January 6th, 2001

It had been about 3 days since Alex had gotten her new car. She LOVED it. Who wouldn't? Scott and her had spent a lot of quality sibling time together. Which had been spent mostly in the jeep, because she always wanted to drive it!

She had seen Jon a few times in the week. Her and Scott had taken him to McDonalds and to the beach one afternoon. They had gone over to the Harless's for a swim one day.

But she hadn't seen Justin.

She tried not to let it bother her. They, no SHE, had been the one to pull out the 'not even friends' card.

She couldn't get him out of her mind. Alex did a pretty good job of keeping her thoughts away from him, but then Scott would say something or she'd hear a song, or see a picture and she couldn't help but think of him.

That morning Scott was still sleeping and she had drove to Krispy Creme to get an assorted box of donuts. While she was walking through the glass doors back to her car she thought she saw Justin's Beemer pull out of the parking lot. She didn't know if it was him, the top was up and it drove off before she had a chance to get a good look.

But ever since then she had been thinking about him. His eyes, his hair, his smile, his lips, his body, his laugh, his voice, his hands...

...his kiss.

It had been about a month, more like 3 weeks and she could still taste the salty flavor with a hint of coffee of his lips from that sacred evening.

She sighed as she opened the door to her apartment and saw her brother was awake flipping through the channels, sitting up on the couch that was covered in pillows and blankets; his make-shift bed for the week.

"Jenn called." He said not removing his gaze from the TV.

Alex set the box on the kitchen table. "This early?"

"No, last night. When you went to go get your CDs out of your car."

"SCOTT! And you decide to tell me NOW?" Alex scoffed and walked to the fridge to get some orange juice.

"Opps." He shrugged a smile forming across his handsome features as he finally stopped on something worth watching.

"Come here, Lex. Bring those donuts and juice. There's something GOOD on TV." His voice was full of mischief.

Alex rolled her eyes and poured them some orange juice and picked up the box, doing a good job of balancing the 3 objects and set them down on the small coffee table. She set down beside her brother and opened the box of fresh donuts.

"Hmmmm, those look good." She reached to pick one up. "Whups. Forgot the napkins."

She got up to go get some napkins. "Come on, you are missing the best part." Scott said turning up the volume and giggling.

She came back and threw some napkins at his giggling form. "What's so funny?" She plopped back on the couch.

Scott laughed harder and pointed to the screen with the remote. Alex turned her gaze to the TV as she picked up a donut. She opened her mouth and prepared to bite down when she heard a familiar voice through the TV speakers.

"Alex? Can I ask you something? Will you please....dance with me?"

The donut fell out of Alex's mouth and she stared at the TV in shock. She hadn't seen the TV movie Justin had made, surprisingly enough, but had heard enough about it from Jon. According to him it was Oscar worthy. This, well...it was KINDA cute???

"Oh my gosh, that is sooo cheesy." Scott giggled picking up a crueller and ripping into it. "And the worst part is, she has the same name as YOU!!" Scott said with a mouthful of donut.

Alex looked down to donut that was sticking to her red T-shirt. She started giggling and looked up at the screen just in time to see 'Alex' and 'Jason' dance in the movie "Model behavior."

"That has GOT to be the WORST line I have EVER heard. I HOPE for Justin's sake that that wasn't ad-libbed. Did you see that?" She looked at her brother who was almost choking on his orange juice, laughing. "Oh my gosh, he sounds like he is attempting to be a phone-sex operator or a guidance counselor, I don't know which."

Scott opened his mouth wide and laughed so hard that he thought he was going to burst. "I NEVER thought I would EVER hear the words phone sex and guidance counselor in the same sentence in my LIFE!!"

"Well.." Alex sighed and finished off her donut. She gulped down her orange juice and turned to her brother once the credits began rolling. "Scott...can I ask you something?"

He nodded meekly like the girl that played Alex in the Disney Movie.

"Will you please...." She smiled at Scott and he giggled, anticipating her next line. Her voice became normal and she started cleaning up their napkins encrusted with frosting and empty glasses."...Get ready for the day, we are going to find a b-ball court. I've been deprived."

Scott stood up and stretched "I know. Dad almost beat you last week!! And you NEVER get beat."

"I know." Alex said cockily. Scott threw a pillow at her and she almost dropped the glasses, she was carrying to the sink. "Watch it, boy. Go get ready."

"Where are we going to play?"

"I don't know, we will find somewhere. We could go to the YMCA." Alex sang 'YMCA'.

"All right, whatever."

She remembered something as she set the glasses in the sink. "Oh crap, the courts are closed this week at the Y, they are re-finishing the floors, but we will find somewhere."

"OK, cool." Scott started searching through his bag as the phone rang. He got up and went to the bathroom to take a shower. Alex looked at the digital clock in the kitchen and saw it was later than she thought, 10:45.

She picked up the phone. "ello?"

"Hey Meredith, its Jenn."

"What's up."

"Not much, I called you last night and left a message with your brother.

"Yeah, I got the message 20 minutes ago."

"Ohh hehe, I got to ask you something."

Alex giggled at the closeness in that statement and the one Justin's character had said on TV. "What?"

"A friend of mine is having a party this next Monday before classes start back up. You wanna come?"

"Uhhh, well, I don't know." Alex wasn't a big partier.

"It'll be fun. It's just a few of us and we will probably just sit around, watch movies and stuff."

"Ohh I thought you meant like a PARTY party."

"Nah, we don't party much. Well, we go to clubs. But my friends and I don't drink or anything so...."

"Really? That's interesting."

Jenn laughed nervously. "I know, I'm a dork."

"No. Not at all. It's just rare you find college students that don't drink. I don't either. I did a bit in high school. Trying to look older, I guess. But since I started working at Tidal Wave the stuff just got sickening. Ya know?"

"Yeah, and just to go ahead and tell you, this party is kinda like a umm, how do I say this? Well, we have like this bible study club thingy, and it's all the people from there. But this isn't a bible study party. This is just us hanging out."

Alex smiled. "That's awesome. What church do you go to?"

"I go to the Methodist one off of Hunters Avenue."

"Oh yeah, that real pretty, old one, with the elaborate stained glass window facing the street?"

"Yup, that's it."

"I go to First Baptist."

"Oh really? Our study leader goes there. You know Kenny Davis?"

"KENNY? Oh my gosh. When and Where? Kenny is awesome!!" Alex knew Kenny from church and loved his humor and laid-back persona. He was a really cool guy.

Jenn giggled. "Yeah, its at my friend Margrets house, I'll call and give you definite times and directions later."

"Great. I'm really looking forward to it Jenn." She spoke genuinely.

"Me too. Well, I have to go. Oh and sorry I called so early. I just didn't know when I'd get a chance to call later on."

"It's cool. Thanks girl. Bye bye."

"Bye bye bye!!"

Alex looked at the phone and mumbled as a dial tone sounded. "Did she just say 'bye bye bye'?"

Alex groaned in realization. -Not her too. -

She giggled and walked to her room to change into something more suitable to play b-ball in.

-----

"Alexandria, we have been riding around for about an hour. There are either no open courts, or they aren't fit to play on, or something. Either find somewhere in the next 5 minutes or forget it."

"Scott, you are so impatient." Alex sighed as she pulled out of the parking lot of a park that had basketball courts. They were all being used.

"You just want to ride around in your pimp-mobile don't you?" Scott said with a serious expression.

Alex giggled and nodded before Scott punched her arm.

"Well, there IS one last place."

"Where?" Scott was eager to get out of the car.

"The Harlesses have that mini-court in their backyard, but I don't want to bother them."

Scott picked up her silver nokia cell-phone, a Christmas present from her parents, and started searching her phone book.

"What are you doing?" Alex asked breaking her gaze with the road for a few seconds to give her brother a look. He didn't acknowledge her, instead brought the phone to his ear.

"Hello? Mrs. Harless?....Yes, this is Scott Smith, Alex's brother, and we were wondering if we could come over to your house and play basketball. We can't find a free court in the city limits of Orlando....I know that kinda hard to believe....Are you sure you don't mind?...We don't have to if it's a bother.....all right, great..thank you...uh huh..bye bye."

Scott shut off the phone and set it down. "To the Harless's, Lex."

"Scott, you don't just invite yourself over to someone's house."

"Oh pulease. You are like FAMILY to them, Alex. They are nice people. Plus she said she was in her office doing work, Paul is out of town, Jon has a friend over and we will just play some ball. No distraction of any kind."

"Whatever you say, Scott." Alex sighed and drove towards their destination, with an uneasy feeling in her stomach.

She had a feeling that somehow, she wouldn't pass this day without seeing him....Justin.