*Chapter is partially edited!*

     GROGGINESS WAS THE MORE annoying thought that plagued my mind when I rolled over once more. Tossing and turning had always been my staple, but today, I'd been hoping to toss that particular trait of mine aside for an actual night of good sleep.

Apparently, my body had other ideas.

The feeling of my cheap pink nail polish chipping off as I raked my fingers through my knotted blonde hair left me grimacing. I'd be finding it in my hair for weeks if I didn't take care of it soon. The tell tale sign of the greasy feeling in my hair was only becoming more evident after my long two day road trip; it was becoming more and more apparent that I needed a shower worse than I needed my third nap of the day.

My fingers flipped the switch, allowing for the small purple shaded lamp to illuminate the previously darkened room. Judging by the lack of sunlight, I could only assume it was well past eight at night. Living in Virginia for the entirety of my life, I had come to know when the sun decided to share it's ample rays with us. By now the stars would be littering the sky in a way that LA could never dream possible.

For the first time since I'd gotten back, I actually felt happy to be home.

My mind began wandering as I tipped my head back, my eyes blurring when I began zoning out on the stark white color of the ceiling. Back home, or rather my childhood home, my mother had taped those glow in the dark stars to my ceiling. Over time I had grown tired of seeing those little stars light up each night, feeling as though they were tied to my childhood and that I had grown out of them. I'd taken to painting each and every star a multitude of pale pastel colors before replacing the stars up on the ceiling. The process had taken weeks, even with Wren's help in between lacrosse practices, but it had been worth it.

Laying here, looking up at the ceiling, I missed those stupid stars.

Opting to let the past go, I reached over, fingertips grasping at the edge of my phone just in time to save the thing from falling to the plush carpeted floor. My fingers once more moved across the screen, though this time I had no chance to think about what I was doing, before I began calling the only person I could think of at this hour.

Zane Mirada answered in two rings.

"I know this is going to sound stalker-ish, but I couldn't get ahold of you," Zane started, "so I called Wren."

I smiled, nearly missing his twisted humor for a second, "what'd she say?"

"That I should mind my own damn business," Zane scoffed. "She never really liked me, did she?"

"Wren has," I stopped myself, unable to put her particular personality into the correct wording. "Wren deals with people in a way that's all her own."

"I don't doubt that."

I sighed, combing my fingers through my hair and picking out the stray bits of dry nail polish that had fallen into it earlier. "What have you been up to?"

I could almost hear the smile in his voice, "work. Axel has this big event coming up, and he wants to host it at the hotel. Apparently being the Vice President of both the Reynolds Record label, and the board of directors for the hotel isn't enough. His dad's getting married again and is looking to retire."

"Richard's getting married again?!" I had to stop myself from bolting up in from my rather comfortable spot. "I didn't even think the last divorce was finalized. Isn't this like his fifth marriage?"

"I guess that's what happens to you when the love of your life dies in childbirth. You're stuck in a cycle of marrying and divorcing twenty-five-year-old woman while simultaneously stimulating the economy again with your lavish weddings."

I couldn't help but to feel bad for Axel Reynolds. The guy was one of Zane's two best friends, and contradictory to my previous sentence, he was an asshole and always had been. I'd been able to come to the conclusion over the last few months that it came from a place of uncontrollable emotional and physical abuse from his CEO of a father, but at the end of the day, it was what you did with a bad situation that made you who you were. Axel hadn't been able to work through it as well as others, and though I didn't blame him for it, he shouldn't be taking it out on other people.

It wasn't like my mother or father won parenting awards when I was going up; and yet, somehow, I turned out okay.

"How did the meeting go?" Zane drawled, his Boston accent showing through the short sentence. "The one with your councilor, I mean. I saw on Wren's snapchat that she's moving onto the final year of pre-med."

"I'm not in LA, if that answers your question," I said.

"Not in Los Angeles," he repeated, "Scarlett I talked with you three days ago."

I shrugged, more for me than for him. Namely because of the fact that he couldn't see me. "A lot can change in two days."

A steady breathing was all that could be heard on the other end of the line, leaving me once more with my thoughts. I had learned quickly that when it came to Zane Mirada, passions of the heart must be well thought out. He picked and choose every word carefully when he spoke with me. Over time I had come to find that it came from a place of adoration rather than a past of cheating and lying his way through relationships.

It was one of the things I appreciated him most for.

As I clicked my nails against the back of my phone I caught the words 'zodiac killer' uttered from somewhere downstairs. My bewilderment came as no surprise, but then again, I didn't know who the Pennington boys were or what they're small talk sounded like. This could be just another one of their casual conversations that I was now eavesdropping on. Or, it could be a death threat between the two and I was now a witness to a future crime.

I shook away the thoughts of mass murder before turning my attention back to Zane.

"I'm back home in Virginia," I said, "I think I told you where I grew up. My mom got engaged to some big shot lawyer here in Alexandria and she wanted me to spend the summer with them and his two sons. Apparently she set up some internship for me, too."

"I think I know of a lawyer who moved to Virginia a year or so ago," Zane mumbled, nearly incoherently. I could practically see him biting his lip, "so the meeting really didn't go well?"

"Not on the slightest. I bombed the final and the only logical option was for me to switch majors entirely."

Zane's laughter played gently through my ears, "I could never picture you as a nurse."

"Or a doctor!" I countered. "I think Wren's going to go full blown Grey's Anatomy on me and I haven't even seen the show."

"So let her," Zane said. "There's no point in riding her coattail for the rest of your life." The words struck a cord with me, but thankfully, not in the bad way. I had come to terms with the fact that I was bound to have the same conversation with my mother upon coming home; having it now, with Zane, seemed far less scary and all the more inviting. "You are incredible in so many ways, Scarlett Blaine. Let everyone see what you can do."

"I don't even know what I can do," I sighed. My head hit the pillow repeatedly with my ongoing annoyance with the whole situation. They'd ripped my twenty-year plan up and thrown it away without even warning me about it; and though I wasn't exactly keen on keeping it, I was still distraught, confused, and had about a million other emotions running through me at the moment. "I've been looking at these pamphlets Ms. Winters gave me before I left, and honestly, I fell asleep reading them."

"Then don't read them," Zane laughed. "Get a summer job, head down to Virginia Beach for a bit. Start a YouTube channel. Do something. It might spark an idea or two."

I nodded, knowing deep down he was right. "My mom got me an internship at her fiancé's law firm."

"See!" He cheered. "Do it! Maybe you'll find out you like the law and you won't be wasting your summer. What law firm does he work for?"

I frowned, reaching over and popping open my laptop. My mother had taken the initiative when it came to not only signing both Hayden and I up for this little internship adventure, but also in sending either of us the information on the law firm.

"He just became partner at this financial law firm. It's called Brandanowitz, Anderson, Rey-"

"Are you stupid or have you seen how hot your brothers are?" Wren's entrance was, as per usual, as timely as ever before. Tossing her the jacket that I had gotten her for her birthday last month onto the chair near the door, she then proceeded to flop back across the bottom of the bed. "I'm going to marry them both. Poligomy is legal if I'm a girl, right?"

"No," I said. "Nothing about that sentence is right."

"Did she just call you cupid and that she was going to marry a boldozer?"

"No," I said again. "She wants to be a polygamist, or something."

"Why?"

"Because her brothers are hot!" Wren yelled into the phone.

I jumped back from her wild eyes and closed lip smile, just in time to clamp my hand over her mouth. "I've got to go."

"I figured," Zane agreed. "Call me tomorrow?"

"I'll try," I cut the conversation short.

Letting the phone drop to the mattress and following the object as it bounced onto it's side with my eyes, I released Wren from my hold. I was hoping she wasn't about to spout out more nonsense about my soon to be step brothers. "You do know they probably heard you right? I could hear everything they were talking about earlier."

"Sounds a little creepy on your part. But quick question," she eyed me ominously, "are they single? And are they younger than us? I wouldn't mind going cougar for either one of them, but I'd like to know before I commit a crime of passion."

I shook my head, falling back into the comfort of my plump pillow before fixing my gaze on the ceiling once more. "I don't know, and no, they aren't younger than us. I think Jay's a year or two older."

"And Hayden's our age?"

I merely shrugged in response.

"Cool," she breathed. Out of the corner of my eye I could see her eyelids fluttering shut. Over the last few hours I had doubted she'd gotten any rest. Her whole family was back home for the summer, which again, meant she was playing babysitter. I knew deep down she didn't mind, she loved her brothers and sisters, and now nieces and nephews, but I knew she had to be exhausted. Just thinking about living with that many people made my only-child mind spin.

Also, she refused to let me drive the whole way home.

"You've been napping since I dropped you off?" She asked, popping one eye open to look at me.

I nodded, "kind of. I fell asleep looking through those pamphlets that Ms. Winters gave me."

Wren sat up and grasped as many papers as she could, crashing back into the bed there after. Tilting her head up, she quickly glanced over what little information there was amongst the many photos. The whole point of those things was to entice you to join that particular major, not to bore yourself to death.

Guess they failed.

"You could do physical therapy? I can't pronounce the technical term." Wren's eyebrows knitted together in concentration. "Then we'd have a few classes together. CPR and weird stuff like that."

"I don't like the medical field, Wren." The admission sparked a look from her that was only compatible to me literally stabbing her in the back. "I'm sorry, but I don't. I thought I could learn to like it because it meant spending more time with you-"

"And doing our residencies together!" She pouted. "Why didn't you tell me! I would have shut up about it three years ago."

"Because you love it," I said. "I didn't want you to bail just because I didn't know what I wanted to be when I grew up."

Wren offered a half smile, a silent understanding we had between the two of us. Whatever words couldn't cover, that half smile could. She got it, she might not have been happy with it, but she understood. We wouldn't have any classes together, maybe no even attend the same school, but that didn't make our friendship mean any less.

"You know what I'm like when I set my mind to something. You not wanting to play doctor wouldn't have stopped me." Wren's admission proved right in every way possible. "So you don't know what you want to do?" She asked.

It was a simple question, and it deserved just as simple of an answer.

"No." I smiled and closed my laptop. The stupid thing wasn't going to solve my problem overnight. "But I want to find out."

Even if it took the whole summer.

..........

Subtle reference to Parks and Recreation, hope some of you got that 😜 'Mark Brandanowitz'

I hope you all enjoyed! Remember to vote and I'll see you tomorrow!

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