To Lilac Winters21: Thank you so much for the review! Hopefully I'll be able to continue doing a good job of writing from Stryker's perspective. Teenage boy is not my area of expertise. And I'm glad that you're liking the plot. I'd intended to do this with Jon pretty much since he and Mac broke up in the last fic.

And to MarynMeier: I meant to respond to you in the last chapter and then I forgot. Sorry. Anyway, thank you so much for that awesome review that you left for chapter two. I appreciate hearing from my readers. And the reason that my grammar is usually so good is because I edit each chapter about, ten times before I even upload it. And then it gets edited at least once more. I'm kind of OCD about that. So I usually catch most of my mistakes (though some still manage to slip through - grrr).

JANUARY 13

I walked into the auditorium, where our school's drama club met every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday. I was running a little late, but so was the teacher, apparently. Yeah, I know. Guys in drama are totally uncool. But I had never really cared about being cool. I was comfortable being a nerd or dweeb or whatever else people wanted to call me for liking to act and play video games.

Although, to be honest, I hadn't heard too many people call me any names. It probably helped that my last name was Pendragon, and that people knew who my grandfather was. Pappy had a lot of influence in the city of Camelot.

Besides, it was the one thing that all of my friends and I not only liked, but were all good at. We all liked to shoot some hoops every now and then, but Adrian was crap at that. I wasn't all that great myself. We all liked to play the Five Kingdoms, but Ty usually got us killed because of his lack of skill.

We were all good actors, surprisingly, so we had all joined the drama club together.

"Dude," Adrian said, when he saw me. "Why the weird face? Oh, have you finally decided about your dad? You know, your real dad."

I sighed. "That's the thing, though. I don't consider him my real dad. Alex is my real dad, in my mind."

He rolled his eyes. "Whatever. You know what I meant. Your biological dad."

I shrugged. Tyler and Tommy were walking toward us, so I waited until they were close enough to hear me. I didn't want to have to repeat myself. "I've decided to meet my biological dad. Jonathan. He'll be in town next week. I had Mom talk to him yesterday for me, to get it all arranged."

"That's gonna be weird," Tommy said.

I snorted. "Tell me about it. I mean, Alex has been my dad for almost as long as I can remember. And Jonathan, he's just…I don't know. He's never even tried to reach out to me until now. So I'm sure it's going to be totally awkward. But I'm going to give him a chance. At least he's reaching out. Better late than never, I suppose. I'm not guaranteeing that he'll become a regular part of my life. I guess I'll see how it goes next week."

"What's he coming to Camelot for?" Adrian asked. "I thought he was like, traveling the country or something."

"He was. Mom said he's been doing skateboarding competitions practically since he graduated. I guess he's moving back, with his fiancée. He's opening up a skateboarding shop here. He just decided it was time to settle down, apparently. I don't really know."

"So he has a fiancée," Tyler stated.

"That's not too surprising. I mean, it's been sixteen years since he and my mom broke up."

"I've always wanted to learn how to ride a skateboard," Tommy said.

I rolled my eyes. He was such an idiot sometimes. "You have no sense of balance," I reminded him. "You would totally biff it, all the time. Bad idea, Tommy. You'd end up cracking your head open."

"I wonder if Jonathan has any other kids," Adrian mused. "Hey, Stryker, you might have even more siblings. That'd be hilarious."

I scowled. I hadn't even thought of that. Mom hadn't said anything about Jonathan having any kids other than me. I had no idea if I had more half-siblings or not. "That'd be weird. Four is enough. More than enough. I doubt that he does, though. I mean, if his girlfriend or fiancée or whatever got pregnant, he'd probably just tell her to get an abortion."

Okay, that was a bit harsh. He obviously regretted telling my mom that. It still hurt that he had even suggested it in the first place.

"Eh, you never know. He might not have the same views that he did when he was in high school," Ty pointed out. "Don't be too judgmental. He might have changed since your mom knew him."

I shrugged. "Yeah, maybe. It's just that it's a little hard not to be a bit resentful about the whole abortion thing. If he'd gotten his way, I wouldn't be alive. I kind of don't feel very –" I broke off, seeing one of the girls in my sophomore class. She was probably the best actress in the drama club.

She was also the hottest.

Mallory White had long, wavy, light brown hair. She usually kept it in a French braid. Her eyes were a deep green, set into olive skin. She seriously looked like a model.

I was completely in love with her.

Okay, not in love. But I had a major crush on her. And the worst part was that I wasn't even sure if she knew my name. Sure, she seemed to send me secret glances a lot. But I was probably just imagining that. There was no way she could actually be into me the way I was into her.

No, wait. The worst part was that my friends knew about my crush.

Adrian groaned, noticing the direction of my gaze. "Dude, you're staring at her again. She's gonna get super creeped out if you keep doing that. You've got a stalkerish look in your eyes."

"I do not have a stalkerish look in my eyes."

"You do," all three of my friends responded.

"Shut up. You guys are all jerks."

Adrian rolled his eyes. "Just go ask her out already. You've been crushing on her forever. Get it over with. Seriously."

I pushed at him. "I will, I will."

"Yeah, when?" he challenged. "Next year? She'll have a boyfriend by then. You know she will. She's not the kind of girl that stays single for very long. I'm actually surprised that she doesn't have another boyfriend yet. I mean, she broke up with George Chaplin like, two weeks ago. Dude, if you snooze, you're gonna lose."

"I will ask her out," I insisted.

Adrian snorted. "No, you won't. You're just a giant chicken. You're too shy for your own good."

"Whatever." I moved toward the stage.

"Hey," Adrian called after me, "you know that auditions for the roles are today. Maybe you'll get the lead, especially if you whip out that amazing British accent that you can do. You know she'll get the female lead. And there's like, five kissing scenes between the two lead characters!"

"Shut up, Adrian!" I called back.