Author's Note: New Chapter! YAY! Enjoy it you guys, and thanks for the reviews as always!

Disclaimer: I own nothing

Chapter 9: Like Whoa!

"What's she doing with them?" Portman said seeing Julie approach the school building with Charlie and Adam.

"Dude, really?" Fulton said. "They're not bad guys." Portman growled anxiously. He'd accepted that Fulton was pretty cool, and some of the other guys didn't totally suck either. Dwayne and Luis fully admitted that dorming with Goldberg and Averman was turning out to be fun, and Kenny and Guy Germaine got along pretty well, also roommates, but something about Banks put him off and it was more than just the Julie thing he knew it.

"Cat!" Portman shouted and waved.

"Dean!" She shouted back rolling her eyes visibly. What was that for? Two days ago she would have run over and started shitting around with him. What Tammy Duncan had said was starting to sink in. Was all of this attention that the other guys were giving her going to her head? Was she going to become like all the other stupid shallow girls who only cared about clothes and Seven Minutes in Heaven parties?

"Alright everyone inside," Ms McKay said in her overly perky voice. Everyone filed in, not happy to be leaving the sunshine, once everyone was settled in, Connie ran in, still pulling one of her USA teeshirts over her bikini top. "Nice of you to join us Connie."

"Sorry," Connie mumbled sliding into a seat next to Julie. She looked at her and the scribbled into her notebook and then handed it to Julie, who scrunched her face. Connie nodded and then Julie opened it.

Tammy wants to know if you can talk to Portman for her.

Julie froze. There was more, but she couldn't read it. No! She would not talk to Dean for Tammy. Tammy Duncan who was so obviously a Caitlin level tramp skank in training could not be anywhere near her Dean! Not that he was so much hers, as he was, well, no! He was hers! He'd held her hand when the plane was landing and she could barely breath. He'd made her laugh a hundred times when all she wanted to do was cry. And she was the only person he'd told about home, and she'd kept his secrets because he wanted everyone to think he was some mysterious bad boy, which to be honest, she thought was sort of stupid but she'd still done it.

"Well?" Connie mouthed. Julie sighed and read the rest of the note.

She won't shut up about him. It's kind of getting on my nerves. We could just say you did and he wasn't into it.

Julie smiled. Maybe they could be friends after all. Or if not friends at least coconspirators.

"Julie?" Ms. McKay said, she looked up, "To Kill a Mockingbird? Two long metaphors?"

"Um, the mockingbirds represent innocence and Tom is one and Scout and Jem's childhood is another," She spit out automatically. She'd read the book in school the year before.

"Very good," She smiled. Julie nodded and glanced over seeing Adam's light green eyes sparkling at her. Her stomach did a flip. Jesus, she needed, absolutely needed to talk to Caitlin. This was getting out of hand.

"Are you really the junior coach?" One of the older figure skaters said sitting on the edge of the bench as Sean Gaffney chatted her up. "I didn't see you when I watched the game the other day."

"Yeah," Sean shrugged, "Coach Bombay's trying to keep everything quiet, the sponsors are making us, but I do pretty much everything."

"Wow," She said vacantly. Tammy rolled her eyes hearing the last part of the conversation and tightened the laces on her boot.

"Really?" Tammy looked at them, "You work with Coach Bombay?"

"Sure do," Sean said, wondering why this little girl, who looked about Julie's age was so interested.

"Well, gee," She snorted smartly, "When I talked to The Ducks the other day they didn't say anything about a new coach. Alexa, Walker wanted to see your sow cow." Alexa rolled her eyes at her much younger teammate and hopped onto the ice skating out.

"Who exactly are you little girl?" Sean crossed his arms. That was the first decent girl who had hit puberty that he'd seen all week and some little skate brat scared her off.

"How do you know my friends?" Tammy asked back just as staunch.

"My sister is on Bombay's team," Sean said. Tammy's eyes got big.

"You're Julie's brother?" Tammy said excitedly. Sean nodded, "Oh!" She smoothed her blonde hair into her ponytail. Sean was darn cute all tall and lanky and with those freckles across his nose, and he was older, probably about sixteen. She knew better than to think that a sixteen year old boy would actually be interested in her, but she had just turned thirteen after all and she was just learning how to do this, so it would be good practice. "I'm Tammy, I used to be on the team until I almost got hurt and my skating coach said I couldn't play hockey anymore." Sean couldn't help but laugh at her childish attempt at flirting. She was actually pretty good at it, and maybe, if she were two or three years older he'd play along with her.

"You should get back to practice little girl," He winked at her and stood up walking outside.

"Finally!" He stopped hearing a familiar male voice, "I was afraid I wouldn't ever find any Gaffneys!"

"Eric?" Sean said, eyes big. This was going to be a big problem. "Dude, what the hell are you doing here?"

"I need to find Cait," Eric said simply, "Where is she?"

"Seany!" Caitlin came running, "You need to cover for me to," She froze, "Eric?"

"Caity," Eric walked over and weaved his arms around her waist, "Baby, I'm so sorry about last week." He kissed her. Her green eyes shined up at him.

"Oh Eric," She sighed, "You shouldn't have come here, how much did,"

"Don't worry about the money," He shook his head, "I sold The Cart." Caitlin gasped. The Cart was the nickname that Eric's buddies had given his beloved vintage Thunderbird that he'd spent nearly two years restoring and only drove to parties down by the lake and really important football bonfires.

"Who'd you sell her to?" Sean demanded, "I'll give you twice what he did!" Sean was obsessed with that car, so was Connor, they'd tried to talk Eric into selling it to them a million times.

"Connor Sullivan took her off my hands," Eric explained, "All that mattered to me was seeing Caitlin again." Caitlin laughed awkwardly, and Sean smiled. This was better than TV. Things so rarely went wrong for Caitlin, and this was about as wrong as you could get.

"Hey Julie," Adam said chasing to catch up to her after class. She turned and looked at him. "Um, what are you doing after the game?"

"Same as you," She shrugged, and kept walking now slower with him next to her, "Going back to the dorm and crashing."

"Do you want to um," He said softly, she looked at him, "Want to sneak out and catch a movie or something?" Her heart skipped a beat.

"Yes!" She said, realizing a little too enthusiastically. She took a deep breath, and tried to channel her sister. "I mean, sure, that sounds fun."

"Great," Adam smiled happily. That night Team USA won again. Adam scored twice, Julie watched from the bench, and Portman almost broke a guy's arm during a check. None of them understood quite what was happening.

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