“You wanna hang out tonight? We can go to a movie or something.” Mike suggested. Lance shook his head.

“No. Sorry I can’t. You know that every summer, the guys and I stayed at one of our houses. Besides, I already promised them that I would be there in a few hours. Sorry Mike. Who knows, maybe I will find some time this summer and we’ll do something.” Lance explained hoping that Mike wasn’t upset at him for not being able hang out with him.

“It’s ok, Lance. I was just asking if you wanted to tonight because I’m leaving tomorrow for California with my girlfriend.” Mike said.

“That’s great! I hope you guys have a fun time!”

“Thanks man. You too. See in the fall.” Mike replied. Lance said bye and finished packing. Once he had all of his things in the car, he took off down the road in his Toyota 4Runner. He only had a little while until he got there or so he thought. He got up the highway a couple more miles until traffic was at a dead halt. He looked at his watch after throwing his car in park.

“I’m gonna be here for a while.” He said to himself as he popped in some Garth Brookes to listen to while he waited for whatever the problem was to be fixed and traffic started moving again.

“Man, I can’t wait until everyone gets here. We’re going to have a blast!” Chris said all excited. He was the first one to arrive at JC’s house.

“Chill out dude. We still have to wait for Justin and Lance to get here.” Joey told him trying to get him to calm down. Joey shook his head. He could never understand how Chris had so much energy. JC walked in from the kitchen and sat down on the couch beside Joey.

“When are they going to get here?” Chris asked not even five minutes later. Right when JC was about to reply the doorbell rang. Chris got all excited and started jumping up and down.

“I’ll get it! I’ll get it!” Chris yelled like an excited ten year old as he ran off to get the door before JC could even get off the couch. Chris came back in the room minutes later with Justin following close behind.

“Hey guys, how’s it going?” Justin asked as he sat down heavily next to JC.

“We’re good. We were just waiting for you and Lance to get here. How are you man?”

“I’m good Jace. I can’t wait for next year though. I will be a senior and get to rule the school.” Justin replied.

“Did you already put your stuff in a guest room?” JC questioned.

“Yeah. I threw all of my stuff in one of the rooms.” Justin said.

“You do know we all have to share one, except for me. I get my own room.” JC said already knowing that someone was going to speak up about the bedroom. It wasn’t that often that someone got their own room when they all got together like this.

“No way, dude! I already called it, JC.” Joey complained.

“I know, I know. I was teasing.” JC replied.

“I’m starving. Let’s order pizza.” Joey suggested.

“We have to wait for Lance. He should be here soon.” JC said looking at his watch. They decided to put in a movie while they waited for Lance to show up.

After an hour of sitting in traffic, it started moving again. Lance was an hour behind schedule but he didn’t mind. He knew the guys wouldn’t care if he was a little late. He was almost to JC’s house. He only had a half hour to go when his car just stopped. Lance looked down at his gages and saw that he had no gas left.

“Ah man. I should have filled it before I even hit the road.” Lance said as he looked around the area. He knew it well enough to know that just up the street a little bit was a gas station. It was getting dark so he knew that he would have to run there before it got really dark.

He’d managed to run to the gas station in ten minutes. He told them his situation and they let him take a gasoline container with him so he could fill it up without having to call a tow truck. He thanked them and ran off to his car again. Once he was there he filled it up and was about to get in his car again when he thought he heard a scream.

Lance stopped what he was doing and turned towards the woods because that’s where he thought he heard the scream come from. He walked toward the woods but he didn’t have to go into them because the source of the voice was at the tree line with a guy stabbing at what appeared to be a young woman. She had stopped screaming and her eyes looked glazed over. The woman’s face was portrayed with horror and fright. Lance had the same expression on his face because of the fact that this was happening. The guy looked up and saw Lance staring at him.

“What are you looking at?” The guy asked in a gruff voice. Lance froze where he was, scared to move. The guy’s eyes moved up and down Lance and finally stopped at his eyes. Lance was scared for his life. The guy appeared to be tough looking from what Lance could make out in the dark. When the guy’s eyes met with Lance’s he took off for his car and locked the doors. He started the engine and drove away. He kept looking in his rearview mirror to see if the guy was chasing him but he didn’t see anyone in his mirror.

He stopped at the gas station to return the gas container. He felt guilty for running away like that. He could have possibly helped that poor woman. Lance decided to use his cell phone and call the police to let them know what happened. He dialed 911 and waited to be connected to the police station.

“Hello. This is Officer Gill. How can I help you?”

“Hi. I noticed a something suspicious happening along the woods about five miles from an Exxon in Harris County. I just thought that you guys might want to check it out.” Lance said trying not to freak out from what he saw just minutes ago.

“Well thank you very much. We will be sure to check it out. Good bye.” Officer Gill replied as he hung up the phone. Lance felt a little better that he called for help but he was still really scared about what he saw. Lance was shaking from what he just experienced. Once he had calmed down, he pulled out of the gas station.

Lance began to have random thoughts in his head. Why did that guy choose there to do it? Didn’t he know that anybody could have seen him if they were looking that way or did he think he wouldn’t have to worry about that seeing as how it’s dark out? His eyes were just so cold and icy blue. His eyes kind of reminded him of Justin’s when he got mad. Will he come after me? I mean he hasn’t yet but wouldn’t you if someone saw you murder someone? Lance shook himself of his thoughts as he reached JC’s house. He parked the car and was telling himself to stay calm and be cool, to act like nothing happened.

“Well here goes nothing…” Lance said as he walked up to the door and rang the doorbell. He only had to wait for a few minutes before the door was opened. During that time Lance was trying to hide the probably scared face that he was portraying. He hoped no one would notice. The person standing at the door was JC.

“Hey man. We were expecting you sooner. Did something happen?” JC asked. Lance wanted to scream yes something did happen. A lady was murder and I saw the whole thing and….but he already promised himself that he wouldn’t tell the guys for their own good.

“I got caught in some traffic and then wouldn’t you know it, my car ran out of gas.” Lance explained with a small laugh as he was ushered in the door. Lance and JC walked to the living room where the guys looked up at their entry.

“Look who finally decided to show up.” JC said.

“It’s about time. Can we get pizza now?” Joey said licking his lips because he was so hungry.

“Sure. I’ll go call.” JC replied as he left to go order the pizza. Lance sat down on the floor beside Chris.

“Hey man. What’s up?” Chris asked upon seeing Lance sit down next to him.

“Nothing much. You know, just glad that school is over and I get a break.” Lance answered trying to avoid a lot of conversation. He didn’t really feel like talking to his ‘brothers’ as they referred to each other.

Lance didn’t really want to say anything else but being the polite gentleman he was, he said, “How’s work Chris? Get anybody that is really interesting?” Chris worked as a physiologist. Chris mainly worked with kids that have gone bad or someone that just needed to straighten their life out.

“No not really. I haven’t really had anybody interesting for a while. Even if I did, I wouldn’t be able to tell you their story because I’m sworn to secrecy.” Chris replied. Lance nodded his head in understanding.

“The pizza will be here in a half hour.” JC announced as he walked into the living room and plopped down on the big leather chair. Nobody was really saying anything else. They all were watching TV. except for Lance. He had too much on his mind to really care about watching TV.

JC was watching Lance trying to figure out what was bugging him. He’s only been here for 10 minutes and I can already tell that there’s something on his mind, JC thought. He looked kind of spooked when he walked in the door. He decided to ask Lance if any thing was wrong.

“Hey Lance.” JC called Lance’s attention from the floor.

“Yeah, JC?” Lance replied twisting his body so he could see JC better.

“Did something happen? You look upset by something.” JC said.

“Nope. I’m fine, just a little tired I guess.” Lance lied and even topped it off with a small smile. Lance wasn’t really sure how he managed to accomplish that. He wasn’t a very good liar, never was. Lance knew that the guys would usually be able to tell if he was lying so he would have to be careful with what he said from now on.