So, um, hi.

Don't kill me.

I know, I know, it's been AGES since I published. Truth be told, it was just a random thing when I did it and I was not expecting such a rave around it and it's soososososososos late. And I know I'm a bitch for making you wait for so long- eek!

But yeah. It's a pretty long chapter, so hope it makes up for it.

Anyway, I don't own the characters.

Chapter 1

It All Started on Bets

It was 1st of September, 7:30 in the morning, when Daniel Cahill realized he was screwed, and not in the way he usually wanted either. Pardoning the double entrendre; this all started- he would began to speculate when he's staring down in to amber eyes- with a girl.

It was a very nice looking girl, to her defense, and she had big blue eyes and blonde hair- typical. Almost too typical, Dan thought as he shoved her away to the other side of the bed, he preferred his women unique.

The pounding in his head only magnified when she stirred awake, staring upon Dan Cahill and awestruck that it was the Dan Cahill right next to her (and very much naked). She giggled, which was murder to his hangover-induced headache, stroking his arm.

"Did you hear about Sinead Starling's fling with that Holt?" she asked, and he inwardly groaned. What happened last night? She was one of those annoying gossip clones in his school and if he was even remotely sober he would've never looked at her, let alone took her home so he must've been passed out drunk last night. Speaking of which, if he was that drunk, how did he manage to find his way home?

"Well?" The clingy girl demanded.

He made a low sound in his throat that could've been of course I heard about it or get the hell off me. "You better go," he said, not choosing to answer to her mindless questions about idle gossip. "School's starting in…" he glanced at the alarm clock besides her and his eyes widened. "Shit!"

Then as though things couldn't be even worse: "DANIEL CAHILL, GET DOWN THIS INSTANCE OR YOU'LL BE LATE FOR SCHOOL!"

Shit.

The Universe just love proving him wrong, doesn't it?

"Look," he told the girl without looking at her, searching for his boxers or any article of clothing to hide his indecent…um, areas, "Last night was fun but it's not going to happen again." Straightforward and blunt. That was the way to deal with adolescent teen girls like these. Girls who wanted to cuddle and do all those sappy cliché things and mean something.

She stared at her, her wide blue eyes- if possible- grew even wider with shock and anger. "What do you mean not going to happen again?" He winced at the shrillness at her voice and rubbed his ears…Jesus, he must've been really, really drunk to have chosen this girl.

"I don't have time for this, okay?" He was starting to grow angry and he slipped his boxers on, and then hopped out of bed. "We have school and your parents will be freaking out, plus my sister's about to barge in here any second if I don't get down."

"You're just going to make me go?" she shrieked, "Just like that?"

"Just like that."

"Why?" She sound distraught, she really did. But Dan didn't allow himself to feel guilty. "Why would you do that to me?!"

"Because I need an aspirin and my head fucking hurts," he grumbled, "Also because I don't want to land detention on the first day of school…again."

"You're a bastard!" Yeah, yeah, Dan thought, tell it to someone who cares. She shrieked and threw the pillow- his pillow- onto his face. Dan just stood there calmly as she quickly wiggled into her clothes. "You'll regret this." She cried dramatically and Dan felt slightly annoyed. Dan was many things- he was an alcoholic. He was a player. He was heartless as many girls would call him when it comes to the regard of their feelings. Yes…he was many things but it wasn't as though the girls who clamoured around him ever made it hard for him to pick off their halos and break their oh-so-innocent façade.

"Use the window," he said through gritted teeth, avoiding the urge to argue. The sooner he got rid of her, the better. She glared at him but did as she was told and climbed out of the window. She slammed the window shut and began to crawl down the roof of Cahill's Manner, and then she was gone.

Dan heaved a sigh. Finally.

Peace and quiet.

"Dan!" His sister wrapped her fists onto his bedroom door. "Hurry up! I don't want to be late for school because of you-" he heard her mutter: "again."

"I'm coming down! Just let me shower for Christ's sake." He staggered into the shower and washed the stink of alcohol. He got dressed, pulling on a white t-shirt and jeans, and stumbled down the curved stairs of Cahill Manor. He followed the sounds of morning chatter and by the looks of it, his father was there too.

The breakfast room- where everybody except his mother, Hope, was present- was lit with natural light, gracing the surface with reflective sun light and led directly to the kitchen, where his mother was preparing breakfast.

"Morning," he grabbed a granola bar, picked up his discarded school bag by the corner and looked at Amy. "Aren't we going now?"

"Not so fast, young man," chastised his father, Arthur Cahill, "Sit down and have breakfast with your family."

Dan bristled. "But mom isn't even here-"

"Morning, Dan," said Mrs Cahill, radiant as ever as she entered from the kitchen double doors. Plates of stacks of pancakes, jugs of orange juice, a loaf of toast and six or seven sausages and eggs were crowded in her arms. "Your hair is still wet," she frowned and reached out to ruffle her son's head, which he in turn ducked out of the way to avoid her smothering.

"How many dishes are you planning on making?"

"Two or three- first day of school and I want you two to be fed well. Besides, Dan, it's a rare occasion you see me embracing my domesticity. You should enjoy it while you can."

Dan smiled cheekily. "It's your morning to waste." He glanced at the clock hanging on the kitchen wall, "And I hate to admit it, but Amy's right. We're going to be late for school if we don't get out now."

"Oh, all right and be-"

He slammed the door before his mother could finish.

"Wait up," huffed Amy, carrying a stack of books along with her, "Dan. Jesus, aren't you so willing to get to school?"

Dan straightened up and casually waited for his sister to tie up the laces of her converse, "I'm not. I just wanna get out of the house."

Amy perceived her brother with sad eyes and sighed. "You can't hate him forever."

"I don't hate Dad," said Dan casually, heading to Amy's small yellow Madza. Then he subtly changed the subject, he asked: "Can I drive today?"

"First of all, don't deny your adolescent hatred to Dad, which is understandable but very stupid. And second, no, because I don't want to die before the school year starts."

"I won't crash it!"

"That's not what happened last time."

"But-"

She rolled her eyes. "Just get in the car, Dan."

Amy loved first days of school. There was something indistinct and contemplative about it- an underappreciated beauty of the exhilaration, the excitement, the tearful reunions upon friends, and the coming togetherness of cliques and friendships that ran amuck the school's social scenes. It was also a day of beginnings, not ends, and Amy loved beginnings.

She parked her car into the space besides a truck and a teacher's Toyota and Dan, her dear brother being her dear brother, jumped out of it at first chance when she switched off her brother's playlist of Pierce the Veil songs. "Wait!" She yelled, stopping him from sliding out, "I'll have Book Club this afternoon. How are you going to get home?"

He shrugged. "Ham will pick me up. See ya," and then he was gone.

Sighing, she smiled at the mirror of her car, which was different from the usual grimace she gave herself when she stared upon her reflection. Her brown-ish, carroty red hair was plaited behind her small ears and her green eyes gazed back at each other. She smiled brightly, reeking of her unusual optimism. Yep, she has a good feeling about today's first day.

Attleboro High School had two new students that day. They were a brother and a sister, they were eighteen and sixteen and they were British, they couldn't have been more British-like if Dan had to say so himself. It was the girl who caught his attention, as all pretty girls in a skirt would. She had dark hair, copper skin and eyes like gold and Dan was pouring whip cream into the girl's locker room when they first met.

It started with a tradition.

At the commencement of the school year, when everything was in a high buzz and everyone was like "Oh MAI GOSH, I MISSED YOU SO MUCH!" (cue ear-splitting shrieks and squeals), Dan and his friends like to start things off with a bang.

"Annual Start-of-the-Year Prank!" announced Hamilton Holt, Dan's best friend, "What is it going to be this year?"

"Flood the-" began Ted Starling.

"-teacher's lounge?" offered Ned Starling.

"We did that last year," said Dan, dismissing with a wave of his hand. "And I got suspended for two weeks. But it was worth it; however, I want to do something else this year."

Hamilton's devious grin appeared. "I have whip cream in my bag."

"Empty classrooms?" asked Ted.

"Or teacher's lounge?" inquired Ned.

"Neither," Dan grinned evilly. "Girl's locker room."

Thus was Dan not present during English's first period (Mr Kitbags snored all day and gave the kids packets, anyways, so Dan was not worried that he would be sorely missed) and snuck into the girl's changing room while the freshmen were playing volleyball in the gym with eight cans of whip cream.

Ned and Ted covered the right and left, while Hamilton sprayed it over the floors and benches and Dan broke into the lockers to filled the insides and the girls' clothes with sticky cream when the young girl had stumble in, cursing.

"Bollocks," she swore, noticing the blue steel lockers. "Bollocks, Bollocks, Bollocks. Where is the bloody classroom?"

It only occurred to the young girl that four males were in the female's changing room and when she noticed them, she scowled particularly at Dan. "Isn't this the girl's loo?"

Dan Cahill had realized he was, indeed, busted so he attempted to flirt his way out of trouble (and failed ultimately). "Hello there," he graced her with a charming smile and her scowl considerably widened. "You seemed lost. How about I show you around?"

Normally, girls would've blushed and started stuttering like his sister used to and accepted his offer but she just gave him a cold, dead glare. "I don't accept offers from peasants," she sniffed disdainfully. "And you didn't answer my question, what are you doing in the female's loo?"

It must've been the first time Dan was truly speechless in the presence of a pretty girl.

She's British, thought Dan suddenly. Think, Dan. Dammit.

"Well, I lost my jacket."

"You lost your jumper in the female's changing room?"

"Yes."

"And you need five other blokes to help you find it."

"That's right."

"Why do you have that fattening cream poured all over the place then?"

"Well," spoke up Hamilton, saving his ass. "It's because it's to help us marked the places we had looked already, you know, like Hansel and Gretel."

"Must be one hell of a jacket."

He laughed nervously, hoping she thought it was cute. "Well," he winked, "It's my favourite."

She stared at them with her dangerous amber eyes. Her long dark hair fell in thick set of waves, styled to a perfection that will make the popular girls go green with envy, and her face was lined with perfectly applied makeup. Her legs were long, broadcast in a silk Hermes shift dress and finished with a pair of nude pumps, making her almost as tall as him.

She started to leave, muttering, "Americans are bloody strange," as she shut the door behind her.

Once she had left, Hamilton sighed a breath of relief.

"A jacket, Dan, really?"

"Hansel and Gretel, Hamilton. Really?"

People had often said to appreciate certain things, you just simply needed time. Poetic notions like, "First Impressions are usual misguided" or something trivial and silly such as, "It gets better later on."

Well, Natalie can safely tell those people it was all bollocks.

Bollocks. Bollocks. Bollocks.

Fucking bollocks.

Pardon the lack of courteous language, but she so needed to vent right now.

First impressions might not matter the most but when you walk into the room, it's often people had already decided whether they like you or not and 'it's get better later on' was a euphemism for everything shitty in the world.

No, not even time and wise annoying philosophies were going to help ease her perpetual irritation of her incarceration to America. Even shopping had lost its appeal and ability to make her feel better.

She was drowning in an abyss of bad accents and fattening junk food.

It was a matter of sanity before she committed suicide.

The Kabras' Cooperation was accused and, apparently, found guilty for stealing and embezzling a few hundred billion pounds from art dealing and governmental agencies but Natalie refused to believe it. That's not a possibility her poor mother, Isabel Kabra, would do such acts and was now wrongly suffering in horrible prison clothes.

And that wasn't the worst part.

The authorities had not much of an idea to do with them considering they were too old for foster systems so for an alternative, they were sentenced to live in, God forbid, America with their Aunt Irina, who was tone deaf to her opinions on her nefariously uncombed hair and neutral coloured suits that looked suspiciously like prison uniforms.

When she first heard of America from Ian, she was sincerely hoping Aunt Irina lived somewhere as fabulous as perhaps New York or Beverly Hills, but no. Aunt Irina had to live at a vaguely shitty town, reminiscent of a cringe-inducing and cliche American teen movie, right in the Middle-of-USA-Nowhere Town. She was still not convinced that moving to in the middle Massachusetts was going to be the rainbow-filled adventure her brother promised it'd be, and funnily enough, even she knew Ian was not convinced by his own promises.

Irina didn't try to bullshit her with the situation, which was brilliant and the only thing Natalie liked about the stony woman- at least, Irina was not doing the bollock-y thing by lying and covering the bollock-ness of her recent predicament with a fat dose of sweetness and smothering.

Ian chose the wise lane of not bringing up the fact that their parents were looking for twenty five years in prison and failed at distracting her with the focus of a new school and a start over when she was perfectly fine with the life she had in Britain. Maybe things would be alright; her parents' lawyers would win the battles and the Kabras would go back to their lives, climbing up the list on Forbes magazine.

Even she knew that she was grasping at the straws here. There was no way things could ever go back the way they ever were.

But yes, things were remarkably bad.

So remarkably bad that the words on her schedule in front of her escaped her attention and the bell had already rang twice which meant she was passed the usual barricade of articulation (it wasn't her fault the hot iron curler wasn't working this morning and she had made the servant went to the store to get her a new one), and she was still very much lost.

She just walked out of the girl's locker room, shaking her head at the antics of silly Americans. Honestly, does anyone have a sense of maturity in this godforsaken country? She journeyed down the stairs, her four inches Gucci heels clattering on the white, polished tiles, trying to decipher her schedule. Who knew classrooms in America can be so hard to understand?

Scowling, she made her way down the entire corridor and frowned…

…Bugger.

She'd already been down this corridor twice.

Natalie managed to find her way to one of her classes, and shockingly, on time. She strode into the room, her heels rattling the floor, demanding for everyone to look at her as she moved. Some of the girls sneered at her Hermes dress and Gucci shoes, her perfectly well-groomed appearance as compared to their shabby Hollister jeans and five dollars t-shirt bought by their mothers at Target. She shot them an intimidating look, basically telling them to piss off, before turning to the teacher and raised her neck. The teacher seemed flustered in her presence, as she should. "Class," the teacher's voice rang with authority, "Meet a new student: Natalie Kabra."

She heard some snicker at her name and her eyes found the intruder. It was the boy from the bathroom, with straw blond hair and jade green eyes. "Would you like to share something with the class, Dan?"

Dan- the boy who she assumed he was called- smirked, "No, Mrs Perry."

She knew what kind of boy he was immediately. The type who was a notorious troublemaker, a puppet master of girls' hearts and the sort of bloke every girl fell for and ended heartbroken. She hid a disparaging sound she made at the back of her throat. Typical.

"Natalie, you can take a seat besides Sophie."

Her eyes wandered over to the girl Mrs Perry had indicated 'Sophie' was. Sophie had her blonde hair in similar waves; her outfit wasn't too bad (a floral blouse and a slim white skirt paired with wedges) and big blue eyes of a typical All-American beauty.

She did as she was told, crinkling her nose at the filthy common seat, and reluctantly sat on it. The lesson dragged on with Mrs Perry marching up and down, her chalk screeching across the blackboard and she started to notice how she was starting to find everything meaningless, especially her education. All she could think was her mother and her father, stuck in prison. It was unfair; she was stuck here and she knew that they weren't having much fun in prison but she couldn't help the resentment grow in her chest as she sat there, bored out of her mind.

When the class had ended, it was lunch. Natalie hoisted her purse and as she was about to leave, Sophie intervened: "Do you need help to find your way to the cafeteria?"

Sophie Watson was the most popular girl in the grade. She was a cheerleader, she was pretty and she had a group of brainwashed to be her slavery-induced friends or clones by the almost gagging amount of blondes she had behind her and she wasn't being derogatory to blondes- she was just in a very, very bad mood. "Yes, that would be sufficed," agreed Natalie, surrendering to the whims of undeserving isolation. She was here now; she had no choice and she might as well make some friends while she was here, even if it was some stupid blonde American cow.

What a shit week. Shit month. Shit year.

"So," Sophie flipped her hair as they walked out the door. "You're from England, right?"

No, really, I didn't noticed, Natalie felt like snapping sarcastically, but instead faked a smile and swallowed down the venomous words. Instead, she replied, with less than her usual venom: "Yes, I am."

"But you're here in America and I'm going to tell you some things that will be words of your Gospel if you're going to survive the next four years. Now, you're a Grade A hottie and you're new so you don't know how things work around here. I'm Sophie, this is Kristen-" she gestured to another blonde with annoyingly perfect skin and blinding pearly whites. "-and Emma-" another white-blonde girl with what she was utterly sure had a boob job,"-and the rest are unimportant. If you want to be friends with us, you must date only to the reserving categories of the football team."

"Dan Cahill looks cute today," giggled Emma, looking at the straw-blond, green-eyed devil she had seen at the girls' locker room walked over to his friends and gave them whooping high fives.

"No, Ems! Dan's an asshole," screeched Sophie, eyes burning, "He slept, like, with half of the school already."

"Just because he dumped your sister Amber after she gave him her V card does not mean-"

"Oh please, they're all the same," scoffed Sophie. Natalie was momentarily lost on the banter but was caught on when Sophia touched her arm and she flinched slightly at the scarcest sense of physical contact. She attempted to wring herself out of her grip, but Sophie's fingers were iron-clad. "Natalie, honey, you know who that is?"

"I met him in the girls' bathroom," added Natalie, finally able to get her hand off Sophia's clutches.

"What was he doing in the girls' bathroom?" asked Kristen.

"It's Dan Cahill," said Sophie venomously, "Why isn't he in the girls' bathroom screwing some bimbo?"

"He had, um, that horrid American creamy gunk cans and…um…" explained Natalie, uncharacteristically ineloquent, "he was with his friends and they were spraying it all over the lockers."

Sophie rolled her eyes, placing one hand saucily on her hips. "Figures. Anyway, that is Dan Cahill. The number one Playboy in the entire school and most notorious troublemaker I ever laid my eyes on."

Kirsten laughed, "Oh remember when he hanged all of the underclassmen underwear on the Assembly Hall roof?"

"That wasn't funny, Kris-"

"It was to him."

"Of course it was," muttered Sophie darkly. They entered the cafeteria and Sophie whirled to face Natalie, her blonde ringlets almost slapping Natalie in the face: "It's easier said than done, Natalie, but the main rule is: follow our rules, you'll be popular like us and your life here in America will be all green light. You'll never have anything to worry about ever again."

After the prank, Dan and his group had managed to slip into History and suffered through one and a half hour of pure utter hell. Dan shook his head as he walked into the cafeteria; he swore school was a disguise for prison with teachers as wardens.

The cafeteria was alive with activities. It was loud with chatter and it grew louder with laughter, rebounding against the white walls. Dan had paid for his lunch and headed over to where he usually sit, which was already obviously the most rowdy table in the room.

Girls whispered and giggled as he walked past and Hamilton waved like a mad man, "Dan, over here!"

Dan grinned simply and rushed over to join him. "Did you see the face on Sinead Starling when she opened her gym locker and noticed all her clothes was soaked in whip cream?" guffawed Hamilton when he sat down and the Starling twins joined him, heard what he said.

"That would've been hilarious-" started Ned, or was it Ted?

"-if you didn't live with her," finished Ted. "God, she's going to-"

"-kill us," narrated Ned. "She'll skin us alive."

Dan rolled his eyes. "See, this is why I'm glad I have Amy as a sister. The most damage she had ever done is when she accidentally threw her Pride and Prejudice book into the swimming pool." His eyes glazed over the turn of the conversation amongst his friends when they've launched into a series of discussion about who got the worst siblings and Dan noticed the female equivalent of his group walked into the cafeteria, a new addition in tow.

She was pretty- actually, she was kind of hot. Dark hair, dangerous amber eyes, long legs and cocoa skin, she strode behind Sophie in her dress and made eyes followed her wherever she go. She went over to the cafeteria counter to buy lunch, leaving Sophie and her cronies over to their lunch table with a promise she'd be back.

"Did you see the new girl?" asked Dan, breaking grounds on all conversation. "She was in the locker room with us. Definitely saw some interest there."

"Really, Dan?" Hamilton shook her head. "Seems like the charm didn't work. She was giving us the third degree."

"The charm always works, no girl can resist moi," he insisted, putting his hands behind his head. "Just watch."

He stood from my chair and walked up towards her, then tapped her on the shoulder and she turned around with an annoyed expression on her face, with her arms crossed her and her golden eyes narrowed. "Can I help you?"

He flashed her one of his signature smirks. "Remember me?"

She looked at him up and down, confusion scrunched over her eyebrows as they knitted together, "Should I?"

"Well, I'm Dan Cahill," he held up his hand for her to shake, "The boy at the locker room."

"Oh right," she stared at his hand as if it was some filthy rat found at the bottom of the sewer and straightened up, giving him a glare with those cold eyes. "Well, what is it do you want?"

Unwilling to back down from her intense stare, he stepped closer towards her and placed a hand on hers, sliding it up her shoulder. "Well, what I want is thoroughly simple- your number and a yes to dinner this Saturday."

He was waiting for her cheeks to turn red and her to start fumbling a yes, or a speechless nod. It was Dan Cahill walking up to a girl and asking you out…in person! But what Dan didn't know was Natalie Kabra was unlike any other girl he had ever met. Instead, she raised an eyebrow and said something he'd never anticipated: "Thank you, but no."

…What?

"Excuse me?"

"I said no."

He grinned at her, trying desperately to rectify the results of the situation: "Are you sure? I mean, it's a date with me, Dan Cahill, is usually quite-"

"I've told you," she snapped, getting annoyed. "I'm hardly or even remotely interested in what you Americans seemed so obsessed over, what you call a 'date' and I'll never be interested in submitting into your pathetic, man-whoring whims. So please walk away and leave me alone before God forbids, I'll sue!"

And then, with final words to the defeated boy, she marched away from with her nose in the air.

Angrily, Dan Cahill stomped back to his table where his friends was dying of laughter, clutching their stomachs and slapping the table.

"So," said Hamilton, through his chuckles, "That went well."

"Shut up," Dan grumbled, as he glared at the rest of them. "Don't worry guys. Just the start, I'll have her begging for a date pretty soon."

"You sure, Dan?" teased Ned. "Seems like she's-"

"-not really interested," finished Ted.

"Oh please, bullshit," dismissed Dan, with a cocky grin, "I bet I can get her in a month."

"Oh really?" Hamilton stretched and shook his head at his best friend, "Is that a challenge I hear?"

Dan Cahill never backed out of a challenge, especially not this one. "You bet."

"Fine," smirked Hamilton, and proposed a preposition that would set the course of the entire story's future: "If you get Natalie Kabra in one month, I'll buy you a new car- and a good one. If you don't, you're buying me a new car."

"Deal."

"Deal, huh?" Hamilton held up his hand and Dan shook it. "Alright, then. One month, that's all you get."

Dan rolled his eyes. "Easy."

Oh, if only.

So um whatcha thinking? Good, bad, love it, hate it? Tell me in the reviews!

So you noticed my Pierce the Veil mention? Yep, I love me my bands! I've always considered Dan a Green Day/Blink-182/Pierce the Veil/Sleeping With Sirens/All Time Low/A Day To Remember/Bring Me The Horizon kinda guy; certainly, Nellie's a fan of post-hardcore, but is it bad I see Dan listening to all these bands as well? And I simply imagine Amy more of a Daughter kind of person, possibly even the Neighbourhood or One Republic.

Anyway, please review!

Reviews are like Kellin Quinn. Wink, wink.

-Electra