[IC] One Last Summer

[Jag]

Link to Tab: roleplay/one-last-summer/

Link to OOC: one-last-summer-t53241.html

[Starbuck]

Brooke wasn't sure if this was the best damn burger she'd ever had, or if she was just damn hungry...or maybe it was a combination of both. But the second the warm food touched her lips, the blonde let out a small groan of approval. "Wheredidyougetthis? It'samazing." Brooke asked, her words muffled with the food still in her mouth. So much for growing up. It was so good, she couldn't even wait to finish her first bite without asking. She caught Gabe eyeing her from the curb with a grin spread on his lips, clearly wanting to make fun of her, and she just eyed him back and threw a french fry his way. She would have been more pleased with her throw if he hadn't caught it and popped it into his mouth, though.

Overall, Brooke thought it to be a pretty successful day so far. Sure, the drive-in didn't look much different than it did when they first started out there today, but they all knew that they had made some good progress. But not only with the repairs, they'd also made some progress in breaking in some of the tension between the group. Cameron and Gabe had led by example with their little wrestling match earlier, and then after finding some old tapes they had reminisced about old memories, and shared a few that some of them didn't even know happened. Like Gabe's secret plan years ago to put bubble bath in one of the motel hot tubs, only to get caught by Drive-In Ellis. That old man was everywhere, and there wasn't much you could get passed him. It was nice to remember and look back on the summers that they had all moved on from, but hadn't forgotten. And the people around them right now were the exact reason that Jayton, California still held a place in their hearts.

Sitting in the back of Cam's truck, her legs dangling idly over the edge, Brooke just silently enjoyed her burger while listening to the others talk. It was mostly Allie and Chelsea talking, something about their trip in to town and the difficulty with the speaker boxes. And then Gabe would chime in with his usual remark, making everyone either laugh in amusement, or throw more food at the awful joke.

But all the jokes ended when that sarcastic jokester was suddenly quiet, and looking white as a ghost. And that's when Brooke's blue eyes lifted to look further down the road upon a familiar face. It had just taken her a few extra seconds to recognize the name to that face.

"Is that--" Brooke started, not wanting to jump out at this girl if it wasn't the Lexi Thorn she thought it was.

"Holy shit, I can't believe it." Laughing, Brooke set her food down, wiped her hands on her shorts, and jumped off the bed of that truck and practically skipped her way over to Lexi. Had they been particularly close during their summers together in Jayton? Not really, she was as close to Lexi as she was to everyone else. But that didn't mean it still wasn't damn good to see her. And see that she looked absolutely wonderful.

"Hey! Look at you," Brooke greeted, wearing a bright smile on her lips. "It's Brooke, how've you been?" She asked, then leaned in to give her a hug, whether the other girl wanted one or not. "Wow, you're...taller than I remember." She laughed, though Brooke was still taller than her. "You look great, by the way." Brooke touched her hair, which was straight, and she tried to remember ever seeing it that way. No. All she could remember were curls that any girl with straight hair like herself could only be jealous of.

"We're all over here, c'mon." Brooke motioned, leading her back toward the guys as she tried to see if she needed help with her bag. "You hungry? I would offer you Gabe's food, but the pavement seems to have eaten his."

[CrashQueen]

“Cam doesn't have the heart for it,” Josh chuckled as he watched the scenery whisk by them, along with a sign proclaiming that Jayton was still twenty miles ahead of them. He broke off another piece of the chocolate bar and munched on it thoughtfully.
“I'm down with sitting in the AC and watching everybody else sort out their issues. I think I'll be pretty scarce over these weeks as far as free-time goes. I need to paint.” The word paint dripped with desperation like one would hear from an addict. I need to get high, man. I need to paint, to create, to rewrite the world as I see it, or to escape it entirely.
He'd always mentioned that making art was like a compulsion he needed to feed until he could relax again. Even when he was young and still in high school. Everybody here had great hopes for him...and he'd managed to let them all down.

He glanced in the direction of the video buried under everything else and smirked. Oh, just wait til Allie started picking at him again...what sweet sweet blackmail he had in his possession. And of course he was going to let her know of the discovery, she wasn't going to tell Cam about it. No... this was perfect.


–

The video remained buried in the back of Spence's car for the time being as they were hailed to enjoy lunch on their way back from the store. He'd get to it later, of course, but merely having seen the video gave him some leverage for later conflict. Oh he couldn't wait to have Allie try to mess with him, he'd mutter the innuendo-laced title as a bit of a non-sequitur reply, and she'd shut right the hell up.

He now sat on the lowered gate of one of the trucks, digging into the burger that served as both breakfast and lunch, grumbling with disdain as a piece of lettuce slithered free of the bun and hit the paper wrapper. Every time!

He almost didn't recognize Lexi when she stepped off the bus and headed for their group. But then again, he doubted she would recognize him either. Nevertheless, he offered a charming smile made all the more jolly by his beard, and a wave.
“Hey Lexi, I was wondering if you were going to make it! I almost didn't myself. Oh, it's me, Josh, by the way.”

Brooke was right, Lexi did look great. But she always had. And she was always too great for him.

[Saviarre]

Sitting on the edge of the truck bed, Allie joked along with the group as she scarfed her burger. Best burgers in Jayton. God, she’d forgotten how much she missed these! Juicy, cheesy, tomatoey… Allie was pretty sure she was in heaven! As Chelsea babbled about the speaker boxes, she shot her a warning glance. The speaker boxes were fine to discuss. The equipment in the back of her truck? Not fine to discuss. She didn’t want Cam to stop her before she started because she knew him. He would.

She glanced over to Cam, watching the way he interacted with everyone – specifically Brooke. Apparently, they still hadn’t gotten a chance to get together, alone, to discuss the elephant in the room. She glanced over to Spencer, watching the easy way he smiled, the way laughing came so easy to him. And Gabe, the hulking mass of a man. Had he always been so big? Or was she shrinking?

And then there was Josh. After his little jaunt with Spencer, he seemed to be walking taller. Still, he seemed distracted as he always did. Distracted but strangely confident. That was new. She watched him as she ate, wondering what was up. When he looked in her direction, she didn’t attempt to hide her stare. No. She continued staring until he looked away. He was so adorable when he blushed. Half the time, when she said the things that she wished she could take back, she was thinking about his blush and not really paying attention to what she was saying. As such, as she stared at him, she waited until nobody else was looking and tossed him a teasingly flirtatious, seductive wink.

Zeroing back in on what Chelsea was saying, she laughed. “I might not know how they’re wired, but once I take one apart and get a look, it won’t be a problem. It’ll be fun.” Of course, ‘fun’ was a relative term. It would be fun for her until it wasn’t anymore. Then she’d find something else to do.

As everyone’s attention shifted, Allie turned her head. Suddenly the whole world seemed to take a step to the right and spin in a circle. It had nothing to do with the sight of Lexi. Hell, Allie didn’t even see Lexi. Not at first. She was too busy falling out of the truck. Spinning mid-air, she landed painfully on her knees, scraping them beneath her jeans. Thankfully, everyone’s attention was on the new arrival. Rising to her feet as if nothing had happened, she ran a hand through her hair and then followed Brooke. God damn, that hurt! What had that been? Oh yes. Of course. The same thing that made her trip on the stairs or walking across the kitchen. But it wasn’t supposed to happen yet! Not yet! Plastering a smile on her lips, she looked back at the others, took a small bow and then turned back to Lexi.

“Heyya Lexi,” she greeted, not quite the type to hug. She held a hand out to shake before realizing she scraped the crap out of her palm. Closing her fingers over her hand, she shoved her hands in her pockets and leaned over to bump a shoulder into Lexi. “Hey!”

[FizzGig]

Her steps were measured, calculated as she shifted her balance carefully. Manipulating the duffel bag and her guitar case proved to be a slight challenge as she attempted to look all around her at the things she didn’t realize she missed. When she caught her footing again, she made the executive decision to keep her eyes forward or on her feet, if for nothing more than to save herself the embarrassment of having her ass high in the air and dirt on her face.

So, it was no surprise to her that she noticed the crowd coming at her, exhibiting a belated reaction of pleasant surprise when Brooke was suddenly in front of her, holding her, and oblivious to the heavy thud of her luggage falling to the street. As realization swept over the girl, Lexi returned the embrace with enthusiasm, laughing and stammering as the excitement of the moment began to take its toll.

“Th-thanks!” she finally managed, a flush coloring her cheeks as she leaned back to look Brooke in the eye. She looked great? Brooke had always looked fabulous, and didn’t even have to try. Even now, the old feelings of insecurity seemed to color her mood for a moment. She rubbed her arm, tilting her head to one side as Brooke reached out to touch her hair. She could feel emotion building behind her eyes, making her throat thick as she smiled one of the biggest, most genuine smiles she could. It really did feel good to come back.

Brooke’s mentioning of Gabe threw her for a tail-spin, and she found herself staring wide-eyed up at the woman as she bent to pick up her things. “Gabe’s here?” she asked.

If Brooke happened to respond, then Lexi didn’t hear it. She saw Josh coming up, with Allie just behind him, so she abandoned her bags to go up and hug the man, her arms wrapping around his neck as she raised up on her tiptoes. He looked so different! She didn’t remember quite so much facial hair. It tickled her cheek as she hugged him.

“It’s good to see you, Josh.” She said with a grin, finally pulling back and meeting his eyes as she planted her hands on her hips. “I almost didn’t make it either…but, circumstance decided that this was where I was going to spend the rest of my summer.”

Allie’s damaged hand appeared at Lexi’s left elbow, and she was in the process of going to shake it when Allie just as quickly withdrew her hand and shoved it into her pocket. Lexi gazed at the woman for a long moment, a small smile turning up the corners of her lips. “Hi Allie.” She said, inclining her chin ever so slightly. Their shoulders nudged, but Lexi decided to shake things up a little by throwing her arm around Allie’s shoulder and giving it a squeeze. Turning to the small group, she threw her opposite arm out in a dramatic, yet carefree gesture.

“It’s so nice to see you guys again.” She confided, glancing over toward Gabe and Cam, who were both still sitting on the curb. Gathering in a breath, and her courage (though her heart was hammering from the moment she recognized the frame of Gabe staring in her direction), she bellowed, “HEY! CAM! YOU’RE THE ONE IN CHARGE OF THIS OPERATION! GET OVER HERE AND HUG ME!”

[Jag]

“Someone see if we can’t find that girl some training wheels,” Gabe commented at Allie’s less-than-graceful dismount from the tailgate of the truck as he and Cameron both simultaneously went to clapping. Oh, there was a half second delay from both of them to make sure that the girl hadn’t actually hurt herself in the process, but the moment that she climbed back to her feet they commenced with the usual jabs.

“8.1 from the local judge,” Cam retorted. “Very good form and a nice routine, but she just couldn’t stick the landing.”

“You would know about gymnastics,” Gabe fired back with a smirk, drawing an elbow shove from Cameron and a laugh before both of their attentions were drawn back to the scene of Lexi stepping off that bus and back to Jayton – back into their lives again. Somehow, this arrival seemed very different. When the first wave came together, they’d all arrived at the same time and the nervous jitters of reuniting such a splintered group had consumed everything. When Josh straggled in a few hours later, half of them were too tired and the other half were too drunk to make a huge scene. But Lexi? This was different.

Cameron Ellis pressed off the tall curb and pushed himself to a standing position, Gabe not far behind at the two boys made their way to join Josh and the girls. Normally, Gabe and Cam trailing behind would normally mean some sort of devious prank left behind for the next unsuspecting victim, but this time they were too hungry and not left alone long enough to wreak the havoc of their younger days.

Lexi didn’t seem to have changed much, at least not from her immediate demand for a hug upon setting foot in what was left of the tattered town they’d all left behind. Quick to comply, Cameron wrapped his arms around Lexi and pulled her tight for a moment. In the process, He found himself facing the entire compliment of the crew that had assembled for the summer, coming back to their past to hold out for one more chance at the future. Cameron hadn’t expected anyone, save maybe Allie just wanting to get away from whatever trouble she’d wormed her way into, to show at all.

Still in the hug, Cam turned his head for a moment and actually found himself saying a prayer of thanks for a moment before releasing and stepping back from the girl, reaching up to scratch his head while conveniently hiding his face and eyes for a moment.

“Took you long enough.”

“You invited her?” Gabe’s voice as he pierced the rest of the group was dripping with smiling sarcasm. “Damn it. I thought we were supposed to have fun.” The charade didn’t last long as he threw his own hug around the girl. Lexi had always been game for whatever stunts they could come up with and always managed to turn even the most boring activities into something fun. Now she was back.

They all were.

[Starbuck]

Call it lack of memory, or just lack of attention, but Chelsea got the hint when Allie shot her a warning glance about saying too much about what she had hidden in the back of her car. Damn, that girl had a vicious glare! It was a wonder how she didn't turn into stone from being the victim of that evil eye, but Chels just grinned and nodded, keeping her mouth shut by stuffing her face with a big bite of her chicken sandwich.

When the new girl arrived, Chels could only sit back and watch how Gabe had noticed her first, and Brooke was the first to jump up and attack her with a hug. Then the others soon followed. She did feel a little out of place for a moment, as if she wasn't already intruding in on the little reunion going on here, but that insecurity was soon swept away when Allie went to slide off the truck and didn't make the most graceful landing.

"Whoa, careful!" She reached out instantly, spilling a few of her fries in the process as her first reaction was to grab her. But she was too far away, and her fingers only grabbed air as her friend biffed it on the pavement beneath her. Chels looked back at Allie with concern, but the tough girl only played off that landing with a smile, and once she was walking forward toward the new girl, Chelsea just shook her head with a smile. if that were her, falling that hard on her knees...well, she would have been more of a baby about it.

Sitting back, Chels stayed in silence as she let the others catch up with their old friend, and once everyone had thrown in their hugs, she finally came forward and offered her hand. "I'm Chelsea." She smiled big, and laughed a little when the new girl, Lexi, gave her a questioning look as if she was trying to recall if that short girl in front of her was a stranger, or if she was supposed to remember her. "Official party crasher and newest resident of Jayton." She cleared the confusion for her, and pulled her hand back again.

Brooke was standing aside, studying Gabe's reaction. Oh, he was good. She could learn a few tips from him about acting normal around old summer crushes. Of course, Gabe had never admitted it to her, or anyone else, and hell, maybe he didn't even know it...but she had learned many years ago after their many phone calls to each other after leaving Jayton, that Alexis Thorn was a person of interest. If she ever wanted him to stop giving her a hard time, or stop asking about Cam, all she had to do was bring up that sweet young girl's name to get him stammering like a fool as he tried to play it off. It was adorable.

"I suppose now that you're back, you'll only encourage the trouble that these boys have in store." Brooke smiled, and it definitely warmed her that there was one more person in her past that she was truly happy to see. Seeing everyone again made the long trip worth it, no matter how things might turn out with another individual.

"Should we get you to the house to drop off your things? Maybe Gabe can dr--" She paused, distracted as she looked down. "Hey, Al...did you know your knees are bleeding?"

[Jag]

One week later…

“Hey, watch this.”

Plenty of people had spent plenty of summers with Cameron Ellis and, universally, one lesson had been learned across the board. When either Cameron Ellis or his cousin Allie Mackenzie said those words, something extraordinarily hilarious, dangerous or bad was about to happen. When the two of them were plotting something together, it was almost guaranteed to be disastrous.

Sitting astride the boards that hadn’t touched water in a few months, Cameron, Allie and Lexi stared out across the deep horizon of the water. Some of the others watched from the shore, some of them were back up at the house cooking dinner. It had been a full week since Lexi had rolled into town and things were starting to fall into something of a routine. No matter how dead tired and broken down they all were after working for what seemed like endless hours rebuilding the drive-in, they found plenty of reasons to goof off in the evening. In this case, it was Allie and Cameron decided to try one more time at giving Lexi the surfing lessons for which she’d always begged.

With those words and a flash of mischief between the two, the cousins began to paddle out away from Lexi and toward the incoming waves of water. There seemed to be a loud silence between the two of them as plotting occurred with a single word, the two using their childhood bond to almost anticipate in the incredibly bad ideas that the other waited to carry into action.

A good wave presented itself. It wasn’t very big at all – none of them were on this part of the coast – but it was enough for the two to at least feel like they were doing some real surfing again. It wasn’t long until both of them were upright and balanced, each other their own board. Allie wobbled into position until she and Cameron began to slide forward side by side about four feet apart.

Then they jumped.

It would be hard for the rest of them to forget the stunt. After all, the last time that the cousins tried it, one of them ended up with a broken ankle and the other had a concussion.

Cameron wasn’t sure what had possessed them to try the stunt of jumping onto one another’s surfboards the last time around and he sure as hell wasn’t sure why they were trying it again now with both of them – or least his partner in crime – as rusty as could possibly be when it came to standing up straight on a board and riding a wave. Still, they were both airborne and brushing past one another in the name of glory and having nothing better to do with their lives.

It didn’t end too much better than the first time.

“Shit shit shit!” Allie screamed as her feet held true to the board for a moment. She tried to catch her balance by throwing the weight of her body back in the other direction, but the unstable motion, her unstable balance, and the shifting of the board and water beneath her caused the girl to buckle back and crash harmlessly into the water back first. Cameron, on the other hand, missed completely and caught his feet on the front edge of the board, flipping and face planting into the world.

One would have their they were screaming in agony from the pain until it became apparently the only thing of which they were dying as they rose to the surface and floating back to the beach was laughter.

The night was finally starting to wind down into their normal routine. With the help of one of his female housemates and the “help” of his son, Spencer had found a way to make a half-decent pizza or two which quickly became the victim of the entire crew grazing across the counter going back and forth. Eventually, the group seemed to settle in the “den,” the only room in the entire house with a TV as some of them dragged out the box they’d found with the old home movies discovered back at the drive-in on of the first days working there.

Coming down the stairs fresh from a shower and still drying the mess of his hair with a towel, Cameron quickly followed the sounds to match the rest of the group cutting up and laughing as they sprawled across the couches, chairs and floor of the den. It was just like it was supposed to be except for one thing.

Brooke was gone.

No one was really sure of all the details. Even Allie and Gabe were in the dark. All they knew is that the night before Cameron and Brooke had gone on a long walk down the beach and up the rising bluff back to the north. By the time that they’d come back, Gabe was fairly sure that he’d heard some yelling between the two of them. The next morning, Spencer woke up just in time to see a taxi carrying Brooke away from the house and back up the road. No answer on her phone and sure as hell Cameron wasn’t volunteering any information.

So far, no one had the guts to ask him about it or even approach the subject. No one wanted to know the answer.

“Scootch,” he said, leaning into Lexi and lightly pushing her over just enough so that he could lean back against the couch where she was sitting, flinging his still –wet hair against her legs just for the reaction.

“Please tell me that we’re going to burn these things after we watch ‘em. I can’t think of anything else on video more embarrassing.”

At Cameron’s words, Spencer damn near spit a mouthful of beer out of his mouth and did everything he could not to die laughing.

[Jag]

Chat Session with FizzGig & Jag
Lexi Thorn
Cameron Ellis, Gabe Parker

“Nyurgh,” The word came out as more of a groan as Cameron leaned against her. She turned her face away, her nose wrinkling as he scooted into her, encouraging her to move. Well, perhaps she just wasn’t all that interested in moving! She had a warm spot!

When he flicked his hair at her, though, it was all she could do to keep from shouting at him in protest. She moved then, wiping her hands down her legs before she drew her knees up to her chest, wrapping her arms around her knees and resting her chin atop them.

“I’m pretty excited to see you dancing like Richard Simons again.” She noted cheekily, turning to smile at him.

The satisfying pop and fizz of a beer can opening sounded like a symphony as Cameron settled into his spot, leaning back against the seat of the couch from his position on the floor to stretch his t-shirt clad back. Free of the sweat and saltwater that had covered him from the work and surfing, a moment a relaxation did not go unappreciated.

"Not so fast there, pageboy-haircut-until-my-junior-year-of-high-school," he taunted back before taking a long drink of the imbibing liquid, finishing it off with a satisfied exhale before picking up a tennis ball laying on the floor and throwing it across the room at Gabe, who was fighting with the VCR.

"Gabe, you should have stuck to your day job." Lexi said with a short laugh, watching as the tennis ball went sailing over their heads, and thunking firmly against the shoulder of the other man.

"Oh wait wait wait," she suddenly said. "Please tell me the video of the Girl Fort isn't in there..."

She seemed to remember a pair of panties being hung on the flag-pole, to prove a point. It wasn't that boys weren't allowed...it was the fact that they didn't want to come. Allie, she remembered, had called it a 'fool proof' resolution, even if it meant stringing up Lexi's underwear.

"Day job?" Cameron fired back as the ball came flying back in his direction with decidedly more force. "Last time I checked, sitting in a corner office and drawing paycheck from your dad not to get involved with the business wasn't exactly too much to focus on.

"Yeah," Gabe spoke over his shoulder, "I'd make a comment about you doing nothing but surfing all day long, but I think you sure as hell would have gotten better than that sorry-ass show earlier if that was the case. Wait...Yes!"

The VCR dutifully groaned as lines of static began to run across the screen and cheers erupted from across the room as the tape began to play.

Settling back, Lexi went shoulder-to-shoulder with Cameron, her eyes flickering from Gabe to the young man next to her. How many times did she think about this when she was living in New York? Sitting down with a bunch of her best friends, watching old movies...

Admiring not-so-old flames. Indeed, she watched Gabe move from behind the safety of Cameron's shoulder, her eyes half-lidded as a secret little smile played at the corner of her lips.

The shaky camera rolled around until it focused on a set of small waves crashing in on a familiar beach. If it hadn't been the warped age of the footage, the scene could have easily seen Lexi, Allie and Cam coming in from the water and trudging back up to the house. Instead, the was the sudden shriek of a young girl followed by the laughter of a young Gabe running for hsi life as a sudden short-haired burst of a girl chased angrily after him down the path. Whoever was holding the camera could barely hold it still.

"And the stars of Awkward Pre-Teen Love theatre," Spencer cracked from across the room, a sleeping child upstairs across the house meaning he was finally free.

Lexi bit her lip, snatching up a pillow and throwing it across the room in Spencer's direction. Childishly, she wouldn't look at Gabe now.

"Ugh I'm surprised I didn't kill my mom for making me keep that awful haircut." she muttered, shaking her head and running a hand over her face.

Cracking his knuckles, Cameron patted Lexi on the leg before he pulled himself up to a standing position again, taking another long drink and walking slowly back in the direction of the kitchen.

"It's okay," he said, calling over his shoulder with a tease, "we couldn't all be as well adjusted as our little Allie Cat." He words coincided with the camera cutting over to a younger Allie, sticking her tongue out at the camera and its operator before the unseen filmmaker wandered off to parts unknown.

Cracking open another beer, Cam slid back into the room and leaned against the doorway of the den while staring at the screen. The video showed a very particular blonde girl staring out into the water with a very particular dark-haired boy kissing her in what was thought to be a private moment stolen by the camera's zooming lens.

An awkward silence stole over the room when the intimate images came up on the screen. The White Elephant, that one question that hung in each and every one of their minds, came to the forefront, but no one said anything. Lexi thought about it, she really did, but all she could do was glance back towards Cam, careful to keep her face arranged in a relatively neutral fashion.

If she knew Cam at all, she knew that he wasn’t going to want any kind of pity.

She felt uncomfortably warm, the air suddenly stifling. Making sure to keep low, she slipped off of the couch, stepping over legs and cups, and quietly sneaked outside. When the door closed behind her, she took a deep breath, thinking she might go to the beach again, or walk to the Drive-In. Anything. She just wanted to be outside.

Everyone was looking in a different direction. Gabe stared after Lexi as she left the room. Allie's eyes never broke from Cameron's face to watch his reaction. Cam never broke from the screen. Spencer just darted about to watch the entire scene unfold. Thankfully, the image cut to a later part of the tape, this time a few of the boys venturing off into the woods to show some sort of creature they swore they'd found the night before in a painfully obvious attempt to scare the girls.

Surprisingly, Cameron was the first to lighten the mood as he reclaimed the couch. "Damn, I even had the moves back then," he said, drawing a disarming laugh from most of the group.

As soon as he could, Gabe climbed to his own feet and head out to the back of the house, stopping to bend down and pet Kate's tired head as she laid back the back door.

"Lexi?" His head turned on a swivel as he stepped out.

She hadn't made it so far as the road before she heard him calling after her. "Mmm?" she hummed back, turning on her heel with her hands rammed into her pockets. She'd removed the beanie, her hair curling around her face and shoulders since she hadn't attacked it with a flat-iron just yet.

She wasn't entirely sure that she wanted to see him in that moment. All the same, she was grateful for company. "What's up?"

Something in her eyes, like shame, kept her from smiling at her fullest.

It didn't take long for a jogging Gabe to catch up with Lexi on the path that led back in toward the drive-in and the town. "Unless I'm missing something here, you aren't the one that's supposed to half-storm out of the room right there." Gabe always had a very plain-sense way of putting the world around him.

"Everything okay?"

"First of all," Lexi said pointedly. "I wasn't storming. My exit was careful and respectful to those who were sitting on the floor." She pulled her hands out of her pockets and crossed them firmly over her chest. "And, yeah. I'm fine. If anything, you should be asking if Cam's okay."

She wasn't okay. The awkward scenario wasn't what had sent her out of the room. It had been something else entirely. Memories brought on by simply watching Cam and Brooke that involved her and another young man, one who she would have much rather forgotten.

She was also a very bad liar.

Lucky for Lexi, Gabe was every bit as oblivious as she was terrible at lying. Maybe it was all the work, maybe it was everything that was waiting for him back "home," maybe it was the fact that some part of him didn't want to understand everything that was going on. Regardless of the cause, compartmentalization was the name of the game and Gabe was a pro.

"Cam's made damn near a career of breaking that girl's heart and screwing with himself over it. It's not if she's going to run away crying, it's when. Idiot," he spoke the last word at barely more than a breath as they walked along.

"So what made you come back here?"

She looked down at her feet, her expression going from guarded to sad in less than a wink. She hadn't had a chance to talk about her dad, and to be perfectly honest she hadn't exactly been looking for an excuse to talk about it. None of the guys knew. Looked like that was all about to change.

"Um," her throat thickened slightly, and she gave a nervous laugh. She cleared her throat, blinking rapidly before putting her hands behind her head. "I-it was almost by accident. I wasn't going to come home from New York, but I found out my dad..."

She couldn't talk for a second. Heat flooded her face, and she had to take a breath before continuing. "He...he had a heart attack...passedawayandthat'swhenIfoundCam'sletter." She rushed to the end, reaching to rub at her eyes as hot tears prickled at her vision.

"Sorry." she muttered. "Kinda recent. I feel dumb."

Gabe's falling footsteps came to a stop and anchored the young man in position as the hammer dropped with the news that Lexi had been hiding from the entire crew. Then again, it wasn't exactly the sort of thing that you wanted to scream from the rooftops amid all the hugs and reunion smiles stepping off the bus.

"Shit," he breathed. He would have said more, but talking with both feet stuck firmly in his mouth seemed a little difficult.

She seemed caught up in a panic, trying hard to get herself back under control. He wasn't saying anything, and she didn't blame him.

Great way to start the old relationship back up again, Lex. You're fabulous at this thing called social skills.

Planting her hands on her hips and blinking rapidly, she took a short breath and sighed, smiling at Gabe though her eyes were watery. "What about you? I mean...working with your Dad all this time? Does he still think I'm a hippy?"

His own father. Now there was a subject that wasn't too hard to follow. Certainly less of a dramatic one, anyway. Gabe was glad for the change in conversation, but that didn't alleviate the heaviness he felt suddenly weighing on him with the news that Lexi gave to him and still hid from the others.

"Working with isn't exactly what I'd call it. Tell him this and I'll bury you under the new concession stand, but Cam was pretty well right about the job. Every day is more like Take Your Kid to Work Day with busywork in the corner. Dad doesn't much care for my ideas.

"And he doesn't think you're a hippy. He just thinks you're a...okay, yeah. He thinks you're a hippy."

She smiled, laughing in spite of herself before stepping forward and slipping her arm through his. She leaned her head on his shoulder, casually, looking skyward as she pulled him forward into a walk.

"I think you're fantastically clever." she said quietly. "Impulsive, willing to take risks. It's his loss that he doesn't take your opinions into account." She meant every word of it too. She'd always known that he would succeed at whatever he did, and not just because he was born into money.

Gabe didn't mind her taking the arm. With everything the girl had probably been through lately, he could imagine that Lexi probably needed all the support that she should get. Maybe she should tell Cameron. No, he was unstable enough on his own. Spencer? The kid lost his wife and had a baby. Hell no. Allie? He couldn't remember the last time that she was dependable for anyone. Looks like it was up to him.

"Yeah, well," he said disarmingly, "let me know when you're running a Fortune 500 and I'll be happy to beg and grovel for a job. Until then, I'll just bask in the glory of how incredibly angry he is that I'm here with Cameron."

"I'm glad you did." she added, words coming out of her mouth before she could stop them. "I missed you." She blushed, realization dawning, then scrambled to amend herself. "A-all of you. It's great to have everyone together..." but then that sentence fell flat when she thought of Brooke.

[/i]Just stop talking. Really. [/i]

"I, uh, think I improved my surfing skills today." she noted off-handedly. "I didn't fall off the board at least." But only because she'd never stood up in the first place.

"That's one better than the Wondertwins," he said. Sure, Allie and Cam were actually cousins, but the moniker just fit too damn well whether they were at each other's throats fighting or, even worse, working together for what was surely the forces of evil.

"We should probably head back," he urged, turning them around. "I'm not sure that I trust Dad of the year in there to keep the rest of the crazy in control without us."

"And, for the record," he said, kicking a loose rock atop the road and sending it flying, "even though the reason sucks, I'm really glad you got on that bus."

As he started to walk, she grabbed for his hand, making sure that he was looking at her before she searched his eyes in a beseeching manner.

"Just...don't mention anything to them okay? I shouldn't have said anything to you in the first place, but I've been thinking about it off and on and I guess..." she sighed, letting his hand go and looking away. "I'm an actress, but sometimes I just don't want to pretend, you know?"

Gabe wanted to make some sort of a joke about this. That was his manner of deflecting the tough things that no one wanted to talk about. Uncomfortable subject came up at his house? Turn up the game and take out your aggression by screaming at the refs or the terrible playcalling.

"The other thing about working for a guy like my dad is you get really good at keeping secrets," he said with a serious nod to accent his disarming smile before they turned and headed back up to the house.

By this time, there was apparently a video shot from afar of Allie and Cameron cleaning the inside of what looks to be a bathroom in their teenage years while the twenty-somethings in reality screamed at each other over who's fault it had been in the first place that they'd gotten in trouble years ago.

"Yup. Right back to normal."

[Saviarre]

“It was too your fault!” Allie insisted. “If you hadn’t put the crab down the back of my bathing suit, I wouldn’t have retaliated with the dead fish under your mattress… but then, no, you had to keep it going and smear all of my clothes with maple syrup before dumping them in the freaking sand… that was a bitch to clean up, by the way… After that, it’s only natural that I swap out your shampoo with hemorrhoid cream and IcyHot. You totally deserved that! It should have ended there! But you’re too damn stubborn to admit defeat, so you got the stupid idea that it would be fun to replace my tanning lotion with freaking hairdye… I was green for a week, you jerk!” She playfully punched out at Cameron, brows furrowed in mock anger. “Okay, okay, that was pretty brilliant… but that is why I set up that pan of cornstarch in front of the fan rigged to go off as soon as you got out of the shower. It was totally your fault. Clearly.”

[FizzGig]

The moment Lexi stepped back into the house, she realized it wasn’t going to be very hard to get back into the amiable, pleasant mood she’d been in before her thoughts had gotten away from her. Her attention was fixed on Allie and Cam, shouting back and forth at one another in a near-perfect imitation of the footage that was being shown on the television screen.

Glancing to the film, she noticed with no small amount of amusement, the image of herself standing with her arms spread wide, wearing boxers and a light blue button-up, playing on the air guitar with her hair done up in the most ridiculous mini-pigtails possible. She bit her lip, furrowing her brow as she studied the video…almost like she was watching a very tedious documentary.

That was when she was struck with a very poorly-constructed, spur of the moment idea.

“Allie, Cam, I know how we can figure this out.” Walking away from Gabe’s side, she strode through the maze of people, bowls, beer bottles, and pillows, standing between them before pulling them closer to her with a jerk on their upper arms. She wasn’t terribly tall, so putting her arm up around Cam’s shoulder was a little bit of a challenge. She dragged him down to her level, however, then performed the same trick with Allie.

“It’s obvious that the two of you need to level this out in a professional manner. We’re all adults here, and we haven’t yet had too much to drink.” She smiled deviously, releasing the pair before striding forward with her chin in the air, arms held delicately out to the sides in her best depiction of snootiness.

“Therefore, I propose a method in which we may devise the final resolution to this long-standing argument.” She’d taken on an accent, something absolutely ridiculous, that sounded like Julia Childs…after she’d stubbed her toe.

She struck a pose.

“Dance off!”

[Saviarre]

Chat Session with Saviarre & Jag
Cameron Ellis
Allie Mackenzie

Wide awake. Hours after sleep should have washed over him like the waves lapping over the nearby beachfront, Cameron Ellis started at ceiling fan rotating above him, pushing down cool air and drowning out noise from the rest of the house. Since Cameron moved back to Jayton, he'd been unable to claim the "master" bedroom that had once been Harlan's, instead completely redoing the basement to the house and turning it into his own private hideaway from the world. Tonight, though, even the dark peace provided there offered him no sleep.

Throwing on a t-shirt to go with the shorts in which he'd fallen asleep, Cameron slowly lumbered up the stairs, then across the kitchen, and up another set of stairs. His eyes adjusted to the low lighting quickly and wasted no time directed him to the right door.

Leaning his head against the arch of the closed bedroom door, Cameron touched the handle, then thought the better of it and knocked quietly.

One reason Allie had chosen this bedroom: the window seat. While Cameron was finding that he was having a tough time sleeping tonight, he would also find that he was not alone. The things that kept Cam awake were not the same things that kept Allie awake. She’d pulled all of the pillows from her bed, piling and stacking them in the window seat, burrowing into a cozy nest.

With a blanket over her lap, she sat staring out the window into the dark night, her head against the wall, a bottle of cherry vodka resting in a loose hand against her thigh. The knock at her door made her turn her head, but she never rose. She could think of exactly one person who would visit her in the middle of the night. Growing up, Cam would frequently come visit her in the middle of the night, usually when there was something on his mind. Allie had pretty much been waiting for him, she just didn’t realize it until she heard the knock. Of course he’d be here… Brooke had taken off, hadn’t she?

“Come on in, Cam. I’m awake.”

Like a meek and humble penitent slipping into the confessional to bring forward his sins in the hope of absolutely, Cam opened the door, slid into the room, and made sure that it latched behind him before taking stock of the scene in front of him. Somehow, he wasn't surprised. Memories flashed back to countless forts and castles made of pillows, couch cushions, and just about anything else they could get their hands on.

"One of these days you're going to have to tell me how you know stuff like that," he remarked as he crossed the room and leaned back against the wall perpendicular to the window seat, giving him as clear a view of his cousin as the darkness and the blankets would allow.

"Couldn't sleep," he said, admitting nothing but the obvious.

Just as he wouldn’t admit to him that she had an idea why he couldn’t sleep, she wouldn’t admit to him that she’d subconsciously been waiting for him. “Me either,” she responded. Turning to look at Cam, she studied him in the dark for a moment before holding the bottle of vodka out for him.

She thought about all of the years they’d done this. When the sun was up, they would be at each other’s throats, taunting, pranking, teasing… But there was something about the middle of the night that made everything different. They’d both come to each other with confessions or problems, shedding tears or admitting things they wouldn’t be caught dead admitting during daylight hours… She’d thought she’d be the first to go to him in the middle of the night on this last summer in Jayton… But then Brooke had driven away, and her heart broke for her cousin.

“What happened?” she finally asked after a period of comfortable silence.

Applying the bottle to his lips, Cameron tilted his head back until it bumped against the wall behind him. The drink was about the last thing that he would have picked given a choice, but he’d forgotten that the majority of his late-night sessions with Allie usually came with a two drink minimum. Among the other things he didn’t care to admit, the cherry-flavored stuff wasn’t half bad.

A hollow pop sounded as he pulled his lips away from the bottle with only half a bitter face.

“Same thing that always happens, I guess,” he said with a shrug, as if everything was just as much a mystery to him as the girl seated a few feet away. “One minute we’re talking, the next thing I know she’s crying and I’m screaming. Why can’t it ever just be…smooth?”

Allie watched Cameron in the dark, following his question with a small snort. “Cam, is it ever? With anyone?” She shook her head slowly. “Oh sure, movies and such would have you believe that relationships are easy, but you and I both know they’re not…” She leaned her head against the wall, pulling the blanket up over her shoulders and nesting a bit deeper into the pillows.

“Girls and guys… we have different ways of thinking… As a guy, you can say something and mean it just as it was said, but us girls… well, we read into it and wonder which version of possible interpretation is what you really meant. We read into everything… even when what you said was exactly what you meant…” She felt like she was babbling, but she really was trying to help her cousin. “Have you told her? How you feel, I mean? How you’ve felt all these years?”

“That’s exactly the problem – it really should be that simple,” Cameron fired back almost immediately with a sense of frustration that had obviously been building underneath the surface through most of the night when he’d tried his best to play things off and enjoy the rest of the group, watching movies and relaxing before another day under the California summer sun.

“Why does everything have to have definitions and talks and ‘this is what we are’ moments? I mean…I’m here, she’s here. Well, was, but whatever,” he shook his head, trying to keep his thoughts straight as he pulled another drink and then handed the bottle back to Allie. “Why can’t we just be together when we’re together?”

If it hadn’t clear why he’d lost Brooke every time before, it was starting to rise to the surface.

Allie wanted to help Cameron so badly, but the on again/off again thing that he and Brooke had baffled her. Then again, the idea of wanting the same person for such a long period of time baffled her. Allie had always been quick to fall in… well, not quite love… She’d always been quick to fall into something, and just as quick to fall out of it, taking off at the drop of a hat when she felt herself starting to get confused. And Allie was always confused when it came to men. She was a fantastic flirt, often throwing herself at a specific guy until he wanted her back, almost as if to prove to herself that she could get him… But as soon as she had him, she backed off completely. Typically it was after sex… Usually, she hated herself afterwards.

It always astounded her when Cam came to her on nights like this when the topic of relationships was at hand. Allie was a freaking mess, no doubt about it. But for some reason, what was clear as mud in her own life made total sense when applied to his.

“What started it tonight?” she asked, trying to understand a little bit more about what had happened.


Stretching legs out in front of his body and resting his head back against the wall, Cameron clicked his tongue a few times before bothering to form any sort of real response to Allie’s question. Maybe he was thinking about the situation, trying to sort out the details for a better answer. Maybe he was trying to come to terms with the whole of it all. Maybe he just didn’t want to think about it anymore.

“I think we were talking about the time that I was supposed to come up and see –“ the boy cut himself off with a few more clicks before picking himself off the ground, snatching another drink from the bottle, and then sitting down on the edge of the bed facing the window.

“Can we just talk about anything else right now?” Coming for help and then hiding from it. Some things didn’t change. “Chelsea mentioned the other day that there were some developers scouting through town the other day. It’s like they can’t wait for us to screw this up and get their hands on the place.”

Typical Cam… open up a little and then slam shut, tight as a vault door. Allie lifted the vodka bottle to her lips and took a hefty swig before lowering it, grimacing not at all. He wanted to talk about anything else, fine. She could talk about anything else… But what she really felt she needed to talk about with him… well… this just wasn’t the time. Not on top of everything else. She’d wait till later in the summer… Or maybe she’d wait until after Christmas… Maybe.

The drive-in was just as good a topic as any at the moment… Cam didn’t want to talk about what he wanted to talk about, and Allie didn’t want to talk about what she wanted to talk about. The drive-in was mutual… common… shared middle ground… The drive-in was safe. “Developers?” she asked. Perhaps this would be a bad time to mention that she fully intended to begin busting up the concrete of the parking lot so she could get to the wiring for the speaker poles… Yeah… probably a very bad time to mention that.

“Want me to beat them up?” She grinned over at him, tilting her neck to crack the bones. “You know I can do it… I can make it so they’ll stop snooping around…”

She took another swig of the vodka before leaning it over and setting the bottle on the floor at the base of the window seat. Shifting until she was laying on her side, she looked toward where Cameron sat on the bed. “You know… just an observation… but maybe this has something to do with it… You always do this… You desperately have something to talk about, but when you get the opportunity, you clam up like a venus fly trap.”

"If it mattered or if you could do anything about it, I'd talk about," Cameron responded immediately in ryhthm with Allie's own words, wrinkling his nose somewhat at the topic of conversation again. "Honestly, I'm glad she's gone. Maybe now I can actually focus on what I'm doing and make some progress around here without my head feeling so...fuzzy," he finished. As unconvincing as the lie sounded, it felt even more follow inside. Still, if Cameron Ellis was good at one thing, it was sticking to his guns and going down with the ship.

"Now, if my first changing the topic wasn't obvious enough," Cam fired, leaning forward and snatching the bottle away for a drink of his own. The stuff was starting not to taste as strong now, which was a bad sign all on its town. "Can you believe Lexi showed up? Barely even recognized the girl."

Snuggling into the pillows, Allie pulled the blanket up over her shoulder, tucking her legs up to her chest. “God damn, Cam, you are so fucking stubborn.” She chuckled and rolled her eyes, an affectionate grin on her lips. “I suppose it runs in the family.” She was silent for a moment, staring at him, hoping he’d open up though knowing he wouldn’t.

Finally, with a deep sigh, she rolled her head back on the pillows and groaned. “Fine, Cam. New topic. Lexi.” Without realizing she was doing it, she glanced up toward the door and then lowered her voice slightly. “I honestly never thought I’d see her again. She looks great.” A sudden thought struck Allie and she sat up slowly, crossing her legs and staring at Cam with a strange grin. “Yeah… she looks… great…” Oh dear, Allie was thinking… and what she was thinking was written all over her face. “Very lovely… did you notice how she’s filled out?”


"I...uhh...yeah, I guess," her cousin replied with an arch of the eyebrow. He didn't know exactly what was going on at the moment, but enough alarms sounded in his head to let him know that Allie was up to something. Cam liked it better when they were on the same side of scheme.

"She grew up a lot, that's for sure," he responded with a somehow guarded tone, taking a small drink from the bottle and keeping an eye on Allie from the corner of his eye. "It was funny...when she got off that bus, you'll never guess the first person to pop into my head. Alex." The word dripped off the boy's tongue like poison. If anyone thought the scuffle between Cameron and Gabe the other day was intense, they didn't know anything about the in-fighting between Cameron and Alex throughout high school. There was the side that the rest of the crew saw during the summer, but their rivalry ran all year long.

"If all this falls through, the only good thing is that son of a bitch'll never have reason to set foot in this town again."

As soon as the word was out of Cam’s lips, Allie bit her lip. Alex. Reaching forward, nearly tipping herself off of the window seat, she snatched the bottle from Cam. Lifting it to her own lips, she tilted it back and took a couple swallows. Setting the bottle on the floor, she pulled the blanket up over her shoulders again and stared at him.

Well, she had the idea that perhaps she could help Cam get his mind off of Brooke by encouraging something to develop between him and Lexi, but the mention of Alex had her hands twisting together beneath the blanket. She wanted to something, about him… but Cam knew her well, and if she said anything… well, he’d figure her out.

“Well… um… Maybe…” Yeah, how funny one stupid word would get her so flustered. “Maybe you should take her to a movie some night…”

Oh God, Allie. Groaning, she reached down for the bottle of vodka again and held it up, contemplating taking another sip. “I should have stopped this few hours ago…” She chuckled slightly and held the bottle out to him. “I’m pretty drunk…” That would explain everything, right?

Looking at the bottle she tilted her head. “You don’t really think he’ll come back, do you?”

Cameron wasn't much better than his cousin in terms of sobriety at the moment, but the liquor often had a chilling way of cutting through the fog of deception and bringing about a stinging honesty between the two of them that defied their public rivalry and continual lashing at one another. All the same, Cameron wasn't sure that he felt any less confused that the moment he'd knocked on the door.

"No. No way. Don't even joked about that," Cam said, examining his own fingers for a moment. "Then again," the boy reluctantly admitted, "more'n a few have showed up that I never thought I'd see again."

Cameron rose to his feet and moved to brush off his leg although nothing was there. He was getting tired, finally starting to relax. He wasn't sure if it was the strange counsel Allie seemed to offer, the booze, or some sick combination of the two. Either way, it was starting to work on him.

"A movie, huh?" He mused at the idea as he turned to the door.

As Cam rose, Allie looked up at him. She wanted to ask him a question, but it would be a bad idea. Very bad idea. Even drunk Allie knew it.

“Yes… a movie… or dinner… something. Hell, just take her for a walk on the beach or something…” And then she remembered Gabe. Pursing her lips, she tilted her head. “I’ll… I’ll run interference on Gabe.” Her mind raced with the possibilities and she grinned. It could be amusing. The big man had barely looked at her since he’d arrived.

Nope. She wasn’t going to ask him. Not at all.

Allie pulled the blanket from herself and uncurled her legs, moving to rise from the nest of pillows she’d created in the window seat, swaying slightly as she stood. “Did you… Did you invite him?” As soon as the question was out of her mouth, she winced slightly, glad that it was dark so he couldn’t see her expression.

The hand lightly gripping the doorknob with the intent of carrying the boy back down the stairs suddenly jolted to a sudden clamp against the old brass as the muscles in Cameron's neck and shoulders went instantly rigid. The parting shot, intentional or otherwise, hit squarely on the target like a homing missile.

"Did I what?" The dark-haired boy turned around showly to face Allie again. The vodka-induced glaze over his eyes was pierced, even if only for an instant, by the same death ray glare that Allie used all too well for her own benefit. "Just how drunk do you have to be to even get that idea in your head? That's dumb, even for you," he said, converting the idea to an imaginary world where he only did the opposite of things that made sense.

Then, it clicked.

"I mean, the only way I can think th --" Silence. A long, hard silence. "You didn't, did you?"

Allie stood near the window seat, resting a hand against the wall to make sure that she didn’t sway too badly. Cam’s reaction troubled her, but she couldn’t figure out exactly why. “I… um… No. No I didn’t…” Biting her lip, she shook her head.

If anyone wanted a change of subject, Allie did right now. Leaving the safety of the wall, she weaved her way over to him and rested her hand on his shoulder. “My advice? Get your mind off Br—“ She stopped abruptly, and narrowed her eyes and looked up at him. “Wait… is he back?” Let it go, Allie…

The mood shifted drastically as Cameron allowed Allie to balance herself using his own frame. One look at her, even in the relative darkness of the rooml it only by the bright moonlight bouncing off the Pacific Ocean, was enough to tell that she was done.

"Okay, that was last call," he said, shifting from someone in need of advice and a shoulder on which to cry to someone with a fully-functioning savior complex despite the alcohol that would otherwise play into the decision making process. "You can drop poison into my ear some other night, but for now you're sleeping," Cameron said with no uncertainty while still maintaining as easy tone as he led the girl a few steps over to the bed and then quickly transitioned to moving all the blankets and pillows Allie had shifted to the window sill earlier in the night.

"And stop talking about monsters from our past or you're going to have nightmares about them." Somewhere in the back of Cameron's mind, he swore he could hear the sound of a scoreboard's final buzzer in the distance.

"Psychoanalysis is over. Bedtime," he said with finality, spreading the blankets out carefully before dropping the last pillow directly onto the girl's face. He couldn't be too nice.

Allie allowed herself to be led to the bed and as Cameron gathered up all of the pillows she’d piled in the window, she watched him, slipping between the sheets and curling up on her side. She hadn’t realized how far gone she was, or how tired. As he dropped the pillow on her face, she laughed and tossed it back at him, missing him completely. Lord knew she had plenty of other pillows to burrow into.

“Thanks for being here, Cam,” she said quietly as he headed to the door again, curling up and pulling the blankets up to her chin. “I hope… someday…” Her speech was getting slow as unconsciousness began to take over. “Someone loves me… the way you… love h—“ Her sentence was finished with a snore.

[NotAFlyingToy]

The truck’s headlights were off, the tall, black tires settled against the darker asphalt, the monster sitting still in the cool night air. It was big and red; the colour muted by the night and the lack of streetlamps on the stretch of road. It had been sitting still for nearly thirty minutes, now, and it was fast approaching a time when the person inside would long be investigated for loitering in any other setting.

But not in this one.

Inside the cabin, two pale hands gripped the steering wheel, parked at ten and two, illuminated only by the small digital clock that was embedded within the truck’s dash. The time read 3:15, and the inky darkness that surrounded the hands had the betting money on the AM. The hands were shaking slightly, the white-knuckled clenching making the hardened leather creak beneath the soft skin. Above the twin hands was a ghost-white face tinged green, beard covering the jaw, teeth grit between trembling lips.

He looked like a ghost. Which was apt, considering that this town had haunted him enough.

The man’s eyes were sunken into his skull, the gaze itself wide and alert, staring at a neon green sign that glinted in the moonlight, white lettering and numbers against the glare of the luminescent paint. A breath exploded from his lips, coming out in a deep hiss, rattling his vision and tightening his grip. As he sat there, in the dark, his hands clenched around leather, he imagined them gripped against his palms, one of his teeth hurting, his eyes on red numbers as a buzzer sounded. He imagined the feel of his stomach dropping, as if he were on a roller coaster, flying down that very first hill. He imagined the crowd’s silence, his shoes squeaking against a court floor as his heavy limbs take him away from the scene of his failures.

He’d been a god, once.

With a deft flick of his wrist, the burgundy beast roared back to life, headlights flashing on the sign as the car began trembling, growling with anticipation of moving forwards again. As the tires turned, crunching the loose gravel beneath rubble, the white text on the neon green flashing in the corner of his eye as he roared past it.

WELCOME TO JAYTON
POPULATION: 2,911

His grip never loosened, tired eyes never closed, and back never slouched. William Alexander Grace had claimed, with finality, that he was done with the town he’d called home, for too many reasons to count. He’d moved a state over, started over, began the tedious project of scrubbing his memories clear.

And now he’d come home.

-----

The dinner table was completely silent that day, no conversation to be had among the members of the Grace family. The only noises that came from the room was the scraping of metal against plates, the occasional scratching of a chair against linoleum floors. Three of the five members of the Grace family were eating normally, albeit a bit slower than their usual pace underneath the swaying chandeliers of the ornately decorated dining room. At the head of the table sat William Grace Senior, his big hands folded in front of him, towering over all others in the room. His sterling silver hair and grey eyes combined to make a formidable, down turned expression. People who met William often spoke of his frowns with equal parts awe and fear; if William was unhappy, then the entire room around him was leeched of joy right alongside him.

Though the youth across the table denounced everything his father did, the one thing that he couldn't really escape was DNA. William Grace Junior had the same jawset, same narrowed eyes, and the same thunderous frown as his father, without a grain of doubt. The frown was especially potent; changing the atmosphrere quickly, making it thick with his anger and bitterness.

Naturally, when father and son glared at each other, the room seemed to come alive with heat. The other members of the Grace family ate quietly and quickly when these standoffs occured, which was far too frequent for anyone's liking.

William wiped his dry lips with a napkin, his spine ramrod straight as he spoke.

"So no scholarship."

The words were not a surprise to anyone; William Grace hadn't exactly made his fury about Alex's failing grades a secret. But Alex had yet to hear the words himself. He too wiped his dry lips with his napkin, and lounged in his chair, one arm tossed over the back of the wood carelessly.

"Nope."

The casual tone had the desired effect; the stern gaze he had been receiving heated to a glower, the poignancy of his father's anger sending a sort of thrill through him. It had been like this for years. The junior would needle the senior, poking holes in his careful visage until the man of he household finally snapped. It was a dance; a delicate tango that they had been engaged in since Alex reached adolescence. The napkin reached the older man’s lips once more, swiping at them in a rough, violent manner.

“You truly don’t deserve my name, do you. How many times have we had this conversation.”

“Keep preaching, William.”

“You have no spine, do you? I truly wonder if someone else was responsible for your birth. No son of mine would stoop so low. We’ve been supportive; we’ve been there for you even when you decided that this silly game of yours was more important to you than your actual grades.”

“Silly?” Alex rose a brow, picking up his butter knife and tapping it upon the oak table, where ancestors of the Grace family past were carved into the wood. There were hundreds of names, the table being as old as the house itself. His brothers had carved their names in the wood when they were sixteen years old.

He hadn’t been offered. He hadn’t been asked.

“I’ve put up with your silly bullshit since I was fourteen, William. Yet here we are.”

“Don’t talk to me like that, boy. Do not tap your knife on the table.”

The knife’s motion stopped, Alex’s gaze holding his father’s, indifference shifting to fit his expression.

“Thank you,” the man said. Rising from the table, his fingers rested on the edge, he stared at his son. Alex glanced to his left, to see his family had fled long ago. Such as it always was. Whenever William got angry, he found himself alone against the onslaught.

It had made him strong.

“I’ve had enough of you, boy. You are no longer welcome in this house unless you make changes. You will get a job, you will work throughout the summer to support yourself, and you will go to university – for a business, a trade – something that will prevent you from coming to this house every day and spending four hours in that driveway with that rubber ball. Further, you will – stop tapping that knife.”

Alex had risen by this point, too, his hard stare reaching his father’s. Years upon years of unresolved conflict simmered to the brim, threatening to boil over as thunderous frown met aloof glance, the soft [/i]tap tap tap[/i] of metal on wood slowing, and then fading as the boy raised an eyebrow.

Breathing deeply, William Senior continued. “I have given you many graces, boy. I have put up with your blathering and supposed dreams of becoming the best at a game that has little to know business sense in this world. I have pandered to your requests, I have spoiled you, and now you’ve forced my hand. I will no longer tolerate you as an unproductive member of this household. You will shape up, or you will ship – stop!”

Alex stopped the tapping again, before flipping the knife in his grip so that the point was facing the table directly, and slammed his fist into the oak. The knife pierced the ‘O’ in Horace Grace, biting deep. Without looking for his father’s reaction, Alex began slamming the knife down again. Again, and again he hit the wood, the knife bending slightly and warping beneath the force of his arm and the sturdy dinner table. He didn’t hear his father flying around the room, didn’t hear the dishes jumping and clanging together with the force of his assault, he just continued cutting up Horace’s name until there was nothing but a lighter shade of wood.

He was pushed backwards roughly, his reflexes keeping him on his feet as he backpedaled, now facing the burly, tall frame of Mr. Grace, rushing him like a bull. Alex backed out of the dining room, slamming the door on his father as he moved. Words came unbidden as he moved through the kitchen, navigating by memory, flinging obstacles in his father’s path so that the older man’s knees hit chairs and tables, sending them scattering in his charge.

“What’re you going to do, dad? Hit me? Go on and beat your kid, dad. It’s never worked before, dad, so why would it work now? Keep yelling, dad, I don’t think the neighbours can hear you yet.”

Out the door they went, down the pathway and past the hoop that he’d built when he started an interest in Basketball. Without the obstacles, however, the distance between the two was closed with frightening agility. To keep his son from backing away further, William’s hand was gripping at Alex’s shirt, his other grabbing at the son’s junction of shoulder and neck, squeezing with both hands in a vice-like grip. Hauling the boy closer, ignoring the lights flicking on in their neighbourhood, William shook his son.

“Get out. Get out and don’t come back. Don’t you ever come back!”

Alex gripped his father’s wrists, and growled out the side of his mouth.

“With pleasure.”

--

It was strange to be driving through the old town, in the same truck he’d had as a boy, with no radio, no raucous passengers, no lights or busy streets. Jayton had shrunk, it seemed, since he’d left all those summers ago. Driving on dark streets, flicking the turn signal at the stop sign that he and Jerry Marston raced at in the ninth grade, passing the bleachers where… memories existed, past the big dark house that held a lot of pleasant and unpleasant recollections of parties and dancing and bad decisions. It seemed that back then, every decision he’d made was a bad one in the eyes of many people, not just the ones behind his closed doors. The upside to this, however, was that all of his skeletons weren’t in closets; everyone had known about them, known that Alex Grace had been trouble for their sons and daughters, sisters and brothers. He’d been the one that had the ‘stuff’ though.

Him… and Allie.

Thoughts of the girl drove him towards the beach, where he parked in the darkness, getting out of his truck as soon as the wheels stopped rolling. Stooping to unlace his work boots and slip out of his socks, he walked along the beach head, his toes curling in the cool sand, squinting towards the inky black ocean lapping thirstily at the land around it. The sounds of the ocean soothed him as he sat, in the exact spot that him and Allie had encountered one another. He still remembered the grainy feel of the sand on his back, biting at his elbows as the two embraced. Leaning backwards, Will turned his gaze star-ward, remembering that he lay exactly like this – sans clothes – as Allie left.

Thoughts of Allie immediately turned to thoughts of a far more innocent – and far less sultry – girl. A girl that he had ruined with his advances, with his incessant pushing. That moment was hard and cool, bleachers glinting under starlight beneath his rear as he pressed closer to her, forcing a kiss she wasn’t ready for.

He scrubbed at his eyes with the palm of his hands, wiping away the bleary eyes that this town always gave him. Eventually, he’d need to rise and go back to his truck, drive barefoot to the hotel, and drag himself to bed. But since it didn’t open until six – unless Maurice had changed in the years, something that he didn’t find likely – he had some time to drown himself in memories before he had to drown himself in sleep, get nice and ready for a few days of reading and writing. In his bag was a backpack, a laptop inside. He’d brought his work with him, intending to hide away for a couple of days before he well and truly jumped into the… purpose for his visit.

He’d need to face the memories, at one point. For now, however, he was content to lie there.

He was content to watch the stars.

--

At his cubicle, William Grace was halfway through calculating the distance between two telephone poles when he received a tap on the shoulder. When he spun in his wheeled, high back chair to face his boss, the look on her face was one of such deep sorrow that he had to do a double take. Jessica and him had become close over the past four years, something that he was especially grateful for since he had very little work experience to begin with. But she’d let him work as a contractor, at first, and then a surveyor of telephone poles, work that he’d found surprisingly enjoyable.

Every once and a while, he got to play her therapist. Already he was slipping into the role, about to offer up a sympathetic “You okay?” before she handed him a letter.

With his name on the front.

He took the envelope, noting the address written in neat, red ink, pressed into the paper so hard that it was actually crinkled around the edges of the letters. His thumb ran across the seal as he looked up at her questioningly, the envelope rotating in his hands. She sighed out, a deep, painful noise.

“I’m so sorry, Will.”

He straightened in his chair, suddenly uncomfortable. “Sorry for what?” He paused, lifting the envelope with one hand. “What is this, Jess?”

“A man showed up today. He said he was your brother – Jacob?” At his nod, Jess continued. “He gave me that, and told me about the news…

There was something accusatory in her tone, something that didn’t fit the situation. As he opened his mouth to ask her what was up, she answered for him. “Why didn’t you tell me your father had passed?”

The wind left his lungs, and his whole body jerked, his hands reaching out to grip the desk around him, steadying himself. In the pit of his stomach, something tightened, turned icy, and refused to break away from his gut. He felt like acid was assaulting his veins, and for thirty terrifying seconds, the room spun.

The feeling faded just as his eyes met Jessica’s, realization clear in her blue orbs.

“I didn’t know until just now.” He confirmed, tearing open the envelope. He read over the contents, skimming the summarization of the will before folding the pages. Jess was talking, something about his brother not coming in to tell him himself, and he interrupted her mid-sentence.

“Jess, can I have a few weeks off?”
Her mouth clamped shut, and her eyes softened. “You’re still owed a month from last year, the month you never took. Are you going to his funeral?”

Will shook his head, lifting the page at her. “Already happened. I just need to…” he paused, searching for the words. “I need to go home.” He said, with finality.

And he did. He’d put this off for five years; the confrontation, the final words with his parents (or parent. God, his dad was dead) and a single, last drive around his town.

She was shaking her head. “Okay, yeah. Take a month off; more if you need it. But we’ll need you to do some remote work for us. The construction crew is working into the weekend, but after this week they’ll need another job to keep everything floating. We need your designs quickly.”

“You’ll get them.”

She squeezed his shoulder, red nails biting into fabric, and met his eyes square on. “I’m here if you need me, Will.” She said, her voice soft.

Her eyes said come over tonight and lean on me in equal parts sensual and friendly. He felt oddly uncomfortable by the gesture, the inappropriateness of the timing.

“Will do.” He said, and she nodded firmly, giving his shoulder one last squeeze before walking back to her office. For once, he didn’t watch her leave.

Instead, he hopped on the internet, and began searching gas fare and distances and hotel rooms. When the browser asked for his destination, he jabbed at the letters with a single, violent finger.

J-A-Y-T-O-N.

-----

Driving through the streets, the purr of his truck a welcome vibration beneath his rear, Will thought back towards his old life, and a boy named Alex. The boy had been violent and unruly, breaking a girl he should’ve saved, missing a shot he should’ve made, and yelling at a man he should’ve been telling that he loved. As he gripped the steering wheel harder, he thought of his List, the piece of paper that was folded and tucked into the space where his laptop pressed against his messenger bag. On the list were ten points written with mechanical pencil, ten things that he needed to do before leaving here. His extended vacation would be spent writing Alex’s wrongs, burying the boy from haunting him.

It was time for the memory of Alex to be choked out.

It was time for Will to rise from the ashes.

And, despite the daunting task ahead of him, despite the constant wincing at moments in the past and the streets he couldn’t drive down yet because of the pain he felt, despite the list of people in this town who would’ve surely liked to have been given the rope and a sturdy tree on which he would be able to hang, William Grace smiled.

Despite all of that…

It was good to be home.

[Starbuck]

11 missed calls.

"Damn it, Gabe," Brooke mumbled as she stared down at her cell phone in that cold hotel room. She thought about turning on the heater, but she didn't have the energy. The majority of his calls were last night, Gabe had even left her a drunken voicemail. Saying something about her being dramatic, and to get her ass right where she belonged.

Was she being dramatic? Sure, packing up her bags and leaving after her fight with Cameron seemed a bit extreme, but she had to get away. Talking to Cam had never been difficult before. During the summers in Jayton, he was the only one that she could talk to, about anything. With him, she found she could be completely herself with no restrictions. Maybe things were so easy for them at the time because they never had to define their relationship or put a label on it. They just were, They were Cam & Brooke. It was that easy. At least, until her last summer. The letters stopped. The phone stopped ringing. To anyone that didn't know them, they would suggest to comfort Brooke that it was just a summer fling. Now that summer was over, and her trips would be no more because of her parent's divorce, Cam's feelings for her would disappear right along with it. But no, she knew, even then, that it was so much more than that.

Hell, she knew it now. She knew it the second she came back into this town. With just as much ease as those young summers, she found that her feelings for him hadn't disappeared, and they hadn't come back. They'd never left her.

Finally, last night, she put herself out there. She had Cam alone, and she had to get rid of that elephant in the room that seemed to practically sit right on her chest, weighing on her heart. All she wanted was an answer. He'd only given her half of one, leaving her with frustrated and hurt tears, and him with a raised voice.

"I can't do this, Cam. I'm tired of fighting alone. I'm fighting to make this work and make sense of us again, and you're just fighting to push me away. Just like you did after I left Jayton. That was your out from me, wasn't it? Then you should have never asked me to come back. You're a fool if you think I came back for anything but you."

She remembered saying, right before she turned her back on him, rushed inside and ignored her friend's calling out to her as she grabbed her bag and left in a taxi.

Gabe felt partly resonsible for her, she knew. He had been the one person she called so many years ago, trying to find answers for Cameron's behavior so she could make sense of it all. He'd been her friend then, her rock, and her friend now when his encouragement told her that it would be good to come back to Jayton. Good for her. Good for both of them. Maybe they both just needed a bit of closure so they could finally close a chapter in their lives and start a new one. But in her heart, Brooke knew she didn't want a new chapter. Not if it didn't include that frustrating, stubborn, blue-eyed boy. One way or another, she needed him in her life.

She called her dad, then called the airline. She wasn't coming back, not yet. Cameron Ellis was going to have to fight her a little harder this time to shut her out.

When Brooke came back up to the house, it was quiet for an early afternoon. Upstairs, she found that her room was just as she left it, and realized she even left a few things behind. After dropping her bag on her bed, she nearly ran into the Hulk that was Gabe, smacking right into his chest as he steadied her with his large hands on her shoulders.

"Miss me already?" He joked, knowing that it was the only way for her not to jump into defensive mode right away. "Or did you come back so I could show you how to answer your phone?"

Yeah, she deserved that one. "I'm sorry, I just needed to get away. I thought home would be far enough away, but..."

"You can't." He finished for her, and she tried not to notice that he was fighting a grin. It annoyed her.

"I cant." She repeated with a nod, and he seemed happy that she agreed with him as he wrapped a heavy arm over her shoulder and walked with her back down the stairs.

"Where is everyone?" She asked, next. By 'everyone', she meant Cam. Gabe knew.

He told her that Cameron was at the movies. Brooke raised an eyebrow, as if that fact seemed odd to her. But he added, "With Lexi," with a tone of doubt in his voice. That whipped her blonde head right up at him as they took the final step down the stairs. She'd never been jealous, not with Cam. Perhaps all those years she never had to be. When he was around her, one look into his pretty blues as he looked back at her made her believe that jealousy was never something she'd have to worry about. So long as he kept looking at her like that. But there was something in Gabe's eyes that worried her, and she felt her throat close up a little.

"This one probably has something to do with it." Brooke pointed, only joking as they walked into the kitchen, finding the guilty girl, Allie, sitting on the counter deep in thought with her mouth full of a sandwich.

[Saviarre]

After Lexi had stormed off, Allie had headed out to the drive-in alone. She felt like an idiot for so many reasons… a criminal… and of course, sneaking off to the drive-in at dawn to begin work on a project that she was sure would have Cam in a fit of fury in no time was a significant contributing factor to the way she felt. And the dredging of old memories… the selfish lies she’d told looked different once light was shed on them. Shrouded in the darkness of her own secrecy, the lies and her reasons behind telling them made sense… Now, out in the open, she was appalled at their ugliness.

So, this was what it was like to grow up, huh?

Well, it fucking sucked.

Pulling up at the drive-in, Allie looked around the deserted parking lot, dotted in regular rows with the speaker poles like silent soldiers facing a battle against time, mute sentinels to the past. Turning off the truck, she sat for a moment and stared across the lot, the ticking of the engine accompanying her thoughts as if counting out her failures.

Alex.

Well, she supposed it was fitting that she was here now, wasn’t it? A chance at redemption. A chance to make things right. One last summer to make a mark on the world that she could be proud of.

With a heavy sigh, Allie slid out of the truck and moved around to the bed. Climbing up, she pulled the tarp from her recent acquisition – the pavement breaker. As she shifted it around, she started to wonder if she’d be able to handle it on her own. It was heavy. Unwieldy and cumbersome.

She was pretty sure she was going to lose a toe or something… but, damn it, the wires were bad in the speaker boxes… and they all had to be rewired… and the wires went down through the poles and under the pavement. The only way to rewire the speaker boxes was to tear up the pavement and start from scratch. It only made sense…

Cam was going to kill her.

Wrestling the heavy equipment from the back of the truck, she smiled to herself. Yep. Cam was going to kill her… But she was determined. He wanted to save the Jaybird?... She wanted to help… If it was the last thing she did.

-----------------

When Allie finally broke for lunch, she felt as if she had a decent handle on the pavement breaker. She’d broken through a section big enough for four cars to park in and she hadn’t lost a toe. However, as she looked over the product of her demolition efforts, she frowned. Well… she’d broken up the pavement… but now she had all those chunks of concrete… Shit. She really didn’t plan this through.

Deciding to head back to the house for a sandwich, Allie carefully hefted the pavement breaker back into the back of her truck. She felt almost tied to the equipment… a stupid emotional attachment to it… it had become a metaphor for her… as if her hours spent alone breaking up the parking lot was actually hours spent breaking the crust off her past… She wanted to make the electrical right… but more so, she wanted to set the past right too.

And what would make things right?

She was sitting on the counter, her mouth full of bologna and cheese when Brooke entered the kitchen. Immediately, Allie’s eyes went wide. “Howy thit! Ah faw oo eft!” Despite the fact that she was filthy with dust and dried sweat, Allie jumped off the counter as she finished chewing the bite in her mouth. Swallowing, she broke into a huge grin. “Welcome home. I’m honestly glad to see you.” And Cam will be too, she thought.

[Jag]

The lazy old sun watched overhead as the lazy old truck pulled up to the lazy old curb on the lazy old street of the lazy old town. At least that was how it was starting to feel. Waking up with more than just a little headache the morning after his long conversation with Allie over a bottle of flavored something-or-other, Cameron just didn't feel like himself. He didn't feel like trying to do anything to bring the drive-in back to life, didn't feel like scheming a prank with Allie against one of his unsuspecting houseguests, didn't feel like making an effort to the rest of the world. He just felt tired.

The whole thing was just starting to feel like going through the motions again. For a few days, he felt like he'd captured the spirit of those summers again, felt like every piece of what he'd remembered from the best of all of them. Now, it was just starting to feel, well, old and lazy. So through the motions he went.

Sliding of out of the driver's seat of the truck, his feel his pavement as a car drove by, far too nice to be something local and far too clean to be someone cruising up the old road to avoid the interstate. A fleeting mystery that only took his attention away for a few seconds before he rounded the front of the truck and leaned into opening the door of the diner, about the only place in town that was still doing half-decent business enough to keep things going. As long as there were people, they were going to eat.

"You coming?" He asked as he heard the passenger door to the truck slowly open with a creak behind him as he held the door open, having almost forgotten about his passenger while driving lost in his own thoughts.

"Seen Chelsea around?" He asked as he walked into and leaned against the counter.

[Jag]

Posted on behalf of FizzGig

On any other day, Cam’s silence would have encouraged Lexi to attempt to figure out what the problem was, to see if she could try in some small way to cheer him up, to get him back to his old self. But there were a few things that got in the way of this. First of all, she knew exactly why he was feeling the way that he was (or she could make an educated guess about it), and second of all, the fact that she wasn’t in much of a better mood wasn’t conducive to being the encouraging half of their friendly dynamic.

That was the other thing. The one issue that was bothering her, moreso now than it had earlier this morning during the talk with Allie, was something she wasn’t sure she should even mention to Cam. Sure, he’d find out soon enough that Alex was back, that she’d met him, that he probably run into a few if not all of them at some point this summer. Did that mean she should warn him ahead of time? Would he be upset if she didn’t say something, and then ended up finding out she knew ahead of time?

Probably not. At least, he wouldn’t outwardly express that he was upset. But still, if she did tell him, then what good would it do any of them? Cam’d probably just become more ‘off’ than he already was, as if this mood of his wasn’t bad enough to watch or interact with. When he’d come to her to ask if she wanted to hang out, she had thought, perhaps, that he’d be a little less…down. Obviously not. The entire drive to the diner was done in silence, with Cam stalwartly staring ahead, lost in his own thoughts, and Lexi was too demure to distract him from them.

While she supposed he wanted to think about what had happened, she was trying to do her best to forget. All of it.

Seeing him standing out on the beach was like watching him walk straight out of her past. He looked different. Older, more world-weary, and there was this emotion behind his eyes that gave him more depth than she’d ever seen him have. It was like he was hiding some kind of inner conflict, some sort of pain that was burning to be expressed, but for whatever reason (she could think of a few), he just didn’t say anything about it.

That much she didn’t really care about. He could keep his thoughts to himself as far as she was concerned. She’d put them behind her, and they were going to stay there. And God dammit, she wasn’t going to allow herself to think about the way he’d made her feel, good and bad, how her insecurities had been laid bare for him to stomp on time and time again, how she was never brave enough to leave until it was really too late.

How she was never brave enough to face him and everything he’d stood for in her life.

They’d stood on the beach, facing each other with all of their past hanging in front of their faces. She wondered if he felt sorry, if he had thought about her as much as she’d thought about him in those months after leaving. With Allie suddenly talking about how she’d been jealous, Lexi couldn’t be sure. It added insult to injury, to think that while she had thought she’d had Alex for that short period of time…there was the chance that she hadn’t had him at all.

But he’d had her, hook, line, and sinker.

It made her feel sick to her stomach to think about it.

”Alex.”

She shifted to hug herself, glancing off to the side as color rushed to her cheeks. “It…it’s been a while.”

“I…yeah.” He murmured, the remnants of a wince at the mention of his name – his old name – on his face. “Yeah, it was. How’ve…”

He coughed into his fist, willing himself to just say it. “How’ve you been?”

“I, er, better, if I was to be perfectly honest.” She replied, avoiding his gaze now. “Came here to get away from stuff back home.”

There was a long pause. “You?”

He’d avoided the question, asking where she was staying. She found out that no one else knew he was there other than Mr. Florentine, and he’d told her that he’d see her around.

She certainly hoped not. She didn’t think she could handle that much.

Not realizing that Cam had already pulled to a stop in front of the diner, she startled herself from her light daydream when he called to her from the entrance of the diner. Slowly, she pushed herself out of the passenger’s seat, slamming the truck door closed behind her and crossing her arms over her chest before making her way inside.

“I haven’t.” she replied to his question, unsure if he’d been asking her or someone else.

When he leaned against the counter, she joined him, resting her elbows on the worn, cold surface as she debated talking about the things she’d inevitably wanted to talk about all morning. Not just to Cam, but to someone, anyone who might understand. Well, everyone except Allie. She didn’t think she’d be able to stand it if Allie got…excited about it or something.

“Cam.” She finally said in a voice that was weighted with the heaviness of her own thoughts.

“There’s…something I gotta tell you.” She began, not looking at him. She was being uncharacteristically demure about all of this.

“I, uh, saw Alex today. He’s back.”

He’s home.

[Jag]

Chat Session with Jag and FizzGig
Cameron Ellis
Lexi Thorn

Cameron Ellis tapped on the counter a few times, looking for the familiar head of black hair. He'd gotten to know Chelsea a little better than most since she'd moved to the town, one of the few people to actually come into Jayton instead of flooding out. He hadn't quite figured her out yet and was a long way from trusting her as part of the group he regarded as his family, but she was too damn persistent and cheery not to force her way into things eventually. Cameron wouldn't admit it, but he liked seeing her around.

The tapping continued right up until Lexi dropped the bomb. Alex. It was a name that Cameron hadn't heard in a long time until last night. Too convenient to just be a coincidence.

"...What did you just say?" The words that poured from the boy's mouth as he turned were less of a question and more of an accusation, as if Lexi had just spat on his uncle's grave.

She hesitated, immediately regretting saying anything when he turned his eyes on her. The tone he took indicated to her that he wasn't...well...who would be happy about the situation really? But she could tell that she had visibly upset him.

Well, she had to lie in the bed she'd made for herself.

"He's back. He's here." she clarified for him. "I saw him on the beach this morning."

Her fingertips were pressed to the counter-top hard enough to turn her knuckles white.

Somewhere in the distance, Cameron heard the jolting sound of a scoreboard buzzer as time ran out one more time. He could almost smell the sweat on top of the unmistakable smell of the freshly-painted hardwood floor that existed only in his mind and his memories.

"Guess I should've known that he'd slink back here eventually. Rats usually find their way back to the sewer," he remarked, making it absolutely clear how he felt about his old classmate and teammate. The bad blood between the boys was something that had been documented and probably cost Jayton its last shot at glory.

"Always thought that I'd have some crippling, rotting wrench of my gut when he came back though, like I'd feel it." The tapping on the counter turned into a pointed finger with less...delicacy.

"You talk to him?"

"Briefly."

Her mind was on that night too, when the entire court had been emptied, and it was just the two of them. Just her to face down the fury that Alex inevitably took out on her. Her against him, a conflict that people hinted at, but no one knew the full extent of.

But she wasn't about to bring that up. Not like it would help them at all.

"Honestly I didn't stick around long enough for a heart to heart." she replied, turning her back to the counter and leaning against it.

"Heart to heart," he practically scoffed. "Now that's funny." Finally taking an actual seat at the counter, Cameron stared down at his hands for a moment before releasing a sigh.

"And here I was thinking that I'd finally gotten rid of all the things that make my head all...fuzzy," he admitted, trying to smirk and laugh about it. It was clear that he wasn't talking so much about Alex anymore. Long ago the Ellis kid had made a promise not to waste any more brain power on him than he used for himself, so about twelve words should cover the next three to four years.

"So I guess that means you're the next one to bolt in the middle of the night?"

"Oh ye of little faith." she replied with a faint smile.

"Alex ruined my life once. I'm not about to let him come in and take away the one good thing I have in my life right now." She watched him for a moment, before shifting to take a seat next to him. With her knees up, and her palms rested on top of them, she regarded her friend with gentle eyes, her brow delicately furrowed as she thought of what to say next.

"We'll be fine." she managed after a long couple of seconds. Easier said than done, but it sounded nice, right?

Cam was content to sit in silence for a moment, he and Lexi obviously sitting very close together while their hearts and minds took them to very, very different places. Both of them had a lot to think about, a lot of things to consider from the last twenty-four hours. Brooke had come back and then left again with no warning. At least not to the rest of them. Still a lot of questions there. Now Alex was back in the picture, complicating things for both of them. Lexi moreso, as there were a lot of emotional strings still hanging at the thought of the young man. For Cam, it was more the burden of knowing that he'd be picking another fight soon and he was running out of punches to throw.

"I know," he said with a small nod of his head. "In fact, things are going to start getting better right now," the young man said, suddenly energized by...well...something. Sliding from his chair, he hooked Lexi into a hug with his arm around her neck for a moment and pecked the top of her head with his lips.

"C'mon, I've got an idea."

She had been so lost in thought that when Cam finally spoke up, she actually jumped. She turned a wide eye to him, feeling a smile pull at her lips with his words, and squinted her eyes shut when he reached over and gave her a quick hug.

"Should I be nervous?" she replied, putting an arm around his waist as she slid from the chair and tugged him toward the door of the diner. Allie wasn't around, so at the very least she knew that he wasn't scheming with his wonder twin.

As they exited the diner without waiting for word on Chelsea, Cameron stared down the street for a moment with his tongue jutting out partially between his lips, the tell-tale Ellis sign of absolute concentration in a moment. It was one that many had seen on the free-throw line of a basketball court, among many other places.

"Why would you be nervous?" He asked, looking over at her across the hood of the truck with a smirk and shrug of his shoulders. "When have I ever done anything? Now hurry up, get it. We're gonna have to work fast if we're going to get away with this."

With that, he jumped into the truck, fired up the engine and pointed it down the street, back toward the drive-in.

"Yessir." Lexi replied quickly, shaking her head as a smile grew on her face. Pulling the passenger door open, she slipped inside, slamming the door closed as Cam pulled off down the street.

There was silence again, but a different kind of silence. She could practically feel Cam's excitement rippling through the heated interior of the truck.

"So, no hints? No disclaimers? I don't need to sign a waiver or anything?" she teased, giving him a sideways glance and lifting a brow.

"No, I'm pretty sure that you already signed your soul away just by stepping off that bus the other day. Tough luck," he said as they made the drive out of town proper and back around the hill that eventually led to the site of the drive-in. The place was started to look a little cleaner, at least, although nothing like the social hub it had been for decades. The screen itself was competely torn off the railings, just metal framing left.

"There it is," he said as he pumped the brakes and pulled them to a quick stop in front of the old storage shed, the one they'd been dodging in and out of for days, the same one that had yielded all the home movies.

"I, well, yeah, but still...." she said as she watched the drive-in come into view. When they pulled to a stop, she tore off her hat, pulling her hair up and out of her way with a hairband before climbing out of the cab. She scanned over the drive-in theater, eyes fixated on a mess of broken-up concrete.

"Did...someone take the jackhammer?" she asked with a lift to her brow.

Cam's response was slightly less than one might expect from a grand mastermind attempting to weave an intricate thread of delicate pieces to recreate their collection history.

"We have a jackhammer? How the hell did we end up with a jac--" he allowed his voice to trail off as he ducked into the storage shed. If there was any semblance of organization in the work that had been done lately, it was all being undone in a matter of seconds as Cameron tore through, eventually calling out in success as his body reappeared though the door, this time dragging a heavy and massive tarp out that extended several times long than his own body.

"Found it!"

"Are we burying a body?" Lexi asked as she rushed forward to help him drag the massive piece of construction fabric out of the shed. With a grunt, she gave a final tug, pulling the tarp free, and fixed Cam with a quizzical look.

"I'm running out of ideas here, Cam, and creative guesses. What's got in you?"

Not that she minded. This was far nicer than mopey Cam.

The final force of the heavy tarp coming loose actually caused the boy to lose his balance and fall backward, landing on the cleared dirt beneath them.

"We," he said with a very matter-of-fact tone, as if Lexi should have somehow been in his head so much to this point that she would have been able to read the boy's thoughts, "are going to screen a movie. Here. Tonight."

It would have made for a good joke except for the fact that Cameron was already back in the shed, muttering something about rope.

There was a beat of silence.

"I, Cam?" she called after him, following him into the shed and standing rather precariously on the threshold. She didn't do spiders, and other creepy crawlies that liked to live in dark spaces such as this shed. That's what boys were for.

"You mean to tell me that we're going to hang the tarp? The two of us? You want my help for that?" she asked with wide eyes.

It was a recipe for disaster.

Outside of Alex, Lexi was about the last person that he would have asked for help for the simple reason that she was exactly the type that wouldn't want to get her hands dirty. Still, he didn't have a lot of options and it felt too damn good to have a plan not to take advantage of the situation now. He wasn't going to sit around and think anymore. That hadn't gotten him anywhere with anyone except saying good-bye.

"It's easy. I promise," he said with a coil of rope thrown over his shoulder as he emerged again. "All we've got to do is get this rope up and through the guideholes at the top of the metal frame and then string the rest of the tarp through it. You just...umm...call someone if I fall and break my neck."

"I, well, here." she looked around for a second rope. "If we do both sides at the same time it'll be easier right?"

So long as she didn't fall and break her neck, they'd be okay. Gripping the tarp, she laced her fingers around a large bundle and started to tug, making a hero's effort to get the tarp closer to the drive-in. Much to her surprise, it slid pretty well, even if it was slow going.

But dammitall, she was going to try her best.

[Starbuck]

“Howy thit! Ah faw oo eft!”

Geez, she'd only been gone overnight, and already Allie was looking back at her as if she was seeing a ghost. What did Cam tell her? Enough to make her and everyone else think that she wouldn't come back? Ugh, it didn't matter. She didn't want to dwell on it anymore, or relive last night. Could she completely avoid it and pretend it never happened? Of course not. She'd have to face that annoyingly stubborn boy again eventually. She had to, if she wanted to work things out and at least put their friendship at peace. And if she didn't want to truly work things out, she wouldn't have come back at all.

"Thanks, Allie. That means a lot. I'm sorry I didn't really...say goodbye to anyone. Rough night." She left it at, but it seemed she wasn't the only one with personal issues going on at the moment. She'd just been so involved in her own to really open her eyes and see it.

God, she couldn't believe how quiet it was in that big house, and they were only missing a few people. But she wasn't about to stand in that kitchen with Gabe and Allie, and just awkwardly stare at them while they all tried to force conversation. No, she needed to do something. They were all here for a purpose, right? Might as well get to work. And she could tell that she wasn't the only one who needed the distraction. Her, Allie, Gabe...they were all a mess. It was clear, when neither of them could look the other in the eyes for longer than a second.

"C'mon, let's get out of here. We can get some more work done at the drive-in." She felt Gabe looking back at her, questionably. "Okay, Gabe can get some more work done, while we watch." Brooke's lips curled in a smirk, and she jabbed him playfully before stepping deeper into the kitchen to grab a granola bar and an apple, and a large bottle of water. She was slowly starting to feel a little more like herself again, and she urged the others to hurry and follow so they get out of that stuffy, but beautiful house.

Upon arrival to the drive-in, Brooke would have had to be completely blind not to see Cameron's truck parked lazily between two spaces. Not that it mattered. But that truck parked there meant something completely different to her, than it did to Allie and Gabe. To her; It meant telling Cam that she was back. To them; It meant Lexi was here. She didn't know the significance of Lexi's presence around those two in particular, but again, she wasn't the only one with issues.

They all seemed to hesitate as they sat in the rental car and Gabe turned off the ignition. And Brooke was the first to let out a heavy breath of air, before she reached for the door. "We're already here, no turning back now, kids."

[FizzGig]

From her vantage point on the ground, Lexi had one of the ropes clasped tightly in her hands, making sure the length of it didn’t drag against the ground as Cam climbed the ladder, prepping to tie the corners of the tarp to the mounts for the theater screen. Biting her lip, she squinted through the curls of her bangs, feeling tendrils of sweat slip down her temples, on down her neck and beneath the collar of her blouse.

The work was making it easy for her to forget about the events of that morning. In fact, she stamped them down with her characteristic enthusiasm, focusing instead on the task at hand, hoping to God that Cam didn’t fall off that ladder, leaving her alone to contend with the other half that would surely end up spiting her in the end.

The sound of a truck pulling into the drive had her looking back over her shoulder, rising on her tiptoes in an attempt to see who it was. Allie maybe? Or Gabe? What were they planning on doing over here anyway?

She was about to turn to warn Cam, when a sudden flash of blonde hair behind the glare of the windshield had Lexi riveted to the scene as the car parked, dust floating around the tires in an ominous cloud.

It couldn’t be.

“Cam…” she said, still facing the trio as they began to unload out of the truck. She tugged on the rope once, to get his attention.

“Cam, look…”

It appeared as though Brooke was…back!