Ian sighed as their other friend came in and Justin turned away from him. He buried his ahdns deeper into his pockets and walked away and out into the parking to his black car.

******

Abigal whimpered and shook her head. "Yeah...I think i'm okay....ummm.."

"ABBY!!" Called a concerned voice from the pakring lot

Peter's eyes grew wide, not sure whther to annoy Justin by playfully jumping on his back for that comment about the greeting, or if he should hound a cousin he wasn't as close to with a million questions about Ronia, or give an explaination for his lack of hair, or to introduce his friends. So, he just stood still, waiting for Justin and Johnny to stop talking so that he could do something.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Amanda could see that Abigal was not sure what was going on. "Abigal, It's me! Amanda, we're friends."
~~~~~~~~
Justin could not wait to fill Johnny in on the last six months of his life. "Did I tell you Maralyn and I are going to have a baby? Oh, and as you can tell I won the case!"

Abigal shook her head, clearing the cobwebs. "Hi...."

" ABBY!" suddenly a man rushed up. He was the same boy from the picture Abigal had showed Amanda and Diane. He pushed past the others girls and kneeled next to Abigal.

******

" Who's this Peter?" Brian asked in her ear.

Amanda noticed the guy near ABigal and motioned for Diane that she and her should let Abigal and her fiancee ahve some time alone."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Peter briefly interrupted the conversation to introduce Johnny to his new friends. "Johny, this is my friend Brian. Brian, this is my other cousin, Johnny. Now you have met."

Brian smiled and shook Johnny's hand. " nice to meet you!"

********

Andrew tood Abigaln's hand and patted it. " are you alright Abby? Nothing hurt..." he said looking her up and down.

"no...I don't believe so" Abigal said. "Come here Amanda, Diane. Meet Andrew" she said motioning

Amanda softly touched Diane's arm, letting her know it was okay to come closer. "Hey, I am Amanda and," she pointed to Diane, "this is our friend, Diane. You must be..." She thought for a minute, forgetting his name.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Peter Put an arm arouns Zach then, quickly removed it. "This is my other friend, Zach. Zach, Meet, my big cousin, Johnny."

Johny did that half-nod thing that guys seem to like to do at Brian and then raised his eyebrows at Peter. "Embracing him is a bit too demonstrative," he commented.

"Justin, down boy!"

Johny smirked at his brother. "A little Justin?" his eyes grew wide in horror. "Or a little Maralyn? And, uh, no." He leaned his elbow onto Justin's shoulder. "I wasn't fighting, you gotta remember that. I was discovering information."

Brian chuckled abit at the interactions between everyone. He just watched, since he didn't know Johnny, and wanted to give Peter and Justin same space with him

******

"Andrew" He finished for Amanda and held out his hand for her to shake. she did and he retracted it, helping Abigal up. He put an arm around Abby's shoulder and gave her a squeeze.

"You got to be more careful girl" he said looking at her and ran his fingers through her hair.

Abby sighed. "I know..."

Peter gave Johnny a smirk. "Hey! I was just showing you where he was, dude!"
Justin smiled at their interaction, glad that were gettign along at least halfway decently. He raised his eyebrows, when Johnny said he had gone just to discover infromation, not sure if Johnny told him that. He whispered, "Oh, what kinds of information?" Before Johnny could answer, he raised his voice a little above a whisper. "It's a girl." For now, his fears of being a bad parent or of his girl hating him stayed back in the attic of his mind, allowing the excitement over a new life to shine through.

Peter playfully shoved past Johnny. "And that's what you get." Then he turned to Justin. "I call first dibs on holding her when she's born."

Diane smiled pleasantly. "Nice to meet you," she said, shaking Andrew's hand. She looked at Abigail. "That was a close call, you know. I was really afraid you'd be kidnapped."

Ryan came up to Johnny and nodded with a pleased smile on his face. "Good to see you again, Johnny. Glad you're back."

Amanda nodded. "I didn't think the cops would get here on time." SHe shuddered at the thought of ehr friend being kidnapped.
~~~~~~~~~
Justin laughed, and he put his cousin in a playful headlock. "We'll see about that."
Peter groaned and he lifted his cousin's arm off him. THen, he tried batting his eyelashes the way Miley often did when she was younger and pouted, "Justin, please. Pretty please."
Justin snorted and crossed his arms over his stomach for support as he burst into laughter. "Okay. You can." He shook his head.

Johny raised his eyebrows dramatically. "Oh... that's classified," he replied simply.

"But I'm not!" he declared after a moment of silence.

This time, Peter looked at Johnny like he was crazy. "You're not what? You're not classified? You're not happy to be back? You're not a girl? Well, I figured you weren't a girl. It's quite obivious."

Abigal smiled. "Well at least I wasn't..." she said snuggling closer to andrew.

"It's nice meeting you girls" andrew nodded to Mandy and Diane. "Abby you should have called me? What were you doing that was so secret you couldn't tell me?"

Abby blushed. "Me and my gals were buying a wedding dress. I didn't want you seeing" she said in clear embarressment at him inquiring.

*********

Brian laughed at everything, still not sure what to say. Ryan, Peter and Justin were all related to Johnny; he wasn't. He tossed the ball to the ground. "Ummmm...if we aren't going to play anymore...I'll go home" he cringed knowing he had stuck his foot in his mouth.

At the thought of hurting his friend's feelings, Peter quickly turned aorund. "No, you can say. Sorry. Um, let's get back to the game. Justin is on our team and Johnny is on Zach and Ryan's."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Amanda grinned mischeviously at Andrew. Now you know why she couldn't tell you?"