I wasn't expecting this part to go like this, but I had a random surge of inspiration, and I'm glad I did. ;)

The first time Drake called Mindy was nothing like she expected.

All week long, she had waited and waited for her phone to ring. She looked through case studies with her phone lying on the table, darting her eyes toward it every so often as though she could make it ring through the power of her lawyer stare. She sent e-mails to coworkers with her phone sitting next to her in case it decided to ring. She went out with friends and kept her phone where she could easily get to it so she was prepared if Drake called. It never happened. When it had been ten days and he still hadn't called her, Mindy pushed the thoughts of their night out of her head and decided that it wasn't worth the effort of worrying. She stopped keeping her phone within arm's reach at all times and figured that she was just a warm body to keep Drake company for one night.

On the thirteenth day, her phone rang. Mindy was a light sleeper, and she assumed it was something that came with her profession; she spent many sleepless nights worried about testimonies she had to give and people she had to prove innocent. Sleeping wasn't her forte. The vibration of the phone against her nightstand was enough to wake her up, rolling over to see that it was 1:33. She blinked at the clock a few times in confusion before picking up her phone to see a number she didn't recognize. "Hello?" Mindy answered as her eyes fluttered closed.

"Hey, Mindy!" a male voice replied, sounding a little too cheery and a little too awake for the middle of the night.

"Drake?" she quipped, sitting straight up and noticing the bitterness creep into her tone.

"Yeah, heyyy, Mindy! Wanna come pick me up?"

"Where are you?"

"Remember that club you saw me at last week? There!"

"What the fuck is wrong with you? Are you high or drunk?"

There was a pause before a fit of giggles. "Drunk, high, what's the diff, Crenshaw? You comin'?"

"Give me ten minutes, and I'll be there. Don't do anything stupid. Oh, wait, like you'll be capable of that. Idiocy is your nature. Pretend you have half a brain until I get there."

"Whatever. Later, Min."

Mindy hung up and threw her phone onto her bed, burying her face in her hands. "Min?" she said aloud. "Min? No one calls me Min!" She was raging that Drake had called her like it was no big deal and spoke to her as if they were close friends. She had been anxiously waiting for him to call her, to let her know that he had thought of her, to let her know that he cared and was trying to change, and instead, she received a drunk dial during the wee hours because he wanted a ride. At least he knew enough to call her for that, she supposed.

Mindy sat in bed for a few more moments and tried to compose herself before getting up to change out of her pajamas. She'd waited for the time she'd see Drake again so she could go all out with her hair and makeup and impress him; she could feel herself reverting back to her teenage self, excited to get dressed up to go out with Josh. Her second meeting with Drake after the years that had passed wasn't ideal. Mindy threw on some sweatpants and an old sweatshirt before tying her hair back into a ponytail. Her face was barren of makeup, and she sighed, knowing there was no reason to try to gussy up; Drake was a hopeless case.

Mindy grabbed her car keys and headed to the door, wondering why she was even doing this. She knew that she should've let him suffer, but if he ended up getting in a fatal accident, she'd blame herself. She supposed that was reason enough to go.

She had one foot out the door when she realized there was something she should do – she grabbed the phonebook and frantically flipped through pages. Someone was going to get a surprise on their doorstep tonight.

Drake smiled as he recognized Mindy's Lexus pulling up in front of the club. He clumsily made his way to the car and swung open the door. "Heyyy, Mindy!" he slurred, falling into the seat and closing the door with a slam, shaking the whole car.

She glared at him icily, waiting for him to buckle his seatbelt before starting to drive.

"You're mad," he giggled, pushing her shoulder gently.

"Don't touch me," Mindy growled. She hadn't had nearly enough sleep to be dealing with him; she was irritated that this was how he reached out to her again. Not for a date…instead for a saving grace.

"Roar." Drake made a clawing motion in the air, laughing hysterically at himself.

Mindy shook her head, just focusing on driving; it was easier if she tuned him out rather than getting upset. As the silence ticked on, she was finding it harder and harder to keep her cool. "You were supposed to call me, Drake!" Mindy finally exploded, never taking her eyes off the road. "You were supposed to call me and tell me that you'd attempted to give up this up! And then you were supposed to possibly ask me out! Not call me to be your designated driver!"

"I was?"

"Yes!" Mindy sighed in frustration, realizing that she hadn't had anything even closely resembling a date in years and wondering if the meaning of 'I'll call you' had changed. It couldn't have, she realized. "No! I don't know! But I'm most certain that when you told me that you'd call me, I wasn't supposed to assume that you'd call me because you needed me to save your reckless ass!"

"Relax, Min."

"No one ever calls me Min! Would you stop it, Drake?"

"Someone put some extra spoonfuls of bitchy in their cereal this morning…"

"I think this would be easier for both of us if you'd just shut up," Mindy told him, her voice low. "I shouldn't have even come to pick you up tonight."

"But you did." She looked over at him, causing him to shrug and flip his hair as if he knew he radiated charm; just as he had been sure she practiced her vicious glare, she was sure Drake practiced how to lay on the charm as thick as possible. He had. There were pickup lines he'd said in front of a mirror, an artful way of flipping his hair, a way to stand that drove the girls crazy…you name it, he'd perfected it. Usually, girls fell for him the second he pushed his hair out of his eyes in that signature way he always did, and Drake wasn't sure why Mindy wasn't falling at his feet.

Mindy exhaled sharply and shook her head. "I assumed that if I didn't come, you'd do something stupid and end up dead, so for the rest of my life I'd be walking around with blood on my hands."

"That doesn't even make sense unless you were planning on murdering me."

"IT'S AN EXPRESSION!" Mindy raged, throwing her hands up in defeat. "Jesus Christ!"

Drake finally decided to take Mindy's advice and be quiet. He wasn't sure why she was so angry at him; promises meant nothing to him. They were merely words that slipped off his tongue like butter so he could easily please whoever he was with. Mindy, however, didn't know that; she assumed when someone said something, they meant it. She still wasn't fluent in the language of Drake Parker. He didn't understand why she was so angry that he didn't call. He would've gotten around to it eventually, whenever that was. He didn't know how long it would've taken him, but usually when he called a girl, even if it had been two months since he'd last seen her, she'd be clamoring to go out with him again; it baffled him that Mindy was less than happy to see him.

He let all those thoughts slide and the hum of the car on the road take him over. It took a few moments, but he suddenly realized Mindy most definitely wasn't taking him to his house. "Mindy, this isn't the way to my house," he said, sounding utterly confused.

She grinned viciously. "Nice of you to notice! You're right. I wasn't about to take you home!"

"Can't you just take me back to my place?"

"No. I don't know if you're destructive when alone."

"Can't we go back to your place then?" Drake pleaded. "Please?"

"You wouldn't want to deal with me all night or you'd have a splitting headache before the night was over after I ripped you one. I can guarantee that. I'm doing this to be nice to you, Drake. And if you plan on calling me again, I suggest you're sober when you do it."

He realized where they were going. "But Mindy…I can't…it'll…"

"Don't." She cut him off by holding up her hand and pulled into the driveway of a suburban ranch. It wasn't a big house, but even from the outside it looked homey. She turned off the car and pulled the keys out, shooting Drake a glare. "Come on."

"Mindy." He looked at her with sad chocolate eyes.

"Get your ass out of my car."

Drake let out a sigh that was full of desperation before unbuckling his seatbelt and getting out of the car. He closed the door and winced at the slam; the headache was starting to set in even without Mindy's help.

Mindy made her way to the front door with Drake sheepishly following behind her. She rang the doorbell and tapped her foot impatiently as she waited for an answer; she glanced at her watch to see that it was a little after 2AM. She wanted to feel slight remorse, but she couldn't knowing this needed to be done.

Josh opened the door with a yawn, running his hand through his hair that had been tangled with sleep. "Mindy?" he gasped in shock, turning on his porch light and squinting almost as if he was trying to see if it was really her.

"And Drake," she added, dragging him onto the porch by his jacket as he gave Josh a weak wave.

"What…what…why are you here?" Josh asked, knowing he hadn't been awake long enough to process what was happening.

"Your brother is high. You deal with him because I can't."

Josh's eyes widened as he shifted his gaze back and forth from Mindy to Drake. "How do you know? What are you talking about? What?"

"I ran into him a little over a week ago, and I drove him home because he was high. I got back to his place, and I found his coke stash. He's apparently pulled wool over your eyes for years, Josh. He called me tonight to pick him up. It's about time you knew and I'm sorry you had to find out this way, but there was no way this…delinquent was going to tell you any time soon. Sorry to bother you. Goodnight." Mindy took a long look at him before she stepped off the porch and headed back to her car. "Oh," she said, suddenly remembering something and turning around, "if you need to talk to me, Drake has my number."

"Thank you," Josh told her, adding softly, "good to see you."

"Um, dude, can I come in?" Drake asked Josh, giving him the puppy dog eyes that always made him crack.

Josh stepped aside and motioned Drake into his house. Never in his life had he felt so betrayed.