Demi walked into Joe's apartment, the place that she'd been spending more than half of her time for the past few weeks, and smiled at him, shaking her head and laughing quietly. He was working on an equation on his whiteboard with some music in the background and a pencil behind his ear. He pushed his glasses up and stared at the problem in deep concentration, to the point where he hadn't heard Demi walk in. She just sat on the couch and grabbed a magazine, knowing not to interrupt him. Occasionally, her brown orbs would eye his work and him, but for the most part, she just read the magazine because to be perfectly honest, she didn't think he liked solving these equations, but didn't want to say anything. She thought he just solved the problems because his father was a scientist too and had pushed him since he was a child to be involved in science everything. She often wondered what would've happened if he hadn't been pushed into the science field, would he be more like Nick? Or would he still want to be an astrochemist?

He sighed and sat on the couch after two hours had passed and looked at Demi, who raised her eyebrows and laughed lightly when his face turned to shock when he saw her here, "when did you arrive," he asked.

"Like two hours ago, you were in the zone so I didn't want to interrupt you," she said putting the magazine down.

His face turned a bit red and a faint laugh escaped his lips, "I apologize. I'm just trying to figure this out and it's taking quite a long time."

"It's no problem," she smiled, "but now that you're not working anymore, want to go to grab a bit to eat or something?"

He pondered the thought and eyed the white board, "well, my dad is coming tomorrow and I really want to show him that I could calculate this," he bit his bottom lip and looked at her, "but I guess we could go get a bite to eat, as long as we aren't gone long. I think he'll be really proud."

A light smile came to her beautiful face and she stood up, putting her hand out for him, "then let's go. I promise, we'll be back in time for you to finish, how about we'll be back by nine."

"Deal," he laughed taking her hand and opening the door for her. They walked out of the apartment and down the stairs. Joe hailed a taxi and they got in, going into Manhattan and to a restaurant that they've went to a few times in the past. It wasn't fancy, it was laid back and casual.

Joe pulled out a chair for her and she smiled, "thanks."

He nodded and sits down. His mind is spinning, but after a few minutes, he takes a deep breath and puts his hand on top of her's, "so, we've known each other for a few years and have really gotten closer within the past months and I'm mindful that you probably conclude that I am a geek like everyone else concludes, but I truly admire you, Demi, and I was was wondering how you contemplated on this information." Joe wanted to hit himself, when he became nervous, big words always sputtered out of his mouth, he had spent a summer reading the dictionary because his father had thought it would be a good idea and now, he was paying for it.

Demi tried to soak in what he was saying and when she thought she understood the gist of it, she took his hand and squeezed it, looking into his big brown eyes that matched his brother's, she sighed, "Joe, you're a great friend, but I just don't feel for you the way you feel for me. I'm sorry. I love being friends with you though and I really hope that this doesn't ruin our relationship. Plus, I'm crazy about your brother."

Joe sighed and took his hands away, he put his head down and nodded, "y-yeah, that's what I thought. It always comes back to Nick. Everyone always admires Nick more than do me," he sighed again and looked at his watch, "I should go back home and finish my calculations." He put twenty dollars onto the table and left.

Demi sighed and sat there. Her heart sunk and her face turned into confusion when she felt a pang in her stomach, she felt her walls crumbling down, a tear fell from her eye and she wiped it away. Her heart was slowly breaking and when she realized why, she groaned. She was falling for Joe and had just said no to him. But she wasn't his type. He was no where close to her type, maybe she'd just fallen for his potential.

Joe went back to his apartment and stared at his whiteboard disgusted. He hated solving these equations, he hated who he was. He wanted to be someone else. Someone who was worth being loved, someone who was worth having a girlfriend, someone who was worth having Demi as their girlfriend. Truthfully, he didn't care about astrochemistry, he just wanted to make his father proud, but he knew that that wasn't going to happen. His father always found something to complain about when it comes to him. Nick was the perfect child. Their father never found a flaw with him. He let out a loud yell and pushed the whiteboard to the ground. He erased his work and stomped out of his apartment.

Taking a taxi, he went to Nick's apartment and banged on the door. It took a few moments, but Miley opened the door and smiled at him, pulling him in for a tight hug. Joe pushed her away and she fell to the floor. Nick walked in and saw Miley fall. He looked from Joe to Miley with confusion. Miley stood up and cupped Joe's cheeks, he shut the apartment door and slid down the door. She sat next to him and held him close as he sulked. Nick walked up and sat in front of them.

"What's going on, man," Nick asked curiously.

Joe stood up and glared down at him. Nick stood up after him and eyed him. The older brother grabbed onto Nick's collar and pushed him into the wall, "why are you Mr. Perfect, huh! I've kept your secret for years, Nick! I kept your secret! I could've told dad and he'd be proud at whatever I did! But now, I'm the one who always makes the mistakes and I'll tell you what, brother, I'm fucking sick of it! I hate this fucking astrochem shit! I don't know who the hell I'm supposed to be and that's because of you! Because of you, I've been trying to prove myself to our family, but dad always finds some kind of flaw! And I'm fucking sick and tired of it!"

Nick tried to control himself as he pushed Joe away and fixed his shirt, "my fault? I never told you to become a daddy's boy. I never told you to become our father's son or to become the nerdiest kid on the planet, man, alright? You're the one who took it upon yourself to read the dictionary and the thesaurus every summer while I was hanging out with friends and acting normal. Did you ever think that maybe dad likes me better because I don't do everything he tells us to do? Huh!"

Miley just looked back and forth from Joe to Nick and then just looked at Nick, "Nick, could you give us a few moments?"

"This is my penthouse, Mi, you can't kick me out."

She walked over and put her hands on his tense shoulders, "hey," she said quietly, "relax, okay? I'm going to try and fix this. I don't know what's going on and neither do you. You knew that this would eventually happen. He's cracked, Nicholas, and if you're just going to fight him back, then there's no point of you being here right now. I could just take him to my house and not sleep over if that's what you'd like."

He shook his head and sighed, "I'll be back in a bit," grabbing his leather jacket, he took Miley's hand into his, "thanks," he said smiling lightly before leaving.

Joe sighed and sat on the brown leather couch, Miley sat next to him and put her body so she was facing him. Taking her hand in his, she looked into his eyes, "hey," she smiled, she fixed a bang that hung in his face and sighed, "Joe, what's wrong?"

He told her everything, from how he didn't know what he was supposed to be doing with his life, to how Demi and he had been spending mass amounts of time together and he'd told her how he'd felt with a vocabulary that she probably couldn't even completely understand and how he had no idea what he was doing with his stupid life. Miley just listened and nodded periodically so he would know that she wasn't zoning out and that she actually did care. When he was done, she let the information sink in for a few minutes. A serene quietness filled the air and Joe started to relax a little.

"So, how would you like me to help you be a new you," she asked.

He shrugged and sighed, "I am who I am. I can't just become a new me."

"Yes you can," she smiled, "you can be anyone you want to be. Take Queen GaGa for example, she's a different person everyday," she laughed.

He shook his head and laughed too.

"It'll be hard work and a lot of patience and persistence, but I know that you have all of the above and if you want to be a new you, then I'll help out as best as I can. We could start with wardrobe and then work on flirtation and I mean, we don't really have to work on personality, maybe your vocabulary, we could lower that a bit, but we could do this, if you really wanted to."

Joe nodded, "please. I want to become a better Joe. A me Joe. Whoever me is. I want to live for me, not for my father."

"We'll start tomorrow."

He shrugged and nudged her, "or we could start on flirtation right now," he joked.

She laughed and shook her head, "one Grey flirting with me is enough," she laughed, "trust me though, I've got a lot up my sleeve for you."

"Oh really?"

Miley nodded and opened the door. Nick fell in and quickly stood up, "umm," he rubbed the back of his neck nervously, "I-I wasn't eavesdropping."

"Sure you weren't," she laughed rolling her eyes.

He shook his head, "I wasn't."

"You promised me you'd never lie to me," she reminded him.

Nick sighed and rubbed his neck again, "okay, fine. You caught me. I was eavesdropping and for the record, I so do not flirt with you."

"Nicky, you purposely fell on top of me the other day and do not even get me started on how much you check me out," she laughed shaking her head. His face flushed and she kissed his cheek, "it's okay though, I forgive you."

"I'll see you both tomorrow," Joe said walking away.

Nick waved at him and shut his apartment door before turning back to look at Miley who had plopped herself on the couch and had turned the tv to some reality show. Grabbing the remote, he shut it off and stood in front of her. Miley looked up at her slowly and cokced her head, "what?"

"You think I''m flirting with you," he asked, trying to mask his embarrassment with confusion.

She walked over to him and wrapped her arms around his neck, "am I wrong?"

His head was spinning. He didn't know what he was supposed to say, what he was supposed to do, should he tell her? Should he wait? He was frozen, trying to comprehend what he was supposed to do, but he didn't want to ruin their friendship, he didn't want to be the guy with the secrets. She'd had too many things hidden from her throughout her life. He wasn't going to be her boyfriend, the secret gangbanger. No matter how much he wanted her, he couldn't have her. Not yet at least.

A/N: So? How are you guys liking this story? I've been reading a lot of books lately and have started to learn how to better describe things and use words in a different way. I'm feeling really confident with this story. What do you guys think is going to happen? Do you guys want anything to happen? Let me know with a review! Thanks for all of your previous reviews and thank you for reading! I truly appreciate it!

Peace. Love. Niley.

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