Vanessa's POV.

"So," Jorel said as he leaned down to kiss me again. "Will there be any strippers?"

I laughed and dragged my nails down his back, "Maybe."

His brow pulled together as he stared down at me. I could tell that he was concerned about tonight. It's not that he didn't trust me it's just that he didn't fully trust his baby sister going out where there's alcohol.

He sighed and dropped his head on my chest. He was always worrying about her.

"Jorel she'll be fine, okay? I'll watch her and make sure that she's perfectly safe."

"Alright." He mumbled into my chest before he got up and left to go over to Aron's.

An hour later I was dressed and ready to go pick up Brooklyn from Jordon's house.

Lately she's been spending more and more time with him rather than Jorel and George. Granted both me and him liked the fact that she has been trying to help him through his depression but we worried sometimes that she was spending too much time with him.

Especially George. He was getting to the point where he couldn't stand to be in the same space as Jordon because he thought that Jordon was trying to take Brooke away from him. I had tried countless times to tell George that she was just trying to be a good friend by helping Jordon, but he was still suspicious. Sighing I grabbed my car keys and headed out.

•Skip Car Ride•

"Hey, you ready to go?" I asked as I stepped past Brooke into Jordon's house.

When I got past the entryway I saw the worst thing that I could ever have imagined. My heart sank deep into my stomach as I took in the image of Jordon laying on the couch.

His body was curled up on the couch, beer cans were spread across the floor in front of him, his skin looked sickly pale and it smelled as if he hadn't seen a shower in a few days.

I glanced back at Brooklyn, a saddened look was etched onto her face. She nodded once and walked to Jordon's side. As I watched her try and coax him up off the couch my mind wandered back to a couple months ago when he and Randi were still together.

The man I had seen back then was completely different from the one I saw right now. Back then he'd been happy and full of life, but now he just looked...dead. So to speak. I shook my head and moved to Brooklyn's side to try and help her get him up.

He kept his back turned to us so that we couldn't see his face, from the way that his shoulders and chest moved I could tell that he was trying to repress some tears.

"Jordon come on...you have to get up." Brooke rubbed his shoulder. "Please, just get up and go lay down in your room." She pleaded. He sighed and finally sat up.

When I saw his face my breath caught in the back of my throat. "Jordon.." Was all I was able to force out. He gave me a tight lipped smile as he met my gaze.

"Hey V." He looked away from me and held his hands out to Brooklyn, she took his hands and pulled him to his feet.

Somehow she was able to support his weight and help him to his room. When she came back downstairs ten minutes later she looked like she was on the verge of tears.

I gathered her into my arms and soon she became an emotional wreck. Her body shook with quiet sobs and her tears stained my shirt.

"Everything will be okay. You're doing an amazing job at helping him." I told her softly as I continued to hug her.

After a while she pulled away and wiped away the remainder of her tears. She took a deep breath and gathered up her stuff and walked out to my car.

I could tell that she did love Jordon, but more like a second older brother, and seeing him like this was killing her inside. Honestly it was killing all of us to know that Jordon had slipped this low but it was clearly affecting Brooklyn more.

"Hey," I said as I got into the drivers seat. "He will be okay."

She sighed heavily and pulled her feet up onto the dashboard. Slowly she nodded her head and smiled. I knew that she was trying to put on a brave face again.

"I know. I just can't stand to see him in pain...to see any of you in pain." She paused to wipe at her eyes to prevent more tears. "You and the guys are all I have left and I don't want to see any of you hurt."

I knew that me, Jorel, and the rest of the guys were all she really had left to call family but to actually hear her say it made my own eyes sting with burning tears. I guess it never really hit home for me before. She took a slow deep breath before smiling over at me. "Come on we got a party to start."

~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~•~

A few hours later me, Brooklyn, and Heidi were all sat around a table waiting for our drinks. The place that they had picked was some fancy restaurant that was about a ten minute drive from Sunset Boulevard. I didn't really like that they had kept this restaurant idea as a surprise for me, but the more I thought about it I slowly came to realize that it didn't matter where they took me just as long as we had a good time.

About halfway through the dinner Brooklyn got up from the table and told us that she had to go meet a Katrina up at the bar.

I wondered for a bit what Katrina had been up to lately being as she moved out of the house a month ago.

"Have you talked to Kat lately?" I asked Heidi.

She shook her head and took a sip of her Martini. "Nope."

When she came back Katrina was following behind Brooke. I noticed that she was wearing a Bring Me The Horizon shirt and had a pair of black leggings that had stars along the side. Her makeup was simple, she only wore black winged eyeliner and nude lipgloss. I had to admit that even though she was dressed casually she did look pretty good. She slid into the booth next to Brooke not really meeting mine nor Heidi's gaze.

"Vanessa, I hope you don't mind that she joins us." Brooke said shyly.

I waved it off and took a sip of my drink, "It's perfectly fine. I'm glad that you could make it Katrina."

Kat smiled up at me and soon relaxed. She slowly slipped into a casual conversation with Heidi about music and hair color.

I noticed after a while that Kat seemed like she wanted to say something. 

"Kat is there something that you wanna tell us?" I asked her quietly. 

She stopped talking and her cheeks flushed a deep red. Brooke smiled brightly and shoved her shoulder.

"Tell them!"

I glanced between the two of them, feeling even more confused than I was when Randi divorced Jordon.

"Okay so I met this guy, his name is Danny Murillo and he moved here a few weeks ago into the apartment down the hall from me. And he's a singer too!"

Heidi was the first of us to say anything, "Do you have a picture of what he looks like?"

Kat pulled out her phone and pulled up a picture of a man with dark hair that was straightened in front of his face, to me he came off as maybe Puerto Rican.

"He's cute. Is he going to be auditioning for American Idol?" Heidi passed Kat her phone back, I on the other hand couldn't stop feeling as if I knew this Danny guy from somewhere.

"Yeah he's gonna try in a few weeks."

"Well I hope that he gets past Simon cause that guy is one hell of a hard ass."

I scoffed and nodded my head, "I can agree to that."