Sorry I didn't post this last week, but I should have said that I was taking a break xD and also sorry for posting this a day late now… anyway, on with the story.

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Part 3 - Nostalgia

It was amazing how many things I'd missed when I was gone. I almost didn't expect it to be that much at all… and there were even some fun times at the mansion

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Chapter 9 – Common Ground

I had been sitting up in my bed for about half an hour before I decided that I wanted to go out for the day. And the weather had cleared up for it as well.

Right then, I had no idea if Bridgette and Leshawna were up, or if one of them had left to do something. So I grabbed my black sweater from the floor and quickly put it on before throwing the blankets to the side. I could still feel the feelings from yesterday's news hanging over me, but I still hauled myself out of bed and made it out to the hallway. I was surprised to see both doors open, but not hear any noise coming out of either.

"You guys… still there?" I called out as I shuffled into the living area, but it fell on deaf ears… or no ears, really.

I wasn't sure what to do next, until I saw a note on the circular dining table. I picked it up and read it over a couple of times. Leshawna was out seeing a friend, and Bridgette had work until half past one. Meaning that I pretty much had no one to go with, which was great.

I decided to just get on with the morning first, and had a quick shower. Afterwards I pulled out the cut-off sleeves that I got the other day – short blue ones, which I presumed were off a t-shirt, and long dark green ones. I dug around some more and grabbed a strappy black waistcoat-type top, which I bought with Izzy and Zoey. I tried them on together, and went into the bathroom to look – they matched quite well, especially with my hair, and probably would be even better when I put on my new lipstick.

A few minutes later, I was standing in Bridgette's room, looking at myself in her full-length mirror. I had also chosen the black skirt with sewed-on pockets, as well as some dark grey leggings, and black knee-length boots. I went to put on my make-up, including the lipstick, and came back to the mirror again. I looked good.

There was suddenly a loud knock on the door, and I ran out to answer it – either Leshawna could have forgotten something, or Geoff could be looking for Bridgette. Funnily enough, it was neither of them. Duncan was back.

"What is it this time?" I asked as I held onto the door handle.

Duncan didn't say anything for a minute or two, and seemed to be just staring into space again. But once a smirk slowly started to grow on his face, it only took me a few seconds to realize that he was checking me out.

"Not bad." He said, raising an eyebrow. "When did you get that stuff?"

"Uh…" I could feel my cheeks going red at that point. "Got most of it a few days ago. It was when I got this done as well." I pulled at a couple of strands of my hair. "Is that why you came here?"

"No, I… kinda heard about what happened yesterday, and I guess I'm… just checking to see if you're okay." Duncan looked away and stuffed a hand in his pocket.

I felt my heart racing slightly, and quickly exhaled. It had gotten awkward pretty fast.

"Okay… thanks. I guess I'm… going to have breakfast now." I slowly stepped backwards before turning around and heading to the kitchen.

"Oh, that was the other thing. You got any more butter left?"

I stopped and looked back at Duncan, who had stepped inside.

"Butter?" I repeated.

"Geoff said there was another block in the fridge, but nope." He shrugged and rolled his eyes.

I turned to the fridge and pulled it open, scanning the shelves for butter. Nothing. I closed the fridge and went to the cupboard. Nothing in the butter tray.

"No butter." I said, shutting the cupboard.

"Darn it, I'm not taking a bus down to the supermarket just for butter."

"What, you don't have anything else to get?"

"Nope, not really."

I stared at the list on the fridge for a few minutes – on it already were tissues and sandwich bread.

"Well we need a couple of things as well as butter, so I… guess it shouldn't be that useless." I was doing a great job in that situation. "I need something to distract myself anyway." And that was supposed to be said in my head.

"What do you mean?"

I turned back around and momentarily forgot what I was meant to say.

"Uh… I was… I- um…" I was really stumbling on my words. But Duncan seemed to be patient, and just stood there as I found what to say. "I was going to go out somewhere, and since Leshawna and Bridgette both aren't here-"

"I can come."

I stopped and looked ahead blankly, wondering if I was deaf. Or my mind was really muddled up and confused. Either way, I didn't really like it. But I knew I had to answer. And I wasn't really that keen on… whatever would happen. But of course I blurted out the wrong thing anyway.

"Where to though?"

Duncan shrugged again. "I dunno, I was thinking going to where I lived for about eighteen years."

"Oh yeah? Where's that?"

"Just on the edge of Pasadena."

Pasadena? Pasadena?

"You grew up in Pasadena too?" My words were coming back, and I was feeling a little bit more relaxed.

"Hold on, what?" Duncan looked as surprised as I probably did.

"Um… let's just… go and wait for the next bus to Pasadena." I still felt a bit like I didn't want to do this. But because of my big mouth, I had no choice.

"Pfft, stuff the bus. I've got a car."

"You what?" I went to say more, but Duncan had already left the room. I decided that all I could do was follow him out. So I quickly grabbed my bag and my swipe card, shutting the door as I came out. I ran through the open laundry and around to the elevators, just as Duncan had pressed the down button. "Where do you park it then?" I asked him as we waited.

"You know there's a parking lot behind the apartment block, right?"

"Er… yeah, no I didn't know."

"Well that's where it is."

The far left elevator finally dinged, after at least a minute. I kept quiet as it went down, and because of that, I presumed Duncan didn't decide to say anything as well. I just thought about the weirdness of the situation. Twenty minutes ago, I hadn't even considered going back to my old hometown with someone I didn't really know that well. But I ended up doing exactly that.

From the lift to the parking lot, I tried to unjumble my mind and think about happier things. I was going to Pasadena, for example. And it'd been a whole eight months since I'd left. I started to remember what I'd always do there with all my old friends. Mini golf, weekly visits to the cinemas (and not just to watch movies), barbeques at the playground next door to my house – I just wanted to go back there and do it all again.

But I hadn't realized that I was now standing smack bang in the middle of the parking lot. That was until a hand waved in front of my face a few times.

"Hey, earth to Gwen."

And all of a sudden, the awkwardness just… dropped right off like a pack of bricks. I found myself laughing and swatting Duncan's hand away.

"Alright, I'm coming!" I said as I turned around to get into the car – it was a blue Ford Fiesta that was apparently a few years old. "Next stop, Pasadena."

The ride was loud and went past way too quickly. But I got a chance to recollect on a lot of the things that could be done in Pasadena, and found that Duncan had enjoyed almost the same things when he was younger. I felt relieved to know that I wasn't on an outing with an almost-stranger, and it would have been even worse if we had both stayed quiet for the whole drive.

Once I saw the familiar streets that I used to walk so often, I was almost starting to feel a bit tearful – I was home at last, after a really long eight months. And it only got better as Duncan pulled into a park on East Colorado Boulevard, right outside Blaze Pizza.

"Went here once ten years ago and have gotten pizza from these guys ever since." He said, looking ahead at the restaurant.

I looked at it for myself, and couldn't recognise it easily, but I knew I had been to a very similar place in my younger years.

"Well I'm hungry." I said, opening the door and leaping out. "Where's the outside menu?"

For a day that had started off very awkwardly, I didn't even have any idea that it would all clear up and become a lot better. Before I knew it, I was talking to Duncan like he was an old friend. We shared countless stories, mostly hilarious ones, including a few pranks. The conversation went all through lunch, which was delicious, and were still talking once we'd left the restaurant and headed off to the mini golf course.

"So then I left the fart bomb taped to the bottom of his chair, and the dweeb was still writing when the rest of the class left to go to the library. Then it went off, and I think he passed out!" Duncan finished off another prank story, which was just as hilarious as the last.

"What next, did they have to get a whole fumigation squad to drag him out?" I asked, trying to hold in my laughter until the very end.

"I dunno what happened there, but half the school knew about it within four days!"

"Four days?" That was when I decided to throw my head back and laugh. "How did it spread around that quick? Bunch of gossipy bitches went to your school?"

"Actually, yeah, there was. A whole truckload of sophomores and juniors. Nerd didn't show up to class for a whole week or something though. Served him right."

"So you said it was payback… what for?"

"Oh…" Duncan's expression turned slightly grim as he stopped at a set of traffic lights, like he almost regretted whatever had happened. "Well, it was for him rigging the votes so that Courtney wouldn't get class president."

"Courtney… wait, what?" I jolted a bit in fright at the mention of her name – why, I had no idea. "You were at the same school then?"

"Yep. Same middle school, same high school, almost the same college… until that must have happened."

My mind went blank for a few seconds. "What's that?" I asked, shifting around in my seat.

"When she joined… that Playboy place. On the day that we broke up, she told me that I was going to live a life on the streets if I didn't get all this sorted out." Duncan pointed to his mohawk, and then his piercings. "And then she stoops that low." The traffic lights went green, and we were off again.

"Oh. Well I can say that she badly wants out of the top girlfriend position, and out of the mansion itself, too. We weren't told that it was going to be a Playboy mansion until a few weeks in. We got told that it would be a Bachelor type thing."

"Eh… it's not like I would go running back to her if she left that place. The last thing I wanna do is get back into a relationship with Little Miss Uptight."

"Well yeah, she probably does have a twenty metre pole up her ass." I snickered.

"Pole up her ass, you say?" Duncan laughed as he turned a corner, and headed towards the mini golf park near the end of the street. "Don't think I've heard that one yet."

"You have now." I sighed and looked ahead, even more memories coming back to me as we neared closer to the park – one which stood out quite prominently. "I remember one time I was here with my cousin, I think we were both about ten, and there was a boys versus girls' competition going on. So Rochelle and I signed up for it as a pair."

"Oh, I remember that. Geoff and I lost big-time to the girls. They were good."

"Funny you say that, because we kicked the asses of the guys we were against." I furrowed my brow as I stared up in thought. "Was it you?"

"For what? Oh… wait…"

And then for the first time in a couple of hours, I locked eyes with Duncan. Not that it was awkward or anything – I was just trying to see if I could recall him from ten years ago.

"Well it's hard to try and remember, since you've got green hair and stuff." I sat back and shrugged. "Let's just go and play. We can save the thinking for later."

Once Duncan had found a park, we were out and racing to the starting point. I felt like a kid again, with the light wind rushing through my hair, and my feet pounding on the pavement as I ran. And somehow, I found myself at the rental booth first. I turned around to see that Duncan wasn't that far behind me at all, and had just stopped.

"So what's the prize then? First go in all the holes?" I asked, crossing my arms and smirking. "One point advantage?

Letting out a breath, Duncan stood up and smirked back at me. "I never said anything about a prize." He said with an obvious amount of sarcasm.

"Oh, shut up, you did so."

"Alright, fine, you go first."

At least ten minutes later, we were eight holes in, and it had been pretty loud, with lots of mini bets on who would get the next hole the quickest. And I was barely in the lead.

"Oh, come on!" Duncan complained as I scored a third hole-in-one.

"What, you don't wanna lose to a girl?" I taunted as I went over to pick up my ball.

"Well- uh… no, of course not!"

I could tell that he was probably lying, but I didn't say anything.

Another few minutes, and we were at the fourteenth hole, which had a pond in the middle. There was a sign at the beginning to say that if the ball got in the pond, the player would have to hit off from where they started. I went first, and just missed the pond, but didn't get it close enough to the hole.

"Pfft, nice." Duncan chortled, obviously thinking he could do better. "Watch how I used to nail this hole back in the day."

I stepped back and waited for him to hit his ball. It went straight over the pond, and looked like it was about to land straight in the hole… but instead it bounced off the concrete edging, flew backwards for a foot or two and into the pond.

"And you were saying?" I said, trying to stop myself from laughing as Duncan stared at the pond in disbelief.

"Eh, I'll get it next time." He said shortly, going over to pick up the ball. "Your go."

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Well there we go, I guess. Next chapter should (hopefully) be up by next Thursday/Friday, so stay tuned!