this conversation was becoming.

"Just be careful…"

"What do you mean?" Mandy frowned.

Miley shrugged, "Don't get your hopes up…"

"I don't get what you mean…"

Miley shook her head, "They all share the same genes," she explained quietly and carefully, "What's to say that they won't all act the same as each other… so be careful…"

Mandy stared at her for a moment as she nodded quickly and bowed out of the room. She shook her head confused and wondered for a second about what Miley could possibly mean. Who was acting the same? Sometimes Miley didn't make much sense to Mandy and it was all gibberish. She was like a philosopher and there was always something more going on in her head. What it was this time, Mandy had no clue.

A/N: Can someone tell me if you guys like this story or not? Because either everyone's left this site and gone some place else, or you hate what I've written. Lemme know. I'm curious because it's been a while since I've been here and I'm unsure what's going on.

Much Love

B xo