A/N: I just wanted to say thank you so much for sticking around to read this fanfiction, since I always take super long breaks between writing these chapters. So thank you so much for staying faithful to this story! I'll make this chapter nice and good for you as a reward for your patience. :)

"Where's that store again?" Rory asked, her head looking down at her phone, which had a map of Willow Falls pulled out. We have been looking for the usual beach store that we normally went to, but for some reason to our poor luck, it wasn't there when we turned the corner of the street where it should have been. Instead, there was no store, but a barred-up empty building.

David suggested, "Maybe there's another store around here that sells beach towels or something."

"How about that one?" Tara said, pointing past my shoulder. We all turned to follow the end of her finger. She was pointing down the street to little store with signs around it announcing: NEW BEACH SHACK! COME AND ENJOY A SELECTION OF BEACH NECESSITIES!

Leo said, "Good find, Tara." He started walking down the street towards the Beach Shack, and the rest of us followed him.

I looked for the time on my phone, catching up to Leo. It was 6:00pm; we have taken so much time to walk around time to get to the beach store, because we've been fooling around so much on the streets. Not anything too crazy. Well, that's if you count a 'quick' game of Follow That Car! to be considered NOT crazy... Which consisted of Leo shouting dramatically "FOLLOW THAT CAR!" as he pointed to a random car on the road and all of us frantically running in hopes to catch up to the car. So basically we may have gotten a little distracted for a couple of hours until a cop realized what we were doing and told us to knock it off. We didn't mind though; it was just fun to be able to fool around as the same group of friends that we grew up with.

Leo told my hand in his, snapping me back out of my daydream. He asked me, as we were still walking down to the beach store. "What do you think my mother would say if I told her that I was going to move back to Willow Falls no matter what, that there was no way she could stop me?"

"I don't know what SHE would say, but if it were me, I would ask you where would you stay? You're house has been sold, I thought."

"It has," Leo confirmed. "But that's not stopping me from moving in with my aunt. That's if she would let me, of course. And if she wouldn't let me, then I would ask my girlfriend if I could stay with her for a while."

My mind froze with jealousy as he mentioned having a girlfriend, but then I realized that he was talking about me. I felt my face flush with heat. There was an awkward moment of silence while I was trying to figure out what to say. Finally, I told him, "Well, that's if your mother would even let you move back here."

Leo shrugged happily. "One can hope for the best." He gave my hand a squeeze. I leaned my head on his shoulder for the rest of the walk to the Beach Shack.

~

We were immediately greeted at the Beach Shack by an young employee with a light blue uniform tee and a matching cap. She said cheerfully to us, "Good afternoon! All sunglasses are up to 10% off for our first opening week! There are beach supplies such as towels, umbrellas, and sandals on the second floor as good a price as 15$ for towels, 30 for an umbrella and a variation of awesomely good prices for sandals!"

We climbed up the stairs afterwards. Grabbing a beach towel for each of us, we went to the cash to pay for our merchandise. And minutes later, we were walking towards the forest behind Apple Grove, laughing at some other witty joke that Leo had managed to crack us up with.

"Okay," Rory said nervously and frantically looking around us as if we were being watched. "I know this is fun and all, but I feel like people are staring 'cause we're laughing too loud or something."

Leo elbowed her teasingly. "That's because people ARE staring at us. But we're in the past, and these are complete strangers. Who cares?" Just to prove his point, he purposefully started to let out a belly laugh so loud that I was sure that Canada could hear him up North.

When all stared at Leo in horror as we realized that he was grabbing the attention of the few people who started glancing at us with a strange look on their faces, worried that our friend was in the middle of a heart attack. As I realized that he wasn't stopping his strange act anytime soon, I gave him a light punch in the arm. "Psst," I whispered. "I think that's enough now."

Leo's laugh dialed down as he realized that people were in fact staring, and then he yelled out to a particularly disturbed-looking couple walking past us, "I'm not usually this weird!" They shot him an odd glance before returning to their conversation.

Tara teased Leo, "Are you SURE you're not usually this weird?" She lowered her voice, turning to me, and she added in a voice in which I was sure was meant for Leo to hear as well: "Because some of us can beg to differ." I tried to stifle a laugh, but failed.

"Hey!" Leo said in defense. "I heard that!"

"I know you did." Tara said smugly with a smile on her face. David gave her hair a nice, playful ruffle.

We kept walking to the forest, noticing that the sun had almost completely set. It was the perfect time for a swim in the small lake in the forest by Apple Grove. What made it more perfect was that Leo was finally here in Willow Falls once again so that we can all make these good memories together.