Oh wow. Overwhelming much? Within 3 hours I got 60 reviews. Thanks guys. Was totally surprised at all the story adds right off the bat. I know these first few are going to be a little short, but they should get longer as I get into the flow of this one. This will connect the dots for you all who read the teaser in ATCR. Enjoy. Oh, and you won't be getting as 'speedy' of updates on this one. My mom is having knee surgery tomorrow meaning my time went from immense to tight. But I promise to try to give you at least one update a day, and if I get two chapters written around the same time, I'll post both.

And to clear up ages: Mitchie is 17 -18 in April- Caitlyn is 18, Stas 18, Shane is 20 -almost?- Jason is 20, Nate is 19 -almost 20.

Chapter 2:

I was happy as I bounced in my seat, waiting for Shane to park. "Would you chill?" He laughed.

"I haven't seen Jason in weeks! I've missed him. I talked to him on the phone like, a week and a half ago, and that was it." I began pouting. I was also feeling bad. He was one of my best friends, and had been there for me through all of my problems with Shane. I've always helped Nate when ever I could with Caitlyn -even when I couldn't tell him something, I'd hint to Shane for Shane to tell him. I should have been there to help Jason, too. While Nate was the one who didn't know when to stop acting so indifferent and to show his girlfriend what she meant to him, Jason was the opposite. He wasn't quite as bad as Shane, though I don't think anyone tells their significant other they love them quite as much as Shane told me. He did however make sure Anastasia knew how he felt, and wasn't always as serious and aware as he should have been.

I was surprised that she broke up with him. Seriously, she was the first girl that didn't drool all over him, say 'Awe, your so cute. I think we have the same IQ!' and actually had an IQ above airhead. I liked Anastasia, she'd become one of my best friends. It hurt that she didn't tell me, though. Oh well. I was going to cheer Jason up.

"Jason!" I yelled walking into his apartment. Shane laughed.

"I'm gonna go grab my guitar and head back to your house. Your Dad wants to learn how to play. So, I'm also stealing yours out of your room." He said while heading into his room and coming back. "I'll pick you up later?" He asked. I nodded and kissed him good-bye.

"Jason!" I called again, heading into his room. "Jase?" I asked as I looked around. A shocked gasped escaped my lips. "I… I didn't know you had company…" I said looking anywhere but at the entwined pair on the couch in Jason's bedroom.

"Mitchie-" Jason was quick to say, standing up. "I…" For a split moment, I felt like the girlfriend he was cheating on, though I wasn't and he wasn't cheating. She'd broken up with him.

"Who's that, baby?" The annoying voice of the girl on the couch said. I wanted to gag when she called him baby. No, he wasn't her 'baby'. And the way she said it made it sound disgusting and not intimate and cute like it always had around my friends.

Jason wisely ignored her when I gave him an incredulous look. "Mitchie, I can explain." He pleaded. I pulled him out of his own room and into Shane, closing the door behind us.

"Start explaining, Romeo. Cause I'm having a hard time believing you would be doing what I just saw."

"You don't know the whole story, Stas bro-"

"Broke up with you, I heard. Why didn't you tell me? I didn't believe Shane when he told me." I shook my head. "That's beside the point. How could you do that with that. I thought you were in love with Stas?"

"I am." He sighed dramatically, sitting dejectedly on Shane's bed. "But she… I don't know what I did wrong." He said. "We never fought or anything. I know I'm not the most… all there person in the world, but she knows that. She knows I'm an airhead most of the time. She didn't care until now. I felt like… here I found someone who understands me and isn't in love with my best friends." I looked at him slightly confused and taken aback. Jason didn't… did he?

"Jason, what does that mean?" I asked nervously.

He looked confused. "Oh! No, Mitchie, no. Not what I meant." He said quickly. "I meant, that you and Caitlyn are the only two girls I've ever met that really understand me and don't judge me for it. I mean, maybe if you guys weren't with Shane and Nate, then I might have liked you like that… but you were, and I never did… you guys are like my sisters. You have been since day one." He explained. I smiled.

"Okay. Now, explain to me how, if you love Stas so much, you were in there with the bimbo." I demanded.

"I miss Stas." He said softly. "I never had a problem being the fifth wheel until I wasn't anymore. Then once I knew what it was like to experience everything you guys do, I couldn't bare to watch it. I was hoping I could get over her, that it was just that she was the first girl that I ever liked that much. First girl I ever loved. She's made it pretty clear she doesn't want anything to do with me at this point."

"Well, the only way you're going to get over a girl like Stas is to date another girl like Stas… someone with a brain and who wants to be with Jason, not Jason Bishop of Connect 3." Gesturing to the wall between the two rooms, I said "That, does not have a brain nor does she want to be with my best friend Jason."

"I get it. Can I just clone you and Cait in one person? That'd be like the perfect girl for me." He said laughing lightly. I smiled sadly. The perfect girl for him just broke his heart into a thousand little pieces.

"Alright, go take the trash out, and I will go get supplies for a movie marathon ready, okay?"

"What trash?" He asked confused. "And can that wait, cause I have to go tell Mindy to leave." I smiled trying not to laugh.

"Yeah, Jase. Of course." He left the room and I smiled widely. Good old Jason.

Nate came home about three or four hours later and found Jason and I curled up on the couch together, watching Gone With The Wind. He sat down next to us, having no idea what we were watching, just happy to see Jason out of his room.

"What is this?" He finally asked.

"Gone With The Wind." I answered. "You've never seen it?"

Nate shook his head. "Isn't it like 6 hours long our something?" He asked.

I shook my head laughing. "Nope, only 4, roughly."

"Jason can pay attention that long?" Nate asked me quietly. I laughed and hit him lightly.

"It's one of the greatest love stories of all time." I replied.

"Except for the fact that he doesn't come back in the end and she's crying 'Rhett, Rhett!'" Jason added.

"That just makes it real. Life doesn't always have happy endings. Especially not during the civil war."

"That explains a lot." Nate said as the town was being burnt to the ground.

When Shane came in a while later, we were still watching the movie, except now, I had my head on Jason's shoulder with Nate's head on a pillow in my lap. I think he stood there for a while with the most confused look on his face. "What the hell?" He finally asked.

"What?" We said turning to look at him.

"What, man, we're trying to watch the movie." Nate said impatiently. I smiled, looking down at him. He was really getting into the movie.

"Why is your head in my girlfriend's lap?" Shane asked, still confused.

"Because it's comfy." Jason answered. I stifled a laugh while Shane glared at him.

"I'm going in my room. You enjoy Gone With The Wind." Shane disappeared. It was about 5 minutes later we realized Shane recognized the movie.

"SHANE!" I yelled.

"What?" He came running out of his room seeming alarmed.

"You've seen Gone With The Wind?" I asked smiling innocently.

He glared at me. "It's Mom's favorite movie. I could probably recite it for you." He answered honestly. I awed. See, you're always learning things about your significant others.

"Okay. You can go back to your room now." He glared again as he did so. I chuckled. These were my boys. I had a small glimpse of the future at that moment. I could clearly see them all still being the exact same though older. Shane still being the drama queen he is at heart, Nate still being the indifferent, aloof one, and Jason still being the loveable clueless airhead.

It wasn't until much later, and a new movie, that Shane joined us again. He looked at me with curiosity in his eyes. I was now the one laying. I had my head in Jason's lap and my feet in Nate's. He didn't say anything, he just smiled.

"What are you watching now?" He asked. We all shrugged. "You don't know what you're watching?" We shook our heads no. He started watching as well, though none of us knew what the name of the movie was or really what it was about.

Later, when Shane was driving me home, he kept looking at me weird. "What?" I finally asked.

"I don't know. It just amazes me how at ease you are with my best friends." He admitted.

"Shane, I've known them for over a year. I'd hope I'm comfortable around them. The fact that they've spent enough time with my family to refer to my mother as their mother kinda hints at that." I laughed slightly confused.

"No, I know." He smiled. "I mean, like they aren't my friends that you're friends with, too. You act like you've known them forever. It was weird enough to see Nate laying on you earlier, and then you laying on both of them. And I wasn't jealous. It was like I was seeing you hanging out with your brothers or something." He explained.

"Oh. Well, they are like my brothers. Jason called me his sister today." I smiled. "Of course that was after I walked into his room where he was making out with some bimbo." I said, slightly upset.

"What?" Shane looked at me quickly before turning back to look at the road.

"When I went in his room, he was on his couch… with some skank's tongue down his throat." I growled. I was still very protective of my Jason. More so since he was clearly on the rebound.

"When did that happen? He hasn't left the apartment in two weeks, much less his room."

I shrugged. "I don't know." I muttered, now upset. "I mean, I walked in and like gasped and he's all 'Mitchie… I can explain.' And then I dragged him into your room and then he's all 'I just want to get over Stas' and then I tried to explain to him the only way to do that is with someone with a brain…"

Shane laughed awkwardly. "You sound jealous, Mitch."

"What?" I squeaked. "No. Don't even say that." I warned. "I started freaking out when he said she was the first girl he met that understood him and wasn't in love with his best friends."

"What?" Now Shane sounded jealous.

"Exactly. He said that wasn't what he meant. That if we weren't together from like the very beginning, then maybe he would have ended up liking one of us, but that he never did because he saw us as sisters immediately." Shane was still gripping the steering wheel tightly, despite that he had pulled into the drive way almost a minute ago. "Relax. We just need to either get Stas to make up with him or get him over her, okay? Besides, even if he did have feelings for me or Caitlyn, he'd never make a move. That and I love you. I could never do that to you." I said forcing him to look at me.

He smiled softly at me, but I could still see a hint of doubt in his eyes. "I love you, too." He kissed me before I got out of the car.

I leaned against the front door of my house trying to figure out what just happened. Somehow I just gave my boyfriend reason to doubt our relationship when 10 minutes prior he was amazed at how comfortable I was with his best friends.

I sighed and headed up to my room to work on my schoolwork. Caitlyn was passed out on her bed as I sat at my desk. School was hard for her this year. I knew I wouldn't be able to sleep at this point.

"Hello, Calculus. I hate you, you hate me. Let's see if I can at least understand you." I said quietly to my text book and began my math homework.

Caitlyn found me passed out, face down in Calculus the next morning. She chuckled as I finally looked at her. "You've been saying Calculus would be the death of you, but I never thought you meant literally."

"Don't start, Cait." I whined. It was early on Sunday morning and I hadn't slept much. Surprisingly, I worked on that stupid homework for almost two hours I think, before passing out. That was partly because I didn't really care what the derivative of the stupid function was nor did I know how to find it. But mostly because I couldn't stop thinking.

"What's wrong?" She asked suddenly on alert, sitting next to me at her own desk.

"I just can't shake this feeling that life is changing. Very quickly. And not for the better."

"What happened?" She asked. I dutifully told her everything that had transpired the day before. She seemed a bit perturbed that her boyfriend's head had been in my lap, but let it go.

When I finished I sighed. "I don't have those kinds of feelings for Jason." I said firmly, and it was the truth. "He's like my brother, my best friend. I'm worried about him. I'm protective of him. Unfortunately, I don't have a real brother to use as an example. I'm just worried Shane is going to freak out on Jason."

She shrugged, not knowing what to say. "Well, I woke you up for two reasons. 1 because you looked totally uncomfortable. 2 because I want to go shopping." I chuckled and headed off to take a shower.

I could only hope that everything would blow over and nothing would get out of hand. But who was I kidding? I was dating one and best friends with the other members of Connect 3. Of course my life couldn't be simple.

A week later, a tabloid released a horrifying article. The headline caught Caitlyn attention, of course. "Connect 3 reconnecting?" Curiosity and worry got the better of us and we opened the tabloid, as the cover had an old picture of Jason and me.

"Jason Bishop is single again. Well, possibly. He recently split with his girlfriend of 9 months. While playing the rebound with an unknown, best friend and band mate Shane Grey's girlfriend Mitchie Torres unexpectedly came over. The insider says Torres 'seemed really upset and hurt that I was there. Like he was cheating on her.' She continued to say that Bishop tried to explain to Torres what was happening, and took her into another room to do so. Torres' boyfriend Grey lives with Bishop, making it not too questionable for her to be in the apartment. The better question is why was she there alone, calling out Jason's name? That's exactly what we were wondering."

"Are you freaking serious?" I yelled.

Caitlyn tried to calm me down while we were still in the middle of a crowded New York City street, walking to the guys' apartment. We had taken the train in to surprise them. "Come on, freak out when we get there." She said nudging me along.

I was fuming when we entered the apartment. I pushed past my boyfriend, magazine firmly in my grip. "Nice choice in girlfriends, Jase." I threw the magazine at him. He looked up at me with wide, confused eyes. "Now the whole world is going to think you and I are together and that I'm cheating on Shane."

"What?" Shane asked, taking the magazine from Jason. "How the hell… nice one, Jason." Shane growled before storming off into his room.

"It's not his fault." Caitlyn said sympathetically.

I sighed. "I know. I'm sorry, Jason. I just… Shane… and… ugh. This is going to be a painful week." He smiled slightly at me and I headed into Shane's room.

"You okay?" I asked, leaning against the door frame.

Shane lifted his head off the bed, much like he always did. "Do I look okay? That's going to be a nightmare to deal with. When Nate gets home he's going to go ballistic. I'm surprised we haven't gotten a phone call from Stacy flipping out yet." If you don't remember, Stacy was the boys' press manager.

"She probably doesn't know about it. It caught Cait's attention as the guy was putting it up on the stand. It's a little known magazine." I sat next to him, playing with his hair.

"Mitchie, just… I can't believe I'm asking this and don't get mad… there isn't anything go on between you two, right?" He asked looking at me worriedly.

"No." I said softly looking him directly in the eyes. I leaned down and kissed him. "The only guy I want is currently pouting at me."

He stopped pouting quickly. "This is going to suck." he groaned again.

"How do you think I feel, Shane?" I asked, slightly annoyed. "The world is going to think I'm cheating on you, and I'm a slut, and… ugh. Stupid little, freaking… ugh." He quickly sat up and wrapped his arms around me.

"I'm sorry. I didn't think of how this was going to bother you." He laid his head against my shoulder.

"What?!" Nate screamed from the living room. A moment later, he appeared in the door, looking beyond pissed. "What the hell is this?" He held up the magazine.

"Jason's poor taste in bimbos." Shane replied sarcastically.

"This is going to be a nightmare." Nate sighed. I groaned and walked past Nate into the living room. "What's her problem?" Shane must have given him a look, because it was followed by an "Oh." Nate smiled apologetically at me as I curled up into a ball in the chair.

"Stupid Stas." I mumbled as the tears started falling. Caitlyn sat on the arm chair, stroking my hair as I cried.

Jason seemed to be in his own world, looking serious for once in his life. He had a look of serious concentration and wasn't paying any attention to Shane and Nate whispering to one another while watching me cry. This was worse than anything the magazine's had thrown at us yet.

Signs numbers 10732 and 10733 I need a reality check: I can't sleep because I'm writing this story in my head as I try to and I've stopped imagining half of the characters as the characters and as the actors. Mostly Mitchie/Demi. :)