CRASH! "Oops! Sorry, Geoff!" Bridgette called from somewhere nearby, raising her voice over the loud, pulsing music.

"Nah, it's cool, Bridge, my mom never really liked that vase anyway!" Geoff called, speaking into a microphone from his spot next to the massive speakers. "Alright, everyone, the TV's telling us we only got another couple of minutes 'til the ball drops, so everybody get ready and grab yourselves a rockin' babe to smooch on! Chya!"

"Agh! Duncan, let go of me!"

The crowd laughed as Courtney pulled away from Duncan and stalked away into the crowd. Cody snickered from his position next to the refreshment tables as Beth covered her mouth, giggling.

"This is great. You know, I've never been to a real New Yearth party before," Beth gushed, both hands clasping her cup of punch in her excitement.

"Really?" Cody asked, raising an eyebrow. "I throw one every year!"

"Really?"

"Well...my parents do, anyway," Cody admitting, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly. "Mostly for my dad's business partners. But I always invite my friends over too. But half of them were away for Winter Break this year, anyway."

"Ah." Beth nodded, fiddling with the straw in her drink. "Well, my family kind of doesth sthtuff like that too. Except it's justh a little party, you know, my mom and dad and me. And my pigsth," she added.

"Well that still sounds cool!"

"It isth, I look forward to it every year!" Beth said cheerfully. Then her face suddenly fell as she looked down into her cup. "Exthept we couldn't do it thisth year."

"Why not?"

"My grandma fell down and broke her hip, so my parents had to fly out to Halifax to see her."

"Oh." Cody frowned. "I'm sorry."

"Well, she'll be okay," Beth said, her tone perking up. "But it kind of sthinks that my mom and dad have to be taking care of her tonight. At leastht it happened on Boxthing Day, though, stho nobody'sth Christhmas got ruined or anything."

"Well, that's good. I think---"

The suddenly the music stopped and they both looked up, startled. "Listen up, dudes and dudettes!" Geoff called out, pointing his remote at the big-screen TV taking up half of one wall.

"---fifteen seconds left, everyone here is very excited, Bob---"

"Oh, it's almost time!" Beth said, grinning her silvery grin at Cody.

"TEN!" the TV people along with most of the party-goers chanted.

"NINE!" Cody and Beth both chimed in, as he returned her smile, amused as she actually began to tremble with excitement.

"EIGHT---SEVEN---SIX---FIVE---FOUR---THREE---TWO---ONE---"

"HAPPY NEW YEAR!" the room erupted, and Cody and Beth both turned to each other again, grinning and raising their drinks in the air. Cody took a step forward, holding out his little paper cup to playfully tap against her own---then suddenly stumbled on his own untied shoelace and windmilled his arms, his punch spilling wildly.

"Whoa---"

"Agh!"

Cody fell forward right on top of Beth and they both crashed down to the floor. And, in the process, bumped their foreheads together, followed shortly by their mouths.

The two geeks both froze. Beth turned bright red. Cody, however, just looked shocked for a moment, then grinned and wriggled his eyebrow down at her. "Well, that's one way to ring in the new year," he mused.

Author's Notes: Was that long or amazingly clever? No. Was it cute? Hopefully. ;-) I actually went through a few ideas for these two, then just randomly grabbed at this because I wanted to publish something for New Year's (which is this fanfic's birthday, incidentally. Wow...it should be farther along by now.) I hope you all enjoyed, especially you, TDAddict! :-D And Happy New Year, everyone!

P.S.: This fic recently passed 6,000 hits and 100 reviews (Winter-Rae got the 100th---fittingly for the LeDunca chapter). Thanks a ton!

Next Interaction: Katie and Sadie, because I've done three romances in a row and only one female-female interaction in this entire collection so far.