Sorry the chapters have been so short guys. I just don't want the plot to move too fast! Best wishes and I hope you like!

"What were you thinking Michael?" She tried to make her voice low and soothing instead of harsh and angry. She knew Michael was still shaken up by what had happened and she didn't want to make it any worse. She could tell during the ride home that he still couldn't believe he had almost fallen off of a cliff and that it would have been Bekah's friends that made him fall. She hoped he wouldn't hold it against her. She had taken his side, anyway. That had to count for something.

She wasn't surprised when she didn't get a reply from him though. His eyes were down cast as the pair walked up the path to their grandpa's house.

"You just," she paused for a second to think, "you don't know them like I do."

"Apparently you don't know them either." He cut her off almost as soon as she had finished her sentence and she nodded in defeat. He did have a point there.

"Apparently I don't. But I swear to you Michael, they've never acted like that when I've been around them." She wanted to continue but all of the other things she wanted to say would upset him. She really wanted to tell him that he couldn't blame the boys for being defensive. She wanted to ask him what he expected from a jealous boyfriend when another guy was flirting with his girlfriend right in front of him. She knew, though, that Michael wouldn't see it that way. She wondered if she should even see it that way and half of her hated herself for trying to come up with an excuse for her four new friends.

She really could see David's side of it, though. Michael had been an idiot for trying to get with another guy's girl. Michael had seen David and Star together before. It wasn't like Michael was unaware of their relationship. But on the other hand, David had taken his jealousy way too far. What if Michael hadn't of stopped his bike just in the nick of time? Her brother would be dead, splattered on some sharp rocks at the edge of an ocean. She shuddered.

"Just goes to show how well you know your new friends," she heard Michael mutter angrily as he opened the door and slammed it shut behind him. She sighed and started to follow after him.

"Bekah…"

It was like a whisper on the wind and her hand stopped on the handle of the door. For a few seconds she wondered if she had been hearing things, but then she heard it again. She whipped around as fast as she could and craned her neck to look in all different directions. There was no one that she could see and the voice had sounded like it had been right beside her. She could feel the goosebumps on her arms rise slowly and she used her hands to try and rub them away.

"Nothing to worry about Bekah," she told herself lowly as she turned back to the door. There was no way that voice had been real. She had imagined. She had to have imagined it. That was the only explanation.

"Bekah!" She heard her mom calling and quickly wrenched open the door and called back.

"Yeah! Coming!" She let the door fall closed behind her and followed the sound of her mother's voice into the kitchen.

"Did you find anything?" Her mother asked her when she finally got to the kitchen.

"Find anything?" Bekak echoed in confusion.

"Yeah." Her mom gave her a look, the one mother's are famous for that says you should know exactly what I'm talking about. "A job?" Her mother's voice took on a deep octave and a hint of annoyance.

Bekah bristled. She couldn't remember ever telling her mom she was getting a job. She could remember having a conversation with her mom about it not being fair that she was the one that had to get the job instead of Michael but not one where Bekah said she would actually do it. She wanted to tell her mother as much but she was too exhausted to fight with her, too exhausted to fight on such a familiar subject.

"No, mom," she said quietly. She let her hand come up to rub at her temple to try and sooth away the oncoming headache.

"Well, you can look tomorrow or I can talk to Max. I found a job at a video store on the boardwalk. Max is great. He basically offered me a job before he knew for sure I was looking." Her mom was wearing a wild smile, something Bekah hadn't seen her mom do in a long time.

"That's great, mom. I'm sure you'll love it." She tried to return the smile but she knew it fell short. "You don't have to talk to him. I'll keep looking tomorrow night when all the shops open up again."

Her mother gave her another award winning smile and nodded. All Bekah could do was turn away and think about how upset her mother would have been if Michael had fallen off that cliff.

The next time she road to the boardwalk with her mother. She had hoped her mother would forget about her promise to look for a job but it was the first thing her mother had mentioned that morning. Her mother had planned the whole thing out before she had gone to sleep. She had told Bekah bright and early that she could ride with her to the boardwalk and start looking and if she still hadn't found anything by the time Lucy had her break, they could both have dinner together and have a one on one talk session.

Bekah had no idea how she had wound up in this position but it wasn't like her mother was giving her a choice either. She had to admit that ever since they had left her grandpa's house that she had been thinking about ditching her little dinner date with her mom or lying and said she had found something before her mother's break and that she just wanted to go home and get some rest after a hard day. Both options sounded pretty good to her but she knew skipping out on a one-on-one talk session with her mom would break her mom's heart. And she had been doing that way too much lately. So much that Bekah really didn't want to have to do it again.

"Alright, meet me in front of the video store at 7:45," her mother started, "My break starts at 8 and we'll have plenty of time to eat." Her mother gave her that smile again and Bekah wanted to fall over and die.

When seven rolled around Bekah had been to a total of five shops that had all given her applications. None of them were really appealing and about three of them were really seedy looking that she was sure her mother wouldn't approve of. The other two were full of old ladies and the most boring stuff around. It was a boardwalk for God's sake, why couldn't she find an actual cool shop?

"You should try Melanie's down the boardwalk a little ways."

She turned to glare Star who had just magically appeared next to her.

"What do you want?" She crossed her arms over her chest and glared.

"I just," Star paused and her eyes darted around her surroundings for a good thirty second. "I wanted to apologize about what happened. If I had known David was going to do that-"

"It doesn't matter anymore. Just stay away from my brother." Bekah took a step closer and tried to make her glare a little scarier. "You have a man. Don't put my brother in that position. He likes you so you have to be the bigger person and say no. Don't let him get hurt over you." She let her glare last a few more seconds before she started to turn away.

Once she had turned, though, she ran into another warm body. And after trying for a few seconds to keep herself from falling, she looked up to realize Dwayne was standing in front of her, looking down at her with those intense, unreadable brown eyes.