He looked over at Jenny and me putting up the last coffee print in the kitchen and, smiling, shook his head a little. Laughing softly, he turned and headed upstairs to his room. Jenny and I figured that was as much of a "looks good" as we were going to get, so laughing a little ourselves, we quickly finished the decor project.

I thanked Jenny, for occupying my mind and beautifying our house, when she had to leave shortly after, to start her shift. She shouted a goodbye up the stairs to Kellan and upon his "bye" response, waved to me and headed out the door. Thinking that maybe Kellan secretly wasn't thrilled about the new look, I quietly made my way upstairs.

His door was cracked, and I could just make him out, sitting on the edge of his bed, staring at the floor with a strange expression on his face. Curious, I knocked on his door. He looked up as I opened the door wider and waved me in.

"Hey...sorry about the stuff. If you don't like it, I can take it down." I smiled at him apologetically and sat on the edge of the bed beside him.

He smiled and shook his head. "No, its fine. I guess it was a little...empty." He pointed over his shoulder, to the poster I had hung on his wall. "I do like that...thanks."

I smiled back at him. "Yeah, I thought you might...you're welcome." Wondering what he had been thinking about earlier, I blurted out, "You okay?"

He looked at me, confused. "Yeah, I'm fine...why?"

Suddenly embarrassed, I wasn't sure what to say. "Nothing, you just looked...nothing, sorry."

He looked at me thoughtfully for a moment, and I thought he was deciding whether or not to tell me something. I started holding my breath under the intensity of his deep blue eyes. Suddenly, he smiled at me, and shaking his head a little, asked instead, "Hungry? How about Pete's?" He smiled brilliantly. "It's been so long since we've been there."

The bar was pretty packed, even though it was early. Kellan and I sat at his usual table and Jenny smiled at us again as she came over to take our orders. We picked out a couple burgers and a couple beers, and I watched the crowd while we waited for our drinks. It felt a little odd to sit alone in public with Kellan, especially at the place I worked. Rita watched us curiously and I tried to avoid eye contact with her; she tended to think the worst about us.

Kellan seemed completely comfortable, however. He sat laid back in his chair, foot propped up on his knee, watching me. It suddenly occurred to me that I had spent the whole day out with Jenny, and then I'd been busy decorating, and now I was out at Pete's - I hadn't talked to Denny today. That thought made me frown. We hadn't gone a whole day without talking to each other. It bothered me enough that I almost asked Kellan to take me home.

He noticed. "You okay?"

Realizing I was being silly, and I could listen to his voice on our new machine over and over, if he did call while I was gone, I smiled and shrugged. "Yeah, just Denny-sick. I'm fine though."

He seemed to consider that for a minute, then nodded.

Jenny brought us our beers and he sipped his in silence, still watching me intently. Starting to feel slightly uncomfortable, I relaxed visibly when she brought our food out a few minutes later. The weirdness between us quickly passed, and we ate and talked companionably. We sat and ate and talked and drank our beers for, well, I'm not sure how long, but, eventually, we weren't alone at the table.

The rest of the D-Bags finally made their almost nightly appearance at Pete's. They joined our table without even considering that they may not be invited to. I didn't mind. The guys were entertaining to hang out with. Well, maybe not so much Griffin, but as long as he kept his hands off of me, I could tolerate him.

Luckily, he sat over by Kellan, on the far side of the table from me. Of course, he had to smack Kellan on the shoulder and say, "Nice, man" while leering at me suggestively. I rolled my eyes while Kellan chuckled at him. Matt sat next to me, while Evan pulled a chair up to the end and sat down.

Jenny quickly brought everybody beers and just like that, I was the fifth member of the band for the night. They were interesting to watch in action this close, and with the bar so busy, there were plenty of opportunities to watch them interact with people. Okay, mostly with women. I found the differences in how the guys "interacted" with their fans interesting. Of course, they all did it, even quiet Matt and sweet Evan. They all seemed to enjoy their pseudo-stardom, just in different ways, to different degrees.

On the extreme end, was Griffin, who, I think if he ever had the idea, would keep a running tally of his conquests on his arms. He ceaselessly reiterated his adventures to anyone who would stop and listen. I found it disgusting, and tuned out as much as I possibly could. Being typical guys, the rest of the band seemed to find it all amusing. Even some women stopped and practically drooled on themselves over his crude stories. I could almost see them mentally replacing themselves with the random woman in his tale.

Griffin also seemed to be in some weird competition with Kellan. He was always asking him if he'd been with this or that girl. To his credit, Kellan was surprisingly quiet about his dalliances. He never answered Griffin directly. He tactfully changed Griffin's line of questioning, without ever actually saying if he did or didn't "do" said girl. In fact, thinking back over our time here, if he'd been with someone, or someones, I suppose, I had never seen it. Nothing beyond flirting. Tons of flirting actually; the boy did enjoy a good snuggle. I had heard plenty about his conquests though, but mostly from the women around the bar, or the guys in the band, or, ugh, the bathroom walls. Finding it hard to believe that someone as good-looking as him wasn't "getting some" regularly, I wondered where he went.

I tore my eyes away from where Kellan was chatting with some brunette, brushing her hair away from her shoulder and leaning in to whisper in her ear, while she giggled and ran a hand down his chest. Turning my head, I watched Evan sitting on the edge of the stage.

Evan was boisterous and fun...and a flirt. From what I'd heard, he tended to focus on one woman for a short period of time, and then, when it was almost beginning to get serious, he would shift focus to someone else. When he was in love, he was deeply in love, but it never held his interest for long; he was "in love" a lot. Currently, he was pledging devotion to some buxom blonde in hot pants.

I smiled and turned to look over at Matt, the only band member just people watching, like me. He smiled back at me and sipped his beer in comfortable silence.

Matt was almost shy around girls. I never saw him approach anyone, they always approached him first. And he usually let them do most, if not all, of the talking and flirting. I could completely understand Matt and his shyness. In some ways, we were a lot alike. But before the end of the night, even Matt had caught the interest of a pretty girl, who brought over a chair to sit beside him.

I rolled my eyes and continued my people, well, band watching, sipping on my beer. The superfluous flirting going on around me suddenly made me miss Denny very, very much. I was sadly staring at my beer bottle when I felt someone approach. I looked up at Kellan smiling at me and holding his hand out. Confused, I took it and he stood me up.

"We're going to play some pool...join us?" He motioned back at Griffin who was downing the rest of his beer.

I wasn't eager to hang out closer to Griffin, but Kellan was smiling warmly at me, and I found myself nodding. He put his hand on my back and we made our way to the pool room. I noticed the woman he'd been flirting with earlier, following us with a couple of her friends, Griffin following them, with a highly inappropriate look in his light blue eyes.

Griffin shot first, while Kellan stood over by me, a stick upright in his hands. He grinned at me when Griffin didn't make anything on the break. Then he leaned over the pool table and, watching me with a cocky, half-smile on his lips, he made his shot. I laughed softly when his ball completely missed every other ball. He looked back at the table and frowned, then looked back up at me and laughed, shrugging his shoulders as he straightened back up. His woman put a hand over his stomach consolingly, but he didn't look over at her.

Griffin smacked him on the back as he walked by. "Nice! Thanks."

Griffin sank the next two balls while Kellan sat on a stool beside me, his flirty friend standing close beside him, looking down at him like she was considering plopping onto his lap. He unconsciously rubbed the skin behind her knee with his thumb, his fingers drifting up her short skirt a little, while he watched Griffin shoot.

Ignoring the flirting, that was making me slightly uncomfortable, I commentated on his playing instead. "You really aren't good at pool, are you?" I smiled widely at the thought.

Laughing, he looked over at me. "No, thanks for noticing." He looked back at Griffin while the brunette ran a hand through his hair above his ear. "I think that's why Griffin likes to play me." He laughed again and smiled up at the girl, making her giggle.

I rolled my eyes at him. "Maybe if you concentrated more..." He looked back at me, mock-offended and I laughed.

He looked at me silently for a second, his eyes oddly serious, and then laughed as well, shaking his head. "Yeah...maybe."

I looked away from him and watched Griffin make another two shots. He actually wasn't bad. Kellan started chuckling, highly amused at something, and I peered over at him. He was watching me watch Griffin play, a wry smile on his lips. "You get to play the winner," he said, touching my knee lightly with the hand holding his pool stick.

My eyes widened at that. I really was not good at pool...and apparently he wasn't either. Even more alarmed, I looked over at Griffin, who, in-between his shots, was attempting to lift up some girl's skirt with his stick. There was no way in hell I was playing pool with him! Kellan laughed harder as my face apparently made that clear to him.

Kellan finished up his game (okay, he lost terribly to Griffin and then called it quits) and gave his suddenly very sad brunette a kiss on the cheek. Then we said our goodbyes to Jenny, the rest of the band, and an amused Rita, and he took me home. Even with my loneliness, the evening was surprisingly a lot of fun. But fun or not, the first thing I did when Kellan and I got home, was immediately check the answering machine for a missed message from Denny.

Nothing...nothing at all. I sighed brokenly and then shuffled off to bed.

After not hearing from him at all the evening I went to Pete's with Kellan, Denny's phone call the next night sparked my irritation. He apologized profusely, swearing up and down that work was crazy-busy, and he hadn't had a chance to stop and eat, much less call me. He invented a couple of creative ways to make it up to me, which eventually made me laugh and cooled my anger, somewhat. But a few nights later it happened again, and then a few nights later, again.

On top of worrying and wondering about that, the time was up for me to register for school. Denny had been the one who was going to show me around the new campus. Not that he knew it any better than I did, he didn't, but we'd planned on making a day of it - going on a Sunday and registering for my classes (he was a pro at creating the perfect schedule), checking out the bookstore, taking the self-guided campus tour and laughingly figuring it all out...together. But now he was away, indefinitely, and I was going to have to figure it out on my own.

I was scowling at brochures, course catalogs, and a map of the massive campus when Kellan came into the kitchen one Wednesday afternoon. Angry again at Denny's absence, I finally swept my arm across the table and, cursing rather dramatically, knocked everything to the floor. Of course, I hadn't realized that he was standing right behind me, or I wouldn't have been so theatrical. I just really wasn't looking forward to walking aimlessly around the school alone, looking like a lost idiot.

He laughed at my outburst and startled, I spun to face him. "I can't wait to tell Griff about that one." He smiled broadly, enjoying the moment a little too much. Blushing furiously, I groaned at the pictured amusement on Griffin's face. Great. "School starting, huh?" He nodded over to the brochures on the floor.

Sighing, I bent over to pick them up. "Yeah, and I still haven't really been on the campus. I have no idea where everything is." I straightened to look at him. "I just....Denny was supposed to be here for this." I hated how that sounded, like I couldn't function like a normal human being with him away. It was going to be embarrassing, figuring all this out on my own...but I should be able to do stuff on my own. I frowned at my dark thoughts. "He's been gone almost a month."