Chapter One.

Wedding dresses. That's what my adolescent life has come to. Frilly, puffy, girly wedding dresses. Some of them aren't that bad, while most of them are possibly the ugliest things I've ever seen. Don't get me wrong, I'd rather be working here, than at home because there's nothing uglier than my mom.

You know, I wanted to get a cool job, like the person who answers the phone at a tattoo shop, but no. Here I am. I don't get paid nearly enough for putting up with the whiney, snobby, brides that come in here. There are days when I really have to bite down on my tongue to keep from going off. I have this problem where I can't not say what I'm thinking, sometimes it's good, but Van is the reason it's not.

Things are good between him and I now. We've stuck to our 'just friends' status, no benefits, nothing. Nada. Zilch. Kendall really did break his poor little heart. Which, I'll admit, Van was super sweet during the 'grieving period', he's back to his normal 'I have a penis, so I have to hit on everything that doesn't' self. He's all fine and dandy, until he sees his slutty, cheating ex-girlfriend, Kendall. I've caught him looking at her, he won't admit to it, but my eyes don't lie. Neither do his.

"Abby, there's somebody on the phone for you," my manager, Becky tells me.

I finish stacking the last box of wedding shoes on the shelf and walk to the front desk, next to her.

"Who is it?" I ask her. Nobody has this number except my mom and Darren. Oh great, it's my mom. I should just hang up. I get off in about an hour anyways. Normally I get off at seven, but I'm covering for my work-buddy Kim, so I'm here until nine thirty.

"He said his name is BatVan," she answers, confused.

No! I sigh, picking up the phone. "What do you want?"

"Busted. I found out where you're working. I'm so badass that should be a detective. Yeah, Detective Van Taylor, at your service. It has a nice ring, don't you think? ," I hear Van say on the other line.

I roll my eyes even though he can't see me. "Dude, I'm working."

"I know. Which is exactly why we're here to annoy the hell out of you," is all he says and then the line goes dead. I put the phone back on it's headset and then go back to work. Wait a minute, did he say 'we're'? Oh no! He did. Damn it! He told the guys. Shit! Now I'm screwed.

"So who was it?" Becky questions.

"My stalker," I answer. It's kind of true. I don't know how he finds things out that I purposely don't tell him.

I quickly walk to the door, making my heals clack on the floor. I almost make it, but the door opens and in walks Van, followed by the rest of them. How funny, they're actually in tallest to shortest order; Van, Kyle, Mitch, Nathan, and Dex. I would say it's cute, if they weren't all staring at me.

"Whoa, damn, man, are you wearing heals?" Mitch asks me. All of them have there attention on different places.

I look down at my black open-toed shoes and nod pathetically. It's a job requirement, I have to dress nice. Trust me, I don't like it any more than they do. I have on a black skirt, up to my waist, and a sapphire blue ruffle shirt tucked into it. Not exactly what I wear on a day to day basis.

"Have you always had boobs?" Nathan asks. Well, I know what has his attention.

"Guys, lay off," Van says. Then it gets quiet.

Wow, this is weird. And quiet. This is weirdly quiet. "So, who told you I was working here?" I ask.

"We drove around the whole fucking state of California until we found your ca-" Dex gets cut off by glares from the guys and they all coincidentally say "Dude, shut up," to him.

"Actually, we tried calling your cell, but you didn't answer, so then got your work number from Darren," Van says. "And THEN we drove around until we found your car because your brother didn't know where this place was," he finishes.

I look at him confused. "You went through all of that?" I laugh. "Van, you're officially a moron. Now what is so important that you had to come here and harass me?" I ask him.

Instead of Van answering, Mitch chimes in. "As you know Friday, is my birthday-my eighteenth birthday, so guess what, dude?" Mitch says. "Road trip!"

I laugh. They drove here just to tell me that? Wow. "Let me guess, this was Van's bright idea," I smile. "Do you guys always listen to him?"

"Thanks, babe, I hate you too," Van winks at me.

I roll my eyes at him. Jerk.

"No we didn't listen to him. You know how last Christmas me and my family went to our cabin in Aspen?" Mitch starts. "Well, this year my dad has to work and my mom's visiting my aunt in New York, so I talked my parents into letting us stay there," he finishes.

"You didn't tell her the catch though," Kyle mumbles.

"Dude, it's a surprise!" Nathan says nudging Kyle.

Kyle laughs. "Yeah and do you know what your surprise will be if you don't tell her now? She'll throw your dick into a wood chipper," he chuckles. "Won't that be super?" he adds sarcastically. "Better you than me I guess..."

"OhMiachel'sgoingandhe'sbringingKendall," Mitch says quickly. I can't even make out what he's saying, but I just shrug it off.

"So Friday, we're ditching and leaving, so pack your bags, babe," Nathan cuts in and they all look at him funny, probably because he called me babe. "It doesn't work when I do it, does it?" he asks and the guys answer by shaking their heads.

"That's because Vance has game," Mitch chuckles, slapping Van on the back. "Right, man?"

Van nods, grinning, "you bet your ass I do."

"I don't appreciate being objectified as a 'babe'," I state.

"Sorry, babe," Van says, emphasizing the word babe.

"Fine if I'm a babe, you're a dick," I smirk.

"Oh yeah wel-"

"Somebody stop them before they really get at it," Kyle laughs.

As much as I like 'fighting' with Van, kissing Van is a lot better. I'll only admit that in my head though.

"So you're coming on the trip, right?" Mitch checks.

I shrug. "I don't know," I say, looking back at Becky. "Hey, Beck, am I scheduled for this weekend?"

Becky looks up from her paperwork. "Yeah, Saturday, remember, the Rice's made a fitting appointment so I need you to take the register," she informs me.

I look back at the guys. "Sorry, guys, I guess I can't," I tell them, walking to the register, where I'm supposed to be.

"What?!" Dex and Mitch say at the same time. "You have to go!" Dex adds.

"Hmmm, spend a weekend with you guys and this loser?" I start, singling Van out at the loser. "Yeah, Becky's in charge of my paycheck. I don't think so," I laugh.

"Hey! I don't appreciate being objectified as a 'loser'," Van smirks, making fun of what I said.

"Sorry, loser," I reply, saying it how he said it.

"So...you really aren't going to go?" Nathan asks.

Mitch grins. "You have to go," he states.

I give him a confused look. "Why is that?"

Dex sighs. "If you don't, do you know how weird it would look for a group of guys to go with no girls? We're trying to get Lia to go, you know, for Kyle, so you have to. Lia will go, if you go, you know? It's a girl thing," he explains.

Nathan laughs. "A girl thing? Dude, it's Abby," he points out.

Should I mention Evan? I mean, him and I have gone on a total four dates. I like him. I have to like him, he makes me forget about Van, most of the time. Evan's a nice guy, he's going to college, he wants to be a doctor, his parents are nice people, I haven't met them, but from what he says, they sound like good people.

It's Sunday now and I normally see him every Wednesday and Friday, but I didn't see him this Friday. I had to work Becky and Kim listened to me complain for at least an hour about it too.

If I say something about Evan, what's the worst that could happen. Just do it. Don't worry about what Van thinks, I tell myself.

"Abby, is a girl, and has a boyfriend," I say sternly. There, that wasn't so bad. Now they know. Well, Kyle already knows, because I've been hanging out with him more lately. For the past three months, I've been trying to get him and Lia together, but she's still a little angry with me for blowing her off so much. I suck at the whole match-making thing.

Van looks like he wants to say something about the comment I made, but he just swallows and pretends he knows what I'm talking about. I'm pretty certain that he knows who I'm talking about because I'm not really the type that jumps from guy to guy.

"Okay, well, then bring this guy, whatever, I mean there's plenty of roo-" Mitch starts, but gets cut off by Van.

"Mitch, outside, now," Van says looking at him.

"No, actually, dude that works out perfectly," Nathan chimes in.

"Yeah, we'd have an even number," Dex says and we all look at him like 'what's that have to do with anything'? "What? I like even numbers, the buddy system works wonders," he shrugs and we all let out a laugh.

"It'll work out better, two people in each room and there are two beds in each room," Mitch explains.

"See, having an even number helps," Dex cuts in.

"I hate to interrupt this little friend-fest, but Abby, who are these people?" Becky asks.

I can't believe I forgot to introduce them. "Oh, um, this is Van, Kyle, Mitch, Nathan, and Dex," I tell her, pointing to each one of them when I say their name. "Guys, this is, Becky, my manger."

"So, which one of you is Evan?" Becky questions.

I take a deep breath to prevent from getting even more annoyed.

"The college guy, huh?" Van asks.

Then the door opens and a couple customers walk in. "Look, can we talk about this later, guys? I'm kind of busy," I manage to get out.

It takes them ten minutes to finally shuffle out and leave. They didn't give me crap for working here, I'm surprised. I half expected them to say something like 'you're the worst person to work here, considering you hate weddings', which is true, I do.

"I'm sorry, Becky, they're kind of like an earthquake, you never know just when they're going to show up," I smile, nervously.

Becky shrugs like it was no big deal, but I swear I hear her say something like "it's not my paycheck..."

Becky such a bitch though. I think that it has something to do with the fact that she's in her early thirties and still isn't married. I don't see why, she's really pretty, with her short blonde hair, straightened, framing her face perfectly. She's wearing make-up around her eyes, making her brown eyes pop.

Kim on the other hand, is the daughter of the woman that owns this place, she's twenty-one and just works here when she's not going to college. Kim's cool and isn't so stuck up, she's more like the older version of me. She has medium length dark brown hair, almost like mine except hers is more bland and not as long. Kim and I are probably too much alike, we have the same thoughts about pretty much everything. But, working here isn't so boring when Kim's here.

I wake up in the morning, take a shower, and get dressed. It's a little cold outside today, so I put on a pair of dark denim skinny jeans and a plain white t-shirt, then I put a fitted leather jacket over it. It's surprising, I went shopping with Kim last Saturday and she pretty much played Barbie doll with me, putting me in everything.

With this outfit, she told me that I'm supposed to wear heals with it, but there's no way I'm wearing heals to school. I'm sticking with my best friend, Converse. Black Converse, that actually look cute with what I'm wearing. I put on a little mascara and leave the house before my mom's up.

Outside, I look over at Van's house and it doesn't even seem the same since this whole thing happened. It's so...not alive, if that makes sense.

Van used to ride with me to school everyday, but after his parents got divorced, he got his mom's old car. Then he traded that car in for a truck, a white truck.

I get in my black Mitsubishi Eclipse Spyder and get on the road. I glance over at the empty passenger seat, where Van used to sit all of the time. I kind of wish that he didn't have his own car. Now we don't go places together that much. Mainly because I hate not being the driver. I have to drive and if I'm not, I'm what most people call a 'backseat driver', except my case is really bad. I remember the first time I let Van drive my car, it was because I drank at a party and he didn't, so he drove us home. I told him how to drive the whole way, until we finally got to my house.

I also have a bad case of Road Rage. Pretty much everything people do while driving bugs me. Like when people turn on their blinker at the last minute, or when they pull out in front of you when they could've just waited until you passed because nobody was behind you. I could go on and on, but to keep it short, all of the things I hate, Van does, whether it's purposely because he wants to piss me off or not. Pissing me off just comes natural to him.

When I get to school, I park in my usual parking space and get my backpack out of the truck. I would take my purse to, but I always tend to forget that I have it. The only things that are in it, is a tube of mascara, my camera, and a wallet with my license and credit card, no money, because I keep that in my pocket. My mom says that my credit card is for 'emergencies only'. Well, last week Van and I had an emergency for seventy-five pizza's, delivered to the 7 Eleven in San Francisco. Five toppings too. I'll have fun explaining that to my mom when she finds out. But, I don't care, anything I can to piss off my mom, because pissing her off, always comes easy to me.

As I'm walking in the parking lot to the building, I almost get run over by a white truck. The driver purposely stops at the last minute. I look to see who the driver is; Van, of course.

"Hello! Driver!" Van yells to me out the window, jokingly.

"Hello! Pedestrian!" I yell back. "Last I checked, I have the right away," I remind him, standing perfectly in front of his truck now, purposely pissing him off.

Van honks his horn and the only thing I do to that is hold out my middle finger and smile. After a couple seconds of letting him to about those apples, I walk away and head inside the school.

I get my history book and go straight to class. I would wait for Van, but I'll just seem him in there. It seems that we always get put in the same classes. Like it's a 'great minds think alike' situation. We don't think a like. Not even close. We think opposite, when it comes to everything, even things as simple as love. He's a game player when it comes to that, but I'm not so good at it.

In the middle of Mr. Bosh, giving a lecture, Van leans forward and says quietly, "hey are you going to your locker later?"

I nod. "Yeah, why? What did you do to it?" I whisper, suspiciously.

Van shrugs. "Nothing," he smiles.

Yeah, right. I highly doubt that.

When the bell rings, dismissing first period, I rush to my locker to see what the jackass did. All I see is a bright yellow Post-It sticking to it.

Its funny how ironic life can be.

That's all it says. Right after reading it, I already know that it has something to do with last night and him finding out about Evan. I shouldn't have let it happen like that.

I take it off and stick it in a blank notebook and walk away from my locker, feeling surprisingly more guilty than I thought I would when Van found out.

*****

<3JustKaylay.