"Wake up!" Dyson shouted as he jumped onto Caleb's bed and Caleb himself.

"Omph!" Caleb grunted. "What the hell?"

"Come on. We don't have time for your complaining. Get up." Dyson said with a huge grin. He was lying across Caleb and had his elbows resting somewhat painfully on Caleb's arms. Caleb looked up at Dyson.

"You have polka-dotted hair," Caleb mentioned.

"Right you are, pretty boy." Dyson leaned his head down so Caleb could see it better before rolling off of him and onto the other side of the bed. "I figured it was what the occasion needed."

"What occasion?" Caleb asked, trying to think if there was something that he was missing. Was it Dyson's birthday? Was it his? No and no.

"Honestly?" Dyson clicked his tongue at his best friend. "I am disappointed. You're better than to walk right into a stereotype."

"It's too early for your metaphors or whatever the hell you're talking about right now." Caleb groaned.

"I'm talking about the fact that you forgot our best friend anniversary. We met exactly eight years ago today, down to the very hour. It would have been minute, but I forgot how much you enjoy your beauty sleep." Dyson sprang up from the bed and bounced on his feet twice before turning back to Caleb.

"We met in January. It's September." Caleb said, confused.

"Awe, so you do remember." Dyson chuckled and touched his brightly colored hair feeling slightly guilty.

"I'm going back to sleep." Caleb covered his head with the covers and turned onto his side facing the wall.

"No. No. No. You may have passed the test but today isn't over. Up and at 'em my friend." Dyson yanked the covers off Caleb's bed.

"Come on!" Caleb whined. "It's the last day before our senior year begins and I want to sleep!"

"We are too young and amazing to waste our time sleeping."

"It's not a waste when it's something you love."

"Please?" Dyson stuck out his lip and fluttered his eyelashes.

"Fine. You're lucky you're cu- um, ah, cool." Caleb froze in the middle of sitting up and his cheeks turned darker than the crimson polka dots on Dyson's hair.

"Right." Dyson smiled at him in a way that made him wonder if he knew that Caleb was going to say something other than cool. "Now, grab your swimsuit. I'll be waiting in your car." Dyson grabbed the keys to Caleb's car and climbed out of the window.

"You could use the front door," Caleb said, only sort of recovered from his near verbal slip.

"And what fun is that?" Dyson disappeared on the roof. "I'm not the clumsy one."

"Not all of us can have your insane dexterity!" Caleb called after him.

"Actually most people do, you're just extremely clumsy." Dyson sang back. "Now hurry up. This cutie won't wait forever."

Caleb smacked his forehead. "I am an idiot. He probably thinks I'm a freak. You're lucky you're cute!? Cute? That is the dumbest word. I don't even use that in normal conversation. Why did I almost say it? Am I a nine-year-old girl? Where is the swift hand of merciful death when you need it?"

Caleb waited but decided he was stuck among the living when nothing happened. He groaned and got up. "It was because you're half asleep. It's fine. He probably didn't even think anything of it. He calls you pretty boy all the time anyway."

But what if he had? What if he was okay with Caleb saying that? Granted cute was not the word one should use to describe a person like Dyson. He wasn't cute. He was an enigma of hotness and beauty. His deep brown eyes were surrounded by long, full eyelashes that many people suspected had makeup. Caleb knew better though, Dyson was just blessed with a natural makeup of sorts. His dark hair was thick and luscious which was lucky because it had a new color in it every other week. He knew from his sister Ruth that coloring hair usually damaged it a lot, but somehow Dyson's never seemed unhealthy. Would Caleb be able to recognize if it actually was unhealthy? He shrugged. Nope, definitely not.

He looked out his window to see Dyson leaned up against Caleb's car. One glittery shoe was up against the door while the other held him up. Caleb was struck with jealousy of Dyson's ability to be so at ease with himself. He was able to say and do what he wanted without a single worry. That was the reason Caleb had never told his best friend that his feelings had changed. Clearly, Dyson didn't feel the same way. If he did, he would have said it. Caleb was sure of it.

And yet, Caleb couldn't shake the feelings. He couldn't pinpoint the moment that he had shifted from best friend to crush. It was like it had always been there in some way or another. It was like trying to remember when you met your best friend, well not Dyson. He never would forget that moment. But, with Adrian, he simply couldn't remember a time when they weren't friends.

Caleb jumped when his phone rang.

"What?" Caleb answered with a smile on his face.

"Stop creeping and get dressed." Dyson chuckled and waved up at him. Caleb jumped back from the window he had been staring out of.

"I wasn't creeping. I was making sure you weren't scuffing my car." Caleb choked out.

"Yeah, okay pretty boy." Dyson's laugh danced across Caleb's senses. He could listen to that sound for the rest of his life and not get sick of it. "Hurry up! Swimsuit! Now! We have places to be, people to ignore, and things to do."

"Calm down. I'm still waking up."

"You're wasting precious time, is what you're doing."

"It's," Caleb glanced at the clock on his phone and his eyes bugged out. "It's six in the morning!"

"There we go. You've moved to the anger stage. Now accept it and let's go."

"The only place I'm going is back to sleep."

"Caleb Anthony Ryker, get your ass in a swimsuit and get down here this instant young man."

"I'm older than you." Caleb countered.

"By five days. It doesn't count."

"Shut up!" Ruth shouted as she walked into Caleb's room. "She saw that her brother was on the phone, looked outside at Dyson and glared. "Are you seriously talking on the phone while he is outside in the driveway?"

"Good morning Ruth!" Dyson waved with his entire arm.

"Leave!" Ruth yelled back but waved.

"What do you Rykers have against mornings?" Dyson grimaced.

"They're too damn early." Caleb and Ruth responded at the same time.

Dyson tucked his phone against his shoulder and held his arms up to the rising sun. "Don't worry mornings, I love you."

"You two are such weirdos." Ruth shook her head and shuffled back to the hallway. "If I hear one more word I'll buy a dozen clocks, hide them all over your room, and set the alarms to different times every day until you slowly lose your mind, and end up in a mental institution."

"I'm not sure they're called mental institutions anymore," Caleb said as Dyson's laughter signaled that he had heard her too.

"Dyson says that mornings make you cruel." Caleb laughed.

"And, mornings make his hair frizzy." She shot back.

Dyson gasped and he mumbled a retort.

"No," Caleb shook his head at Dyson who was checking his hair in the car's side mirror. "I'm not saying that to her."

"No," Caleb said again.

"No, do not call her just to say that." Caleb groaned audibly. "Because, Dyson, she could kick both our asses."

"Fine." Dyson chuckled. "But she's on my list and I just got a punching bag."

Caleb snorted as he closed his door and lowered his voice so as to not disturb his sister anymore. "You don't have a list."

"Now I do."

"I'm hanging up."

Dyson smiled up at the window and leaned back against Caleb's fancy, black car. He watched as Caleb moved towards his dresser, to get his swimsuit and a shirt. Dyson couldn't help but laugh when he watched Caleb jump up and down. He was positive that he had stubbed his toe on his dresser. How, he wondered, had his best friend survived that long while being that clumsy. Most people went through clumsy stages in their life, as toddlers, but Caleb it seemed had never moved on from it.

Dyson chuckled and continued to watch as the growing sunlight hit Caleb's dirty blonde hair, showing the lighter strands of hair that were blonde from the summer's sunlight. Dyson was jealous that Caleb's hair naturally changed colors. His own hair was always just dark brown which was probably why he enjoyed coloring it so often. Also, because it was fun to see how people reacted.

A few minutes later Caleb finally walked outside and Dyson tossed him his keys. Caleb shook his head and threw them back. "You woke me up so you have to drive."

Dyson laughed like a villain. "Finally, my plan has worked."

"All of this was so you could drive my car?" Caleb shouted and flung his hands in the air.

"Only partially," Dyson smirked. "Okay, maybe mostly."

He shrugged and got into the leather, driver's seat. He put the key in the ignition and clicked the radio preset that he had set himself.

"No way." Caleb hit the button to listen to the CD. "We are not listening to your music this early in the morning."

"But the driver always gets to pick the music." Dyson pouted and hit the radio button again.

"No, the passenger is the DJ. Everyone knows that." Caleb turned on the CD again and held his hand in front of the console.

Dyson grabbed his hand and tried to get to the button. They fought for almost twenty minutes before Dyson finally got the CD to pop out of the machine. He looked at the name on the disc and shrugged.

"Ha!" Caleb cheered as Dyson put the CD back in. "I win."

"Only because I let you." Dyson put the car in reverse and eased out of the driveway.

"Because you like my music more than yours."

"No, I'm just being nice."

"Since when have you ever done something to be nice."

"Hey, I can be nice."

Caleb cocked an eyebrow at his best friend.

"Fine. It's not the worst music I've ever heard." Dyson rolled his eyes.

"Are you going to tell me where we're going?" Caleb asked after a comfortable silence.

"Do you want me too?" Dyson asked as he pulled onto the freeway.

"No," Caleb said, the word dripping in sarcasm. "I just wanted to ask for fun, not because I want to know or anything."

"As I suspected."

"Dude!"

"Dude? Really?"

"It's early. Leave me alone."

"If you insist." Dyson made the motion of zipping his mouth closed.

"Dyson!"

"That's the name. Don't wear it out."

"I hate you."

"We both know you love me," Dyson said as a joke, but they both froze in silence only for a second, but it was long enough to make them both wonder if it really wasn't a joke.

"Where are we going?"

"On an adventure."

"To?"

"You'll see."

Caleb rolled his eyes but let it drop. When Dyson didn't want to do something, no one could make him change his mind. Instead of continuing to pester him, Caleb decided he'd act like he didn't care. It would bother Dyson and maybe, just maybe he'd tell him.

"It's not going to work."

"What?"

"Acting like you don't care."

"You suck."

"So I've been told." Dyson chuckled and turned up the music. Neither of them knew it at that moment but that was going to be one of the last times before everything changed. Or maybe, in a way, they did know and that was why they made sure that it was a day to remember.