"This is not funny, Mel," Rachel glared at her best friend as she laid on the couch laughing. Her words had no effect, only made Melissa laugh harder. "Are you done?"

Melissa hugged the couch pillow to her. Tears leaked from her eyes. She looked up at Rachel, the expression on her friend's face making her laugh harder.

"It's not this funny," Rachel crossed her arms and glared.

"Yes it is," Melissa's stomach hurt from laughing but she couldn't stop. "I can just see it..." she broke off into fits of laughter.

"I hate you. You know this right? I really really hate you. I don't know why I'm still your friend."

"You don't hate me. You LOVE me!" Melissa giggled. "I'm sorry. I can't help it. I can just see you standing up on the runway..." She broke off into giggles again.

"Damnit, Mel," Rachel picked up the loose couch pillow that had fallen during Melissa's laughing session and started smacking her with it.

"Stop!" Melissa shrieked wrapping her arms over the back of her head to try to ward off the blows. "Best friend abuse!"

"Best friend abuse my ass!" Rachel said as she continued to smack her friend. "You don't think laughing at my...misfortune  is abuse! You're supposed to sympathize with me! You're supposed to grab anything in sight and defend me!"

"Defend you? As in defend your honor?" That brought out more laughter. "Oh God, my stomach hurts."

"Serves you right! This isn't funny Mel! What am I supposed to do!"

"Practice your runway walk?" Melissa volunteered earning her another thwack with the pillow to the back of the head.

Rachel groaned and collapsed on the other end of the couch. The two friends shifted and pushed until they were both comfortably sprawled out on either end.

"Grandfather won't listen to me." Rachel said after the laughter died down. "He says that it's high time I settled down. And this will bring viable specimens out of the wood work."

"Viable specimens? What are you a brood mare?"

"Don't get me started on that! He thinks that it's time I stop this silly nonsense down here in Florida and take on a husband and start producing heirs."

"Maybe you should go to a sperm bank if he wants an heir that bad."

Rachel gasped in horror. "I want him to leave me alone, not die from a heart attack!"

"Maybe you should fake a relationship... or a fiancé. Just until this blows over?" Melissa offered.

"Oh yeah, that will work. I just have a boyfriend appear magically out of thin air. I'm single yesterday then today I have a fiancée."

"Tell him you met him on the plane. You fell in love over Virginia. Virginia is for lovers you know."

Rachel groaned. "I should have known that being summoned to the city was bad. I should have faked appendicitis or something."

"That wouldn't have worked, knowing your Grandfather he would have rushed down here and taken over the hospital. Flown in specialists."

"Times like this I wish my parents cruel and unusual punishment for having had an only child. The best thing they could have done for me was give me a sibling or five so all of Grandfather's time isn't devoted to me. Why couldn't I have been born in a normal family? Like yours?"

Melissa burst out in peels of laughter. "Normal? You think the Bass family is normal?'

"I don't see Father Bass pushing you to get married and have babies."

"That's because she's still immature," Melissa's older brother Lance walked into the room catching Rachel's statement. He had been out running errands and getting things done while they had a few days off from touring.

"Hey Rachel, how was New York?"

His questioned caused Melissa to break out into laughter and Rachel to groan and bury her head beneath the pillow.

"That bad huh?"

"Her grandfather is auctioning her off," Melissa said, trying to stop laughing. "He's gonna dress her up nice, pin a number on her and walk her around the pen." She shrieked when the pillow Rachel had been using came down on her face.

"I hate you."

"We've been over this, you do not hate me. You could never hate me. You love me and wouldn't know what to do with your life if I wasn't apart of it."

"I'm willing to find out," Rachel muttered as she sat up, swinging her legs to the floor. "Do you think your parents will adopt me? Even up trade? Me for Melissa?"

"I'm cool with that," Lance grinned, collapsing on a chair in his living room. "Mom and Dad would be too. That'd be ecstatic. I just don't think we'll get your parents to take Mel."

"Damnit."

"Hey! What's wrong with me?"

Lance and Rachel looked at each other, sharing a knowing look.

"I hate you both," Melissa mimicked Rachel, sitting up on the couch. "Nothing you can do to get out of it?"

Rachel shook her head. "No. Grandfather paid a lot of money."

"Not like he doesn't have gobs of it anyway. He won't miss it."

"Yeah but there's already a media push. If I back out..." She sighed. An idea popped into her head and she snapped her head to Lance who gave her a questioning look.

"I know that look and it usually turns out bad for me."

"You want Lance to play the part?" Melissa asked looking back and forth between her brother and best friend. "I know you had a crush on him, but really? Out of all the guys you could pick, you pick him?"

"God Mel; that was ages ago!" Rachel felt her face heat as a blush swept across it. Her crush on her best friend's brother was well-known through the Bass family and the rest of the band members.

"Play what part and what's wrong with me?"

"To play my boyfriend," Rachel told him before looking at Melissa. "And I told you that would never work. Grandfather would see right through it. And besides, he'd still parade me around. You know what he thinks of the guys."

"Can someone explain to me what you're talking about?" Lance cut it, breaking off their conversation and turning their attention to him.

"Rachel's Grandfather put her in a charity auction," Melissa felt her lips twitch and tried her best to squelch a smile. "He thinks not only will she bring good money for the charity, but she'll find a viable ‘specimen' for a husband and later sperm donor."

Lance broke out into laughter which caused Melissa to join him. Rachel glared at the siblings wondering what she ever saw in either of them. She picked up the pillow next to her and launched it at Lance. "Shut up. It's not funny."

"I'm sorry Rach," Lance fought to stop his laughter. "I just..." he swallowed his words at the glare Rachel was sending his way. "Sorry."

"I think I'm gonna divorce the Bass family and find a new one," Rachel muttered.

"We'll never let you go," Melissa wrapped her friend up in a hug. "You're stuck with us."