Hey, guys. Sorry I've been kind of MIA this week. My life is just rehearsal after rehearsal for show after choir after show choir. It's awful, and I apologize.
Anyway, reviews are always appreciated. As much as I love the motivation BRAVO. SCHMIDT and WolfGirl-XD give me, I know they're not the only ones reading, so, to everyone else who has this on their alerts, please come out of hiding. I don't bite. I'm vegan. Promise. Oh, and sorry this one seems kinda short. I dunno why. :P
-Veg

"Alright, dogs," Gustavo says, pacing back and forth with his arms behind his back as the four of us stand in a straight line. It seriously feels like he's a drill sergeant and we're his little military…dogs. "It's officially been three weeks since you've all started your-" He takes a short pause and makes air quotes with his index and middle fingers. "-"volunteer work," and I'm pleased to see…" What? What is that- a smile? "None of you have died yet."

"Well," Logan starts with a smile. "We're all actually having fun with-" He immediately stops out of nervous habit when our rather intimidating manager and producer abruptly turns around and begins to search through the sea of papers covering his desk. Logan lets out a quiet and nervous, "Okay…" before Gustavo pulls out a magazine from the bottom of the pile. After flipping through a few pages, he opens to one plastered with pictures of…us?

"I'm also pleased to say you're getting some recognition for your efforts," he says with a sly smile as Kelly sighs and rolls her eyes from the corner behind him.

"BTR Gives Back…?" I questioningly read out loud, cocking an eyebrow at that title. There's no doubt Gustavo's behind this publicity stunt- then again, that was his plan to begin with. As my eyes begin to wander the pictures on the page, it seems my friends immediately notice the same one I do- there sat Kendall, in a rocking chair with a children's book in his hand, obviously over-acting the story for a bunch of fidgety, misbehaved toddlers. We all simultaneously shoot him the same questioning gaze, and the look he gives us returns screams, "I don't even want to talk about it."

"Look!" Carlos then over-excitedly shouts, pointing at the picture next to it. "It's me and Old Joe!" He diverts our attention over to his picture, where he looks surprisingly serious while in the midst of a game of chess with an elderly man in a wheelchair.

"Old Joe?" Kendall questions, raising one of his over-the-top eyebrows.

"You know how to play chess?" Logan asks at that same time.

Carlos ignore both of their questions and just happily states, "I love old people."

"Carlos…" Logan states with a sigh. "I'm pretty sure that the politically correct term is elderly." Once again, Carlos just ignores him.

"Hey, look at you, Dr. Mitchell," Kendall teases, elbowing Logan in the stomach as he points to the picture of Logan, talking to a doctor as he takes care of a patient. God, how is it that none of us seemed to notice these being taken?

"Yeah, it's…great there," Logan says with a sad-looking smile. I exchange nervous glances with my other two friends. We all know what he's probably thinking, though we don't want to believe it- our friend is having second thoughts about the life he's living with us in LA and still longs for that lost dream of his to help people.

"Uh," Carlos immediately searches for another distraction to dissuade all attention away from the topic. "Look, James! You haven't seen your picture yet!" He quickly shoves the magazine in my face to the point where it's so close I actually can't see anything. I hear Kendall let out an amused snicker as I snatch the paper away from him. Once I finally get a chance to get a good look at my picture, I'm smiling to myself like a complete idiot.

"What's the smile for?" Kendall snorts, and my expression immediately drops.

"Uh, nothing," I try and play it off coolly. "I look good, that's all." I glance back down at the picture- actually, I do look pretty damn good, especially in those sunglasses. Vera was next to me in the picture, the two of us laughing at the fact that our leashes all got into a tangled mess with each other.

"And this is why you should just let them enjoy the time they're putting into it, rather than just using it as a publicity stunt," Kelly, clearly irritated, tells her boss through clenched teeth. He ignores her, and the four of us give her a sympathetic look. She really does take a lot of his crap. I'm surprised she stuck with him for this long.

"Oh, and Kelly," Gustavo, clearly bored, says as he reclines back in his chair and taps away at his smartphone some more. "Give the dogs the…uh…" He furrows his brow, clearly at loss for his train of thought. "That thing you were supposed to give them for me!"

"You mean the new song?" She glares over at him, and once again, he ignores her.

"Yes! That!" Kelly then proceeds to hand us each a piece of sheet music, and Carlos immediately groans when he gets his.

"I will most definitely be bothering Brooklyn this weekend for help with this," he grumbles, intently staring down at the paper and my friends and I can't stop ourselves from laughing at him. Carlos really does act like a kid still- not that I'm the most mature out of all of us or anything, because it's obvious I'm not.

"You won't be able to," Logan points out as the four of us make our ways out of Gustavo's office, and I notice Carlos' facial expression completely fade into blank nothingness. "She leaves for New York on Friday." That's when Carlos lets out a deep sigh and rolls his eyes.

"Logan," he attempts to shoot back, sounding more serious then he probably ever will, treating our friend like he's actually stupid. "Brooklyn doesn't leave for college until the fall." Okay, Carlos is an idiot. We all love him like a little brother, but a really stupid one.

"She's not going to college yet, stupid," Logan replies, looking like he's holding back his urge to slap him upside his head. "She's getting out of school for a few weeks to go do this theatre workshop with her friend." Carlos then proceeds to let out a quiet, "Oh."

"Is that the girl you're always talking about?" Kendall then inquires, peering over my shoulder to get his own glimpse of my picture. Oh, crap…looks like I'm taking the magazine with me. Whatever, I want Vera to see this, anyway.

"I'm not always talking about her," is the only lousy argument I can make as I stare down at the picture some more, catching myself smiling like an idiot again.

"Oh, please," Carlos instigates. Great, here we go again… "It's like Logan and Brooklyn all over again. Vera this and Vera that. I'm sure we all know her as just as well as you do by now."

"You're over-exaggerating-" I try to shoot back, but my friends immediately start on me again.

"He has a point," Logan empathetically admits in return. "I mean, let's see- She's going to Penn in the fall…"

"She wants to be a vet," Kendall continues.

"Her boyfriend's name is David," Carlos chimes in. "And you hate him because…he's a jerk or something of that matter."

"She's a vegan, and you had no idea what that meant until Brooklyn gave up a half hour of her time to explain it to you."

"Her dog's name is Misha. He has one eye and always tries to attack you."

"She wears glasses, but as you've previously specified, not the dorky kind. The attractive-sexy-smart girl-rectangular-plastic kind."

"Her eyes are…blue? Oh, no, I'm sorry. Grey."

"You're not sure if her hair color is natural, because it's just this-" Kendall switches his tone of voice, obviously mocking me. "-absolutely gorgeous shade of a reddish brown you've never even seen."

"Her family's from Russia, and she speaks the language, which I can only assume confuses you."

"She has-" That's when I finally cut them off, after taking those few moments to be in complete shock. Do I really talk about her that much?

"Okay, okay!" I stop my friends from continuing any more. "I get it."

"I don't think you do, man," Kendall snorts. "It's been quite a few weeks, and you're telling me you seriously haven't made any moves on this girl at all? That's just so…not you."

"That's because…Vera's just a good friend. That's all," is my horribly lousy explanation.

"Liar!" Carlos calls out, stopping in front of us. "James Diamond doesn't meet a pretty girl and just keep her as a friend." I don't really have an answer for that one, because for once, Carlos is actually making sense. But, Vera has a boyfriend. He may be a jerk, but he's still her boyfriend, and I actually have some respect for this girl…for once. For once, I actually care about her. Any other girl, I would've stolen her away from her boyfriend for a weekend or so then forget about her the next Monday. But, I'm not doing that with her. When it comes to Vera Partrov, I'm not the same James Diamond they're used to.

I'm surprised when I go in this weekend and see that Vera's desk is empty. Where the hell is she? It's Saturday. She's always here early on Saturday. Okay, calm down, James. Maybe she's coming in late. Maybe she's sick. Maybe I should just stop over-thinking it.

I blankly stand there for a moment, clearly uncomfortable, obviously at a loss of what to do without her. Of course, as if right on cue to witness me make an ass out of myself. "James," the rather familiar and feminine male's voice calls to me. It just so happened to belong to Zach. There really wasn't any way to describe him, other than that one cheery yet horribly impertinent gay guy who's just...always here. I don't mind him- he's actually quite nice and seems to be close to Vera- but I can never exactly be sure if he's just being friendly or actually flirting with me. "We were hoping you'd come in today. We need someone to take Vera's job for today."

"Is she okay?" I can't help but immediately ask. He just sighs while he tucks his pen behind his ear and then proceeds to flip through some papers on his clip board.

"I sure hope so," he replies, scribbling something down on the paper. "Alright, so, any forms you may need are filed away in separate labeled folders in the bottom drawer." He then proceeds to give me this strange, intense stare as he points over to the phone sitting on the corner of the desk. "That's the phone. If it rings, pick it up." Really? Does this guy think I'm stupid? ...don't answer that.

"I think I can handle that much," I tell him, falling back into Vera's extremely comfortable office chair.

"Alright, well, if you need anything, or manage to set anything on fire, I'll be in the back." I don't really notice his attempt at taking a shot at me and quickly stop him from going back through the door.

"Wait!" I blurt out, and he suspiciously raises an eyebrow in return after spinning back around. "Uh, did you talk to Vera at all?"

"Yeah, but I don't know the full story yet," he explains. What the- what story? "All I know is that she got hurt- again." He sighs again before pushing the door open with his back. "She's always getting hurt."

"Don't you think that's a little, oh, I don't know..." I tightly purse my lips before adding in, "Suspicious?" He furrows his brow at me, then falls further back into the door.

"Vera's been a klutz for as long as I've known her," he lightly admits, chuckling a bit. "Seriously, you have nothing to worry about. Well, okay, maybe you do, but you get my point." He finally steps the rest of his way through the doorway before telling me, "Now, get to work."

"I have nothing to do!" I shout back after he shuts the door.

I let out a deep sigh and recline back in Vera's chair. I wonder what happened, and most importantly, if she's okay.

I mean, Zach talked to her, so she must be okay. Sure, she's hurt in some way, but she's okay. I wonder how she hurt herself. I wonder if she's home now. I wonder if that jerk of a so-called boyfriend is taking the time to help take care of her. I most definitely doubt that one.