Brenna left work early the next day, the bakery not being busy. It had been raining all day and when John asked her if she wanted to leave at one instead of two, she had immediately said yes.

She jogged to the Harless’s house, trying to avoid getting too wet but by time she got there, her jacket was wet and hair dripping. Lynn laughed as she opened the door to let her in.

“A little wet, Hun?”

Brenna rolled her eyes and slipped off her shoes and jacket. “It wasn’t raining really hard when I left the bakery but halfway here it started pouring.”

“Well, I’ll hang up your coat to dry off and let’s go find a towel so you can dry off your hair.”

Brenna followed her into the kitchen and waited there while Lynn went to get a towel.

“Did you get off work early?” Lynn asked as she returned to the kitchen and handed her a towel.

“Yeah. It was kind of dead and I didn’t really want to stay there for another hour.”

“Anything interesting happen at work?”

Brenna began to towel dry her hair. “Not really. Same old stuff as usual.”

“Did you sleep okay last night? You still seemed pretty upset when I left your house.”

Brenna sighed quietly. “I was still upset. But I slept fine.”

“Good.” Lynn moved towards the phone as it rang and Brenna sat back in her chair, starting to look through the newspaper. She had barely opened it when she heard someone coming down the stairs and looked up to see Justin appear in the doorway.

“Oh. You’re here. C’mere.”

“Why?”

“I want to show you something.”

She threw a look at Lynn who motioned for her to go and then slowly got up. Justin turned around and started back upstairs and she reluctantly followed. She stopped when he went into his bedroom and stood a little unsurely in the doorway.

“So come in,” he said, sitting on the double bed in the middle of the room.

She stepped into the room and looked around. “It looks just the same inhere as it did when we were kids.”

“Well it’s not like I’ve been around enough to change it.”

“I guess.”

“Come sit down,” he instructed.

Not really understanding what was going on, she went over to his bed and gingerly sat on the edge of it. She noticed a TV and DVD player sitting on the dresser across from the end of the bed.

“Have you always had that up here?”

“Nah. Mom brought the extra TV up here yesterday and got another DVD player so I could lay in bed and watch TV instead of sitting downstairs.” He picked up the remote. “Look what movie I got.”

She focused her eyes on the TV as he started the movie. A smile came to her face as she recognized the opening music. “Usual Suspects.”

“Yep. Best movie ever. How long has it been since you saw it?”

“A couple months probably.”

“Way too long. Get comfortable.” He leaned against the headboard and stretched out his legs in front of him and after a minute, she moved more onto the bed, sitting crosslegged on the other side.

She found herself able to loosen up during the movie and become more comfortable. She knew the movie off by heart and it became apparently that Justin did as well as he would randomly quote lines throughout it. By time it was finished, she had stretched out onto her stomach, her head propped up in her hands at the foot of the bed.

Justin shut off the movie and sat up a bit. “Are you staying for supper?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” She sat up and turned to face him, pulling her knees up to her chest. She watched as Justin reached over to the bedside table and picked up a deck of cards.

“Wanna play something?”

“Like what?”

“Jacks and fours.” He shuffled the cards a few times and then dealt them out. She picked hers up once he was done and sorted them.

“I haven’t played this in so long.”

“Me neither.” She picked up a card from the deck and then discarded one from her hand, rearranging her cards. They played in silence for a couple minutes before Justin spoke.

“Did you come over yesterday?”

She looked up at him but he was looking down at his cards so she wasn’t able to read the expression in his eyes. “Uh, yeah. AT like one or two I think. You were probably asleep.”

“Maybe.” He picked up the card she had thrown down. “So what did you do yesterday?”

She stayed silent for a minute. “Not much.”

He laid down his cards. “Got it. Want to play again?”

“Okay.” She gathered up the cards and began to shuffle them. “You know, I still get to ask you those twenty questions.”

“Oh yeah. Go for it.”

“Um…” She dealt the cards while she thought up a question. “What’s the stupidest thing you’ve ever done?”

“Never confess my love for you.”

She looked up at him and rolled her eyes at his smirk. “You’re too funny.”

“I know. Stupidest thing, huh?” He picked up his cards. “Probably trusted people in the business that I shouldn’t have.”

“Oh. Um…what’s your best memory about Shelby Forest?”

“Any summer where you, me, and Trace would hang out all day doing nothing.”

“What do you miss the most about here?”

“Seeing my family, friends. Private time. Being able to relax.”

She picked up at card and smiled as she laid hers down. “Jacks and fours.”

“Damn. I almost had it too.”

She pushed her cards over to him so he could shuffle them. “What’s the best thing about being famous?”

He laughed a little. “Would you think I’m a complete ass if I said money? That’s a major plus. Also meeting all the people I get to and traveling. And the free stuff.”

“How much money do you have? Or how much are you worth?”

“Uh…I’m not totally sure.”

It was obvious he didn’t want to answer. “Okay, then how much would you spend if you went shopping for the day? What’s the most?”

“Eight million.”

She jaw dropped before she could stop it and he laughed as he pushed her cards towards her.

“But it was on a house.”

“Oh. Well that’s okay then, I guess.”

He smiled. “Yeah.”

“So what do you like doing in your spare time?”

“Sleep. Play golf or basketball. Do you play basketball anymore? You did in elementary, right?”

“Yeah. I still do a bit. But there’s no one around to really play with.” She picked up a card from the deck. “Where’s the best place you’ve every traveled to?”

“Everywhere’s been good. Paris was a lot of fun.”

“Do you know French?”

“A bit. Not enough to carry on a conversation with someone though.”

“Oh. Um…how many cars do you have?”

“Thirty four.”

“Thirty four?!” she asked in disbelief. “How could you possibly need thirty four cars?”

He shrugged. “Why not? I like cars.”

“Clearly. Okay, um…who was your first kiss?”

“Oh, come on. You know that one. Britney.”

“I wasn’t sure if he actually was or if that was just something you said to magazines.”

“Nope. All true.” He won the hand but instead of dealing the cards again, he simply pushed them into a pile on the bed. “Ask me more.”

“Is LA as crazy as it looks on TV?”

“Nah. You just gotta get used to it. Once you do you can take it all in stride, no sweat.”

“Do you ever wish you still lived here?”

“Every once in a while. There’s a lot of good things about this place.”

Stretching out her legs in front of her, she played with a small hole in the thigh of her jeans. “Do you like go to the spa and stuff all the time and get pampered?”

He smiled. “I’ve done that like once and that was when I was going out with Britney and she wanted to do more ‘couple things’. It wasn’t my idea of a good time.

“You didn’t like it?”

“I don’t like people I don’t know touching me and I don’t like getting manicures or pedicures or any of that shit.”

“I see. So who’d you get mono from?”

He started laughing. “Oh, so now you pull the big guns out!”

“Hey, I’m allowed to ask anything, remember? I could ask worse.”

“Yeah, yeah. I got it from this girl at a club.”

“Who was she?”

“Name was Samantha or something. I dunno. I didn’t know her. We just danced together a bit.”

She rolled her eyes. “I hate it when I get mono from dancing.”

He smiled. “So we kissed a bit too. She didn’t look sick to me.”

“So how do you know it was her then?”

“Damn, Bren. I’m not some male whore. I don’t go around swapping saliva with every female I meet.”

“Okay, okay. So it was the mysterious Samantha who caused you to be banished here.”

“Hey, it’s a pretty good banishment. Mom totally takes care of me, I lay around all day… You should try it some time.”

She rolled her eyes. “Uh huh. Well I’ll just find me a mono infested person to swap saliva with and I’ll be able to get right at that.”

He laughed and lightly his her leg with his hand. “Shut up.”

She watched him shift down on the bed, laying on his back. “How many questions am I at?”

He stared up at the ceiling. “I dunno. I’m not keeping count.”

“I wasn’t either.”

“Eh. Just keep firing away then. I got time to kill.”

* * *

A knock at the door stopped Brenna midsentence and Justin lifted his head a bit from the bed.

“Yeah.”

The door opened and Paul Harless stuck his head in. “It’s time for dinner. Are you two coming?”

“Oh. Yeah.” Justin watched the door close and then glanced at the clock, surprised to see it was almost six. He and Brenna had been upstairs for almost five hours.

Slowly sitting up from his laying position, he ran his hands through his hair. “I’m actually hungry tonight.”

“That’s good then, right? Means you’re getting better?”

He stood up with her. “Maybe. I’m gonna go to the bathroom. Can you tell them I’ll be down in a minute?”

“Sure.”

He followed her out of the room and turned into the bathroom. It had actually been really easy to talk to Brenna that afternoon. Once she was talking, she was really close to how he remember her as a kid. She was funny and a bit sarcastic and interesting. He hadn’t ever realized how much time had passed. It had been a nice change from laying in bed and sleeping all afternoon.

After washing his hands, he left the bathroom and went downstairs. In the kitchen, Brenna and Paul were sitting at the table while Lynn was pulling a bowl of salad from the refrigerator.

Clearing his throat, he sat down at the table and reached out to get his glass of water from in front of his. He watched Brenna as he drank. She was talking to Lynn and smiling. At that moment, she looked just like she had looked when she was twelve-carefree and happy.