None of the Characters in this story belong to me they were created by Brenda Hampton. I do own Joseph though.

Nora's PoV

I swear before the heaven if it wasn't one thing with Ricky then it was another. Somehow, I'd known that he'd gotten permission from Joseph because he knew that I would say no. Ricky knew that I did not want him staying at any girl's house because I knew what he was doing. He also knew that I did not like Adrian. There was something about her that seemed sneaky and tricky and I didn't trust her around my son or my daughter. When she came around, I tried to stay away from her because I didn't want to hurt her feelings. Adrian was not right for my son and she was not right for Grace either. Adrian liked to talk about sex around Grace and I hoped that Grace wouldn't get curious enough to try it. As far as I knew Grace still had her virginity and she was going to wait at least until she found the right person. That's the type of girl she was and I was proud to call her my daughter. She had so much respect for herself. I'd wished I was like that when I was her age.

I looked at my watch while I sat in the living room. I had put off going to the mall because I wasn't really in the mood to shop anymore. My eyes burned a hole through the front door as I waited for Ricky to arrive home from school. I never really got onto Ricky much, but when it came to him doing something like this, I laid into him. The sound of the kitchen door opening and shutting quietly let me know that Ricky was here and he knew he was in trouble. I left my spot on the couch and caught the back of his foot catching up with his body as he shot up the stairs. Nice try, I thought as I leisurely followed behind him. I heard footsteps behind me and turned to see Grace texting. She glared up at me before exploding into her room and shutting her door. It closed with a bang.

I found myself looking at Ricky's door calming myself because I didn't want to argue too much. I knocked on the door and he opened it with a smile. Rolling my eyes, I pushed him aside and stepped into his room.

"Hi ma," he said walking towards me and kissing me on the cheek.

"Cut the crap Ricky you know why I'm in here. Which one of my rules did I specifically ask you not to go against?" I said folding my arms. The guilt flooded his face and he looked down. I gave him a moment because I knew that I wouldn't have to ask him again. He usually answered me the first time because he knew that I didn't like to ask twice.

"No sleepovers with girlfriends," He said mumbling. He always mumbled when he knew he was guilty of something.

"What rule did you break?" I asked. He looked up and shrugged. I looked pointedly at him. He purposefully chose to act dumb. I lifted my eyebrows at him and he sighed.

"I slept at Adrian's last night, but nothing happened," He said quickly. As if I really believed that, both he and Adrian were too touchy feely for nothing to happen.

"Ricky I have these rules because I don't want you to end up like me. I don't want you to have a baby while you're getting your education. You know that and I don't want you to get any STD. Come on Ricky, you even told me that Adrian sleeps with other guys, do you know how dangerous that is?" I said barely keeping my voice at a decent level. I was trying to work on my attitude because Joseph had told me that Ricky was never going to listen to me if I always yelled at him.

"We use protection, all the time," He said in a matter of fact tone. I rolled my eyes at him and chuckled lightly. For someone so smart he was pretty naïve. I had taught him better than that, at least I hoped I did.

"Babies and diseases don't care about protection. I used protection too and look what happened, I had a baby in high school. It's true that I love you, but do you think it's fun to raise a baby while all your friends are out having fun every night?" He plopped down on his bed and I sat beside him. I looked at him, pleading for him not to make the same mistake that I did in high school.

"No, I know it's not fun, but I'm not going to have a baby, I know what I'm doing, and I know what you're saying. If I get in that situation I'll fix it," He was obviously still not getting the point. I didn't want him to have to get in that situation period.

"You're not ignorant so please stop acting like it. Do. Not. Stay the night. At Adrian's. Period. Do you understand me?" I said while getting up. He looked at me and rolled his eyes and I smirked at him. I could see that he silently understood. He nodded his head slowly. "Now you're getting it cutie," I smiled and shut the door. Now I had to deal with my husband because he wasn't getting off that ease. This morning he'd avoided me by going to his office in the guest house. He may as well get it over with. I don't know why people tried to get away from me.

Amy's PoV

We arrived at the new house a little after 10 o'clock the next day. I have to admit the house is gorgeous. Though I did think, it was going to be a little bigger because, well, we were in California. The neighborhood seemed peaceful and coming into the town, I noticed that it wasn't really that small. My mother had taken Ashley and me by her potential new place of work. She seemed excited about it because it was an architectural firm. She'd been interested in architecture since before I was born. Choosing to be a housewife instead, she was forced to put off her dream. Now that she had no choice but to work now, she would get her chance.

Ashley and I had talked my mom into letting us stay at home from school for the first couple of days, but she wasn't having it Friday. I didn't want to stay at home with her anyway, not in the mood she was in. Most of our stuff had been unpacked and the rest of the boxes we had were really nothing but old junk that dad had saved. Instead of throwing it out though, we put it in the garage for safekeeping. We weren't quite ready to throw dad's things away yet. His possessions had too many sentimental values to us.

Ashley and I had arrived at school a few minutes before the first bell rang because we had to pick up our schedules. Hers had been printed and ready to go, but mine was going to take a while. I told Ashley that she should go ahead and find her class and that I would be fine. Besides, I wasn't really willing to go to my class anyway. I hated the feeling of being a new student, not because I didn't know anyone, but because teachers always thought that it was cool for you to introduce yourself to the entire class. I know I really didn't have much experience being a new student, but I'd seen the movies.

I sluggishly made my way down the hallway while looking down at my schedule. The first bell finally rang and students briskly made their way through the school chatting away. I felt my body crash into something hard and fleshy, and then my binder, along with its contents, went flying.

"I'm sorry," I said bending down and picking up my belongings. I never really looked at the person I ran into, but I did see their hand reaching down to help me pick up my things.

"No it's fine," A male voice said to me. The voice had a lot of authority and cockiness in it and I needed to see the face that came with it. My eyes hit a vision of beauty with a head full of dark hair. He was still picking up my things while I was gawking at him.

"I should've been watching where I was going," I said standing up with the things that had just been acquainted with the floor. He looked at me and smirked while handing me the rest of my belongings. I stuck my hand out to him and he snickered before taking it. "I'm Amy. I'm new here, if you haven't noticed?" I figured why not make a new friend when the opportunity was right in front of me.

"I'm Ricky and believe me, I noticed," He said with a smile still on his face. I looked behind him to see a Hispanic girl shooting daggers through me. She lightly pushed him aside, forcing our hands to part. My hand fell to my side, slapping against my hip. I figured that she was crazy first, but in my gut, I felt that there was something deeper than that going on between them. She shoved her hand in mine, pulling it from its place on my hip.

"I'm Adrian," she said still shooting daggers at me and squeezing my hand tight. I kept a grimace from forcing its way through my façade. "Ricky and I are in a relationship," I glanced behind her and Ricky was rolling. Obviously, he was used to this kind of thing. I looked back at her and she sent me a silent message, marking her territory.

"Congratulations," I said smartly, smiling at her. "I'm Amy by the way," I said reintroducing myself to her. She waved her hand as if she were trying to get rid of an odor.

"Yeah, yeah, I know who you are. You moved in the house across from mine, I saw you and the rest of your family moving things the other day," I didn't like the curt tone that she had with me. I had a feeling that she and I were going to be enemies for a long time. It was going to be one hell of a ride living across from her.

"Really? Well, it looks like we'll being seeing more of each other outside of school," Ricky said over her head. Her eyes went wide for a moment and then she turned to him quickly. He looked down at her and shrugged his shoulders.

"Come on Ricky, we have to get to class," She said grabbing his hand and hauling him down the hallway.

"I see you've met my brother," A perky voice said behind me. I turned around to see a blonde girl smiling at me. "I'm Grace," She said sticking out her hand. My hand needed a rest from all this shaking it was doing.

"Amy," I said with a smile. Something about her made me feel breezy. She looked at my schedule and snatched it off my binder. A bigger smile formed on her face and her, slightly, large eyes found mine.

"Looks like we have three classes together, English, Math, and A&P, would you mind if we walked together to the first?" She asked. I shook my head and she beamed. She intertwined our arms and we began an easy walk to our first class. Looks like I've just made my first friend.

Ricky's POV

I turned back to gape at Amy while I walked off with Adrian. I could tell that she was different from the other girls at this school. She was able to stand up to Adrian without being scared and I could tell Adrian didn't like it.

"What are you looking at?" Adrian's voice leaked venom as she tightened her hand around mine. I smiled at her and kissed her on the forehead. It was cute that she got all defensive over me, but it was also, somewhat annoying. She was why many girls didn't like speaking to me, even if I were the one to start the conversation. Some of them would look at me with fear and others would just ignore me period.

"Honestly, I was admiring Amy's beauty and realized that she couldn't hold up against you," Which was a lie. Adrian was an attractive girl on the outside, but on the inside, she was a snake. I could tell that Amy was beautiful inside and out.

"You're damn right she can't. Look at her, playing innocent," I knew when Adrian was on a rant it was hard to stop her so I just let her talk. I would eventually tune her out and start thinking about something else.

I thought about my dad and his "career". We had talked about me joining him the other day, but I really wasn't interested. Sure, the thought of having so much power made me high with the thought of what I could do with it, but truthfully, it wasn't my thing. I know that following in his footsteps was expected of me, but I couldn't. I'd thought about it, practically, every night. I never told him that I wouldn't join him, but I knew that he had his doubts.

"Ricky, are you listening to me?" Adrian stated angrily snapping me out of my reverie. I shook my head yes and she smirked. "Then what is it, does she or does she not?" I rolled my eyes at myself and sighed. "I knew it, you weren't listening. You were probably thinking about that skank,"

"Adrian, don't start. I really don't want to hear this from you today. It sort of gets annoying," I said kissing her forehead again before walking into my first class of the day. Of course, she followed me in, all the way to the back of the room where my desk was. Ben looked up at me and I gave him a don't ask look.

"So now I'm annoying? I'm annoying because I'm angry that you were talking to another girl?"

"It was innocent. I was helping her pick her stuff up from the floor," I could hear the agitation slide through my tone.

"I'm sure she could have picked it up herself. She didn't look handicapped," She said folding her arms.

"Well, I thought it would be nice to help her since it was my fault her things were on the floor in the first place. Now stop acting like a jealous bitch," I emphasized the last word and those that were in the class turned to look at me. Adrian's mouth dropped open and then she stormed out of the classroom. Everyone's eyes watched the back of Adrian's head as she left. I threw my hands in my head and sighed. Great I thought.

"Well done Ricky," Ben said and I could hear the grin in his voice. I should've know that he would enjoy this. I pulled my head out of my hands and glared at him. His grin faded and he turned back towards the front. It was going to be hell trying to apologize to Adrian. First, she wasn't going to talk to me for about two days, which I'm sure my mom would be particularly happy with. Then she was going to tell Grace that I called her a bitch, which wasn't necessarily true, and Grace would be upset with me. She would hold out for about a week, unless I stayed at her house again to have sex and talk about our problems, but that was out of the question. I had already been caught once and my mom was serious about me staying the night with Adrian. Maybe Ben had some advice, he did date that Italian girl for a while and their relationship seemed great, well, until she went back to Italy.

"So Ben, as you can see I'm really going to have to apologize to Adrian, so what should I do?" Ben snickered. I guess he thought it was humoring that I was asking for his advice. It was rare that I ever needed it.

"Seriously Ricky? Don't you usually apologize to her by sleeping with her?" I rolled my eyes and smirked mockingly.

"That only works if I'm able to stay with her overnight and talk about why she's angry with me afterwards, but that won't be happening in the near future. Mom kind of found out that I'd stayed over there the other night and you know how she feels about things like that," Ben's eyes widened quickly and then went back to normal. He knew all too well about my mother's rules. Ben had stayed with us for a month during summer once, when he was dating Maria. He'd made the mistake of letting her stay overnight at our house and when my mom found out she went ballistic. That's the last time Ben stayed at our house for that long.

"Maybe you could get her flowers. Girls like to get flowers, or jewelry,"

"I am not getting her jewelry because it wasn't that serious and Adrian isn't really the type to forgive you if you give her a daisy," I commented sarcastically.

"Well then I guess you're just out of luck pal," Ben said patting my back. I looked at him menacingly. Yeah, big help friend. I could always count on Ben to not help me at all.

Anne's POV

Maybe it was a mistake to bring the girls out here. I wasn't sure about to many thing anymore, especially after losing George. My mind seemed to always be in shambles now. Sometimes I would black out and forget things. The girls didn't know about this minor condition and I really didn't plan on telling them. I didn't want them to be stressed over something that was being taken care of.

The therapist in Texas had told me that I should start a new leaf and I was, along with my girls. Although they didn't seem too fond of leaving Texas, especially Ashley. I knew it was the right move though. This was what they needed a fresh start and a new life. After George's death, they changed, Ashley for the worse, Amy for the better. Before George's murder, Amy never spent as much time at home that she does now. She used to get into trouble with her friends all the time. I'd even seen her drink once and that was something you never wanted to see your child do. I did talk to her about it after I'd seen it. She'd said that she would never do it again, but she did. I was relieved that she didn't do it anymore after she lost her father.

Ashley's change was what scared me. She was so negative all the time. Sometimes I hated being around her and that's horrible to say considering she's my daughter. I remembered when she used to be so positive all the time, when she actually had a colorful wardrobe, now she wore those dreary dark colors. I was hoping California would change her. I'd hoped it would change all of us, our whole world.

Tell me what you think of this chapter guys, it'll get better I promise. I just needed some fillers until the next chapter. Please Review :)