* Chapter 18 *

I slowly walked down the rest of the stairs while ‘What A Girl Wants’ by Christina Aguilera played over the speakers. I didn’t exactly know anyone here so I just kind of stood there at the bottom of the steps until I felt a hand on my shoulder.

"You ok?" I heard Jane ask.

"Yeah, I’m fine," I said unsure if I really was or not.

"Come with me. I know some things you can do that are fun," she said as she started to walk away.

I followed her, but glanced over the crowd every once in a while, hoping to spot Nick. Jane led me to the right side of the lawn where they had a few carnival-type games set up. They had a human bowling lane, some sort of water pistol game and a Velcro wall.

"Pretty cool huh?" she asked after she saw my look of amazement as I was checking out the Velcro wall.

"Yeah," I said as someone with bright bleached hair in a Velcro suit jumped onto the wall in a running man position and stuck there like that.

I couldn’t help but laugh when I realized who it was.

"Thanks for bringing me over to this little loony corner," I said to Jane with a little laugh. "I’m going over there," I said pointing to the Velcro wall.

"Ok," she said happily. "Have fun!"

I walked over to the side of the wall so that I was standing there looking at the guy that was stuck to the wall. He had jumped high enough that the people in charge of the wall were having a hard time getting him off.

"Hey AJ!" I yelled as he looked over in my direction.

"LIZ!" he screamed as a guy pried him off the wall. "You should try this! It’s the bomb!"

"No thanks," I said as he walked up to me with a Velcro suit in hand. "I saw what happened to you!"

"It’s fun!" he said still trying to get me to do it.

"I know," I said. "But I’m not in the mood."

"Ok," he said putting the suit back on the table with the others. "So what are you doing here?"

"Long story actually," I said trying to stay away from that topic. "This is kind of crazy. I’ve never been to a party like this before."

"Really? This is nothing compared to the ones that I have," he said with a huge grin.

"I don’t doubt that," I said with a laugh as we walked over to a table with a bunch of guys sitting there joking around with each other.

"Hey guys," AJ said. "Look who I found," he said as each one turned around.

I smiled until I saw who it was that was sitting at the table. I looked at each person and realized that I was looking at Kev, Bri, Howie, a kid that I was guessing to be AC, and another kid that was AC’s age.

"Hi Liz," Bri said with a smile.

"Hi," I said quietly while looking the other direction.

I really didn’t want to look at their faces because I thought they were mad at me or something. I was kind of relieved when Kev got up and asked me to dance to the song that was playing. I accepted and walked with him to the place on the lawn where everyone else was dancing. After we were comfortably dancing along with ‘Back At One’, he said that he wanted to talk when we were done. I nodded and we went back to dancing the last few seconds of the song.

"So, what happened yesterday?" he asked after we wandered into the house and sat down in an empty room to talk.

"It’s kind of a long story," I said with a little sigh.

"Do you want to talk about it?" he asked.

"Not really," I responded. "It’s all taken care of. Things are better now."

"That’s good," he said like he was really relieved to hear what I just said.

"I talked to the person that was driving me crazy, literally, and everything is fine now," I said with a smile as I sat back on the couch that I was sitting in. "Would you tell the other guys that I’m sorry about what happened? They are probably really confused about the whole thing."

"Yeah, sure. So, where are you staying?" he asked curiously while he relaxed in his chair. "We saw you leave the hotel yesterday. Your sister was pretty worried."

"I know she’s worried about me. She’s always worried about me...it’s almost like she’s the older of us two, always worrying about everybody," I said rolling my eyes. "Anyway, I can’t tell you where I’m staying. That’s confidential information, but don’t worry, I’m staying in good hands," I said with a smile.

He sat there and gave me a ‘don’t-worry, I’ll-find-out’ look. He didn’t say anything for a few minutes so I decided to break the silence.

"Let’s go back out to the party," I said while standing up and walking towards the door to the hallway. "They’re gonna think we left."

"Yeah, let’s go," he said as he followed behind me as I went out into the hallway.

We made our way to the sliding doors and I let Kev go first so that I could go without having to face the other guys again. I wanted him to talk to them before I did so I would feel more comfortable around them. I was kind of glad that AJ didn’t seem bothered about what happened the day before.

"There ya are," Nick exclaimed as I reached the bottom of the steps and stepped onto the lawn. "I see that you haven’t seen the pool yet," he said with an evil voice and a huge grin on his face.

"No!" I screamed as I ran the other direction to get away from him.

I knew exactly what he wanted to do. He wanted to throw me in the pool! I ran as fast as I could in a few circles when I came back to the spot at the bottom of the stairs where I started. I didn’t see him anywhere so I continued walking as if nothing was wrong.

"Gotcha!" he yelled as he picked me up like I was a bride or something and walked over to the pool.

"No!" I screamed bloody murder as I tightened my grip around his neck. "Not the shoes!"

That only made him laugh hysterically and want to do it worse.

"Hey Bone!" he yelled at AJ. "Help me out here. Take off her shoes."

AJ jogged over and pulled my shoes off quickly while I continued screaming.

"Help me!" I screamed as I squirmed to get out from Nick’s tight grip.

I could hear people laughing as he got ready to throw me in the pool. The people in the pool were all sitting on the edge so that they didn’t get hurt or anything.

"That’s not going to work," he said as he tightened his grip even more.

"I know," I said sadly as he readied to throw me in.

"Nick!!!" I could hear Jane yell at him as I went under. "What are you doing?"

"Nothing," he replied with a laugh as he gave AJ a high five.

"You two are so dead!" I yelled loudly while pointing at the two of them after I came back up.

‘It’s a good thing I’m wearing water-proof mascara’ I thought to myself as I made my way to the steps and waited in the water while Jane went to get a towel.

"Here you go," Jane said while I got out of the pool. "Let’s get you inside so you can dry off," she said as she wrapped a fluffy oversized beach towel around me.

"Geez! It’s freezing out here!" I whined as we made our way to the house.

"Here’s your shoes," Howie said with a little laugh as he handed me my shoes when we got to the steps to the door.

"Thanks," I said grumpily as I snatched them from his hands before turning to go up the steps to the house.

Jane led me into the house and up a flight of stairs past a few doors and into a large room with two beds.

"This is Nick and Aaron’s room. It’s the only one that’s clean at the moment. You can take your clothes off in here and wrap up in this blanket while I put your clothes in the dryer," she said while handing me a huge purple fleece blanket. "I’ll be back in a minute to get your clothes," she said before she walked out the door.

I just stood there in the middle of the room and looked around for a minute. It looked like any ordinary room from what I saw. After locking the door and shutting the blinds, I quickly changed out of my clothes and wrapped myself up in the towel and blanket. Jane came back and took my clothes to the dryer while I sat on a chair that was set by the window. I was going to be stuck in this room for at least a good 30 minutes, so I walked over to a bookshelf and found a pad of paper and a pen. ‘Perfect!’ I thought as I grabbed a sheet and started writing a few words in large letters.

‘Nick ~ You are sooooo dead! At least now I know where you live :o) From LH’ it read.

"There. That’ll make him jumpy for a while," I said as I stuck it in the frame of the mirror that was hanging above the dresser.

After I got it to stay in the frame, I walked over to the blind covered window and lifted one of the blinds to see what was going on outside. The number of people that were still there had gone down by about half, but they were all having a blast. I turned my eyes back to the table where Kev, Bri and AJ sat. They were playing some sort of card game and laughing a lot. They all reminded me of some of my High School friends. We used to play card games in choir class whenever we had a sub or our teacher didn’t have any plans in particular. I was pulled from my memory by a knocking at the door.

"Yeah," I called out, not wanting to get up and unlock the door.

"It’s me," Jane said. "Just wanted to tell you that your clothes will only be a few more minutes."

"Ok. Thanks," I said back loud enough for her to hear before turning back to the window.

I soon got tired of standing and watching everyone at the party below, so I walked over and sat on one of the beds. I laid down on my side with me feet still on the floor.

"This is turning out to be a rather boring party," I said out loud to myself as I laid there staring at the door.

About five minutes later, Jane came back upstairs and knocked on the door.

"Your clothes are done," she said as I got up and unlocked the door. "Here you are," she said, handing me my clothes that were still warm from the dryer.

"Thanks," I said before I shut the door to get dressed again.

After I had my clothes back on, I wandered downstairs until I found my shoes exactly where I had left them by the sliding glass door to the backyard. I sat down on the floor as I slid my shoes on and laced them up. I ran my fingers through my wet hair as I hummed along with Mandy Moore’s ‘Candy’ that played in the backyard. Thinking that I was alone, I started singing the words as I continued to ‘brush’ through my hair. I stopped singing when I heard giggling coming from the other side of the room. I got up quietly and decided to investigate. I walked over to where the laughing was coming from and saw AC rolling on the floor trying not to laugh out loud.

"What’s so funny?" I asked leaning over him.

When he looked up and saw me standing over him, he laughed even harder. He laughed until he was almost crying.

"Are you laughing at me?" I asked with shock.

"Yeah," he replied between giggles. "I mean...no."

"Whatever," I said as I stood and turned around to walk away.

"Wait!" he yelled out. "I’m not laughing at you."

I turned around and watched him get up.

"It’s just that you sing it so much different than she does," he said as he walked over to the couch and plopped down on it.

"Uh...thanks...I guess," I replied as I walked over to the glass door.

I decided that I’d go and tell Nick that I was going to go so he wouldn’t like freak out when he couldn’t find me anywhere.

"I’m going out here. Wanna join me?" I asked him.

"There’s only old boring people out there now," he said sadly.

"Hey! I’m not old and I’m not boring!" I exclaimed. "Come on! Let’s go," I said as I walked over and grabbed his hand so he’d follow.

"Ok," he said as he followed me out the door.

"Hey...wanna piggy back down the stairs?" I bent over and whispered in his ear.

I watched a smile form on his face as I looked him in the eyes so I hunched over and waited for him to crawl onto my back. I practically ran down the steps and almost ran into Brian in the process.

"Woah! Sorry Brian," I apologized and kept running until we got to the Velcro wall. "You wanna do it together?" I asked with a smile as he jumped off my back.

"Yeah!" he said as he jumped up and down with excitement.

We slid on the special suits and went way back so we could get a running start for a good jump.

"Ready?" I asked.

"Yeah!"

"Ok. Here goes nothing," I said. "On the count of three."

We ran as fast as we could and jumped as high as we could. It must have looked pretty funny to see us both stuck next to each other on the wall. We didn’t get as high as AJ, but we did get pretty high.

"That was awesome!" Aaron said happily as he took the suit off.

"Yeah it was," I agreed.

"Hey," Aaron said as we walked back over to where the tables were. "You’re pretty cool!"

"Why thank you," I replied with a smile. "I try!"

He laughed at my comment as we walked up to the table that Nick was sitting at.

"Hey Nick! You should have seen us. We did the Velcro wall at the same time! You should’ve seen how high we got," AC explained anxiously to Nick and the others at the table while I turned around and walked away. "She’s great!" he said pointing to me as I headed over to the abandoned pool table to play a quick game with myself.