Coming Of Age On Azure Rocks free porn video

Note 1: Even though the characters start the story at seventeen, they all turn eighteen over the course of this first chapter. No underage character takes part in any kind of sex scene or situation.

It was a special day in the small town of Azure Rocks, at least for its kids and teenagers, for it was the last day of classes before the students got another year behind them and could enjoy their summer. The tension was palpable in the air at Azure Rocks High School; more specifically in the Literature classroom, nearly every single teenager in that junior class couldn’t wait for their classmate to finish reading his special assignment and then kill the last few minutes that separated them from their temporary freedom.

"So, Riekan became the King of Kinwald, but in the end, none of it mattered because he was all alone after every single one of his friends and companions left him. It was a shallow victory."

"Thank you, Connor, an outstanding job as always, you may go back to your seat now," a slender, petite thirty-year-old woman took her student's spot at the front of the classroom and faced the rest of the class of high school juniors. Mary Moreau was simply the student's favorite teacher, she had taken over the Literature class at the beginning of the year and instantly turned it into a hit. The way she understood and treated her students, alongside her youthful and sweet nature, ensured she was loved by boys and girls equally.

Her long, wavy auburn hair was up in a bun over her head as always, and her clear-blue eyes peered at her pupils as she assumed a thoughtful expression, as if she was evaluating her next words. Wearing a short-sleeved, button-up white blouse and a dark-gray pencil skirt, her high heels clicked on the floor as she moved to stand in front of the desk. Ms. Moreau had a fit, yet curvy, figure, with medium-sized breasts and a round butt. Naturally, almost the entire male population in the school dreamed about what it would be like to have a night with her, to enjoy the delights of her natural beauty and the body she usually kept covered behind her professional clothes.

"Alright," she finally spoke. "We have seen many styles of literature over the course of this year, worked with a number of different books, and all of you exceeded my expectations so far. Congratulations," she smiled fondly at her students as a round of cheers and applause broke out amongst them before she took a quick glance at the watch on her wrist. “Alright, you are minutes away from officially completing your junior year and summer will be upon all of us. Many of you will turn eighteen in the next few months, no doubt something you’ve been waiting for, just don’t go crazy until you get back for your senior year, okay?” She requested, earning a few laughs from her pupils. “I still have a few things I need to teach you.”

Just as Mary finished speaking, the last bell of the day rang through the school, causing all the students to start raising from their seats, eager to get on with their summer. “Have a nice summer, everyone!” The teacher said with a smile before she raised her head above the crowd and tried to locate the ones she wanted to talk to. “Connor, Victoria, Madison, over here! A word, please.”

Connor Bishop raised an eyebrow as he watched the two girls walk over to the teacher’s desk. His icy-blue eyes shifted away from the teacher to his backpack as the seventeen-year-old wondered what Ms. Moreau could want with them. He ran a hand over his short dark-brown hair and started shoving stuff into the backpack as his best friend raised from her seat.

“Go on without me, Chloe,” he told the blue-eyed redhead regarding him with a curious gaze. “Tell Leon I won’t take long. I think.”

“Sure, Con,” the girl named Chloe McRose nodded with a smile and made her way out of the classroom as her friend joined the other two girls at the teacher’s desk.

Victoria Walker and Madison Cole were no more than acquaintances for Connor, the former being the best friend of one of his own friends and the latter being the twin sister of a former friend. Both girls were quite gorgeous, though, Victoria had long, slightly wavy golden hair and emerald-green eyes, while the tall Madison had long, dark-brown hair and hazel eyes. He often got a little tongue-tied in front of girls like Victoria, Madison, and Ms. Moreau herself because he didn’t want to look like a fool and have them laugh at him, even if he knew it was something neither of the three women would ever do.

Still, Victoria was quite the unattainable girl for boys like him, being hailed as one of the most beautiful females in the school and hanging out with Heather Ravers’ group of cheerleaders kinda put her on that high shelf by default. Madison, on her end, despite being a cheerleader herself, had friends in lots of groups and cliques, and Connor had even been one of those friends years ago, but that was back when her brother, Brandon, had also been a friend; nowadays, though, the quarterback of the school football team threatened with severe harm any guy that dared make a move on Madison and shunned even the possibility of her having boys as friends.

The girls nodded at him while Ms. Moreau finished writing in a notebook. A few moments later, Mary closed it up and regarded her top three students with a happy smile. “I won’t keep you long, I’m sure you’re quite eager to get out of here. so I’ll be brief,” she said, getting three genuine smiles in return. “The three of you have been my best students in this year’s junior class, and aside from effusively congratulating you, I would like to propose a project for next year.”

“What project, Ms. Moreau?” Victoria asked, and Connor could see the deep curiosity in her beautiful features.

“A book club,” Mary grinned, excitement in her voice. “Now, I’m well aware you two might have other projects, Victoria and Madison, but we still don’t have a book club here in this school and this is something I’d like to rectify with help from the three of you. What do you say?”

“Well, as you know, Ms. Moreau, I’ve got the drama club,” Madison replied, the Literature teacher also had taken over as supervisor for the said club at the start of the year. “But I’ve also gotten in the cheerleading squad this year and I already dropped the volleyball team for it. I’m not sure if I’ll have the time, but if I can help somehow, I’d be happy to.”

Victoria nodded. “I’m in The Busy Bear,” she said, referring to the school newspaper. “With the rest of the crew graduating, I’m gunning for the chief editor position next year and that will likely increase my workload, but as Maddie said, I’d love to help if it doesn’t conflict with the paper.”

“I see. Thank you, girls,” Mary said before she turned her attention to the quiet boy in the group. “What about you, Connor?”

Connor felt three pairs of eyes on him and he fought off a fit of coughs that threatened to escape. “Me?” He asked and the teacher nodded, making him want to kick himself in the face for answering like an idiot, a fact that he noticed Madison quietly snickering for in a good-natured way, he knew she hated people who made fun of others. He hadn’t thought about participating in a book club, but disappointing Ms. Moreau was something that no one with a heart had the courage to do, so he found himself eagerly nodding. “Of course I can help, Ms. Moreau, I don’t have anything else to do.”

“Excellent, thank you, Connor! I knew I could count on you,” the gorgeous teacher clapped, obviously happy that at least one of them took her up on the idea. She then ran her gaze across her three students’ faces. “Look, don’t commit yet, neither of you, use the summer to think about it and we’ll talk again when you come back in August, sounds good?”

Victoria beamed. “Sure, Ms. Moreau! I’ll certainly try to help, I think that a book club is an amazing idea!” She proclaimed, and Connor suspected she also didn’t want to disappoint everyone’s favorite teacher, causing him to smile. He always admired the pretty blonde for her study habits, despite hanging out with a wild crowd, she always managed to keep up her grades and stay on top of their classes. The fact that she was absolutely gorgeous and quite possibly the most beautiful girl at Azure Rocks High School didn’t hurt one bit.

Huh, Ashley would punch me in the face if she knew I called their group a ‘wild crowd’, Connor mentally laughed before he stole another quick peek at Victoria Walker, she would be the perfect girlfriend if he got over the anxiousness that stopped him from making a move on her or any other girl, at least one of their interests seemed to align, at least.

“Alright, I won’t hold you back anymore, have a great summer!” Mary smiled widely at her prized pupils and received enthusiastic goodbyes and wishes for a good summer in return.

Connor picked up his backpack and was on his way out of the school when he felt a tap on his arm before Madison popped up in front of him, causing him to jump backward, startled at her sudden appearance.

“Madison!” He exclaimed, she used to do this a lot back when they hung out years ago, but now it had been a long time since they talked directly to each other aside from classroom assignments. “Dammit.”

Madison chuckled at him. “Sorry, I couldn’t resist,” she told him while waving at Victoria as she passed by them with a smile and a nod. “So, what do you think about Ms. Moreau's idea?”

“Well…,” Connor scratched the back of his head as he discreetly looked around the corridor to check if Brandon wasn’t nearby. “I think it’s great, depending on the books we get to discuss, of course.”

“Yeah, I hear you,” the brunette crossed her arms in front of her chest. “Are you in any club?”

Connor shook his head, trying to fight off the temptation to glance down at her legs, left on display by the jean shorts she wore. “No, I was in the computer club a couple of years ago, but I dropped it when Grace Smith became president, she only wants to do what she likes.”

Madison grinned in understanding, her old captain in the volleyball team was pretty much a tyrant as well. “Well, just think, Victoria and I won’t be able to do a lot in this book club, so, you’ll be the president, most likely,” she said. “You’ll get to pick the books.”

He frowned, realizing she was right. “Yeah…,” he said before his head began shaking negatively. “No, I won’t do that, if I end up as the president, I’ll put it to a vote.”

“That’s the spirit,” she nodded before her phone vibrated and she pulled it out of her pocket to see that she had a text. “I better go, Brandon’s out there asking why I haven’t come out yet,” she then smiled at him. “Bye, Connor, it was nice chatting with you again. See you in August, I guess.”

“See you,” he nodded and when she turned around, he added in a whisper. “Mads…,” it was his old nickname for her back when they used to run in the same circle. His gaze dropped to her rear almost automatically before he reminded himself of who it belonged to. Don’t even go there, Brandon would absolutely murder you, dolt! His mind was quick to remind him as Connor slowed down his steps so Brandon’s car would already have departed when he reached the parking lot himself.

A month and a half into summer vacation, a warm Saturday night found Connor in his room at the basement of the Bishop home getting ready to go out, the old amusement park that had gone out of business years ago was finally going to be reopened in a joint effort by Ravers Enterprises and Smith Industries, two of the biggest companies in Azure Rocks. Naturally, it attracted the attention of teenagers all over town and most of them would show up to check it out. As he pulled on a red t-shirt, Connor thought he probably wouldn’t go if it weren’t for Leon’s insistence, he pretty much preferred to stay at home playing a game or reading a book than going to what would basically be a crowd of hot girls he couldn’t make a move on.

“This is gonna be sick, man!” A brown-eyed blond boy excitedly told his friend, barely able to concentrate on the game he was playing. “Imagine all the hot girls in town flocking to a single place, it’s gonna be our big chance!”

“Sure it is, buddy,” Connor nodded, hiding the grin that formed at the corner of his lips, Leon had always been overenthusiastic about girls like that. The Bishops and the Griffins, Leon’s family, lived at a nice middle-class cul-de-sac called Royal Grove in a residential neighborhood of Azure Rocks. The Griffins had moved in when Leon and Connor were six and the two boys became fast friends, since Connor only had Chloe McRose, who had always been his best friend and next-door neighbor, and together, they made an inseparable trio that grew into a quartet when Connor’s cousin, Paris, moved to Azure Rocks with her older brother and father three years ago. They were basically the only close friends Connor had left, anyway.

Leon Griffin laughed. “Alright, pull up the blasé act all you want, but I know you’re looking forward to it too, dude,” he said, pausing the game and throwing his best friend a challenging stare.

“Looking forward to what, exactly?” Connor whined, shrugging as he made his way to the couch and plopped down on it, his black cat Orion opening its bright green eyes as he felt his owner’s hand softly landing on the top of his head. “It’s our thing, I don’t make a move, you go too strong, we get the same result.”

“But it’s fun!” Leon fired back with a grin on his face, nonplussed by his friend’s usual pessimism. “It’ll happen someday, okay? You just gotta loosen up a bit.”

Connor sighed. “Even if we magically turn up smoother than James Bond, those girls at school are too far from our reach, man,” he argued. “You really think we’ve got a chance with Heather Ravers, Victoria Walker…, Scarlett Soren…, hell, even Sharon Miller or Sienna Thirlby?”

Leon opened and closed his mouth a few times, finally having no response to his friend’s questions. “Yeah, you might have a point.”

“Well, maybe you two should aim lower,” a snarky female voice replied, forcing the two boys to turn around. “I don’t know, just an idea.”

Walking into the room was none other than Paris Bishop, followed by Chloe McRose. Paris was a petite, toned girl with long, dark-brown hair and gray eyes, while Chloe, being a soccer player, had quite the athletic body, complemented by a long mane of red hair and a pair of clear-blue eyes.

“Your mom let us in,” Chloe told Connor as she sat down between him and Leon while Paris plopped down on a nearby armchair.

“Like you are much better,” Leon countered Paris’ quip.

The beautiful girl gave him a wicked smirk in response. “Just because you don’t see it, doesn’t mean that it’s not happening, Leon.”

Chloe and Connor had been best friends ever since they were babies, their mothers having been friends before birthing the two of them, which caused them to often see each other more as siblings than friends. Paris was Connor’s cousin who lived in Copper Heights with her older brother and father, who was the older brother of Connor’s dad, and then three years ago, the family moved to Azure Rocks when her father got a job in the same hospital his brother worked at. The mother wasn’t in the picture anymore, having passed away ten years ago in a car accident that also caused Paris’ older brother, Clark, to lose a year of school.

“There they go again,” Chloe groaned, knowing that when Leon and Paris started to argue about dating experience, they could go on for quite some time and annoy the hell out of her and Connor.

Connor let a chuckle escape, Leon hated when people called him out on his grandiose, yet often frustrated, hook-up plans, a field ripe for Paris’ jokes. His cousin claimed to date a lot, but truth be told, Connor had never seen her on a date, which didn’t mean much since he wasn’t one to go out too often. The previous summer, Connor had had his first kiss with another cousin, Mia Minotti, an older one who was the daughter of his mother’s older sister; it had happened in a dare, so there wasn’t much either of them could do, although Mia assured him later that it had been a nice one. Ever since that happened, he unwittingly got more aware of Paris’ beauty, wondering if somehow, they could end up sharing a kiss as well if the circumstances were the same, as much as he tried to push those weird thoughts away from his head.

“You sure you wanna go?” Chloe quietly asked.

“Wasn’t you the one who was dying to ride the rollercoaster?” Connor replied, a small teasing smile on his face.

The redhead shrugged. “Maybe we should wait and go on a day that won’t be so packed with people,” she suggested, getting a bit tense. “It’s not like the park will skip town.”

Connor actually debated the idea in his mind, it would be less nerve-wracking to check out the amusement park in a day where he wouldn’t constantly stumble into girls he would feel pressured to make a move on, but Chloe had started avoiding big crowds for some reason over the last year or two and he wanted to get to the bottom of it, so he figured this outing was a good chance as any of finding out something without directly asking his best friend and risk upsetting her.

“We should probably just go, I think. Besides,” he told her before nodding at the other two teenagers in the room. “I don’t think we’ll get to convince them to take a rain check.”

Chloe giggled at the image. “Yeah, you’re damn right on that.”

”Connor! I’m ready, you coming?!” His older sister’s voice echoed from upstairs, effectively putting an end to the teens’ waiting.

“Coming!” Connor shouted back and then turned to Paris and Leon. “Guys, time to go.”

When their friends didn’t stop, Chloe groaned in annoyance at them. “Stop! Dammit!” She yelled, causing Leon and Paris to slowly turn to her, shocked at her outburst. “Well, that’s better.”

“What the eff?” Paris was the one who asked as Chloe wasn’t normally one for overreacting.

“Taylor’s ready to go, c’mon,” Connor explained, turning off his gaming console and leading the other three out of the room, not before making sure Orion’s bowls of food and water were well-stocked.

In the entrance foyer of the house, Taylor Bishop was waiting for them. She recently had her 21st birthday while staying at her family’s home for the summer, a welcoming respite from the exhausting year she had at Green Hills College, the institution that she and her best friends, Hannah Woodsen and Peter Zander, attended in Green Hills, a town three hours away from Azure Rocks. Taylor was quite tall, with long, wavy dark brown hair and a pair of icy-blue eyes that she shared with her brother, inherited from their mother’s side of the family. She had a slender body, quite model-like, with medium-sized breasts and a fit ass. She was wearing a dark-gray blouse, a pair of jeans, and black high-heeled sandals for the night.

“Hey, ready to go?” The older brunette inquired, smiling at her little brother, her cousin, and their two best friends who were like younger siblings to her. Taylor wasn’t going to the park, she was only going to meet up with Hannah before joining a few old friends of theirs at a pub in town, but Connor would drive her to the Woodsens’ house.

“Taylor!” Leon exclaimed in a dramatic tone. “May I remark how strikingly beautiful you’re looking tonight?”

Taylor chuckled while Chloe and Paris rolled their eyes. “Sure, Leon, thank you,” the older girl was pretty much used to Leon’s funny flirting by now, she thought it was kind of cute but had always been careful to not lead him on.

Connor cleared his throat and the five of them left, the girls on the lead as they walked over to his red sedan on the driveway. He then caught Leon staring ahead and chuckled lightly.

“Dude, quit staring at my sister’s ass!”

“Sorry, man.”

The Woodsens lived in another neighborhood, near the one where the Bishops, Chloe, and Leon lived, so the five of them only had time to make some small talk during the short drive to Hannah's house. It was a nice place, not a mansion such as the one the Ravers family lived, but a spacious house nonetheless, kind of like the Bishop home.

"Alright, that’s my stop, thanks for the ride, little brother," Taylor said, smiling at Connor before she spotted her friend coming out of the house. "Oh, there's Hannah."

Connor and Leon almost froze as they got out of the car to greet the other older girl. A buxom, blue-eyed blonde of twenty-one was crossing the lawn, coming in their direction. Hannah Woodsen was dressed to kill, a snug, sleeveless dark-blue top that emphasized her large pair of breasts and a very tight pair of jeans that made Connor wonder how the hell she had been able to squeeze herself into, given her nicely curved ass.

"Ready?" Taylor asked as she and her friend exchanged a quick hug. They would be going in Hannah's car, which was parked in the driveway.

"Sure," the blonde smoothly answered before her gaze fell on her friend’s brother and she smirked flirtatiously. "Connor Bishop! How nice to see you tonight, maybe you should come to the Captain’s Cove with us, you know? That amusement park tonight?" She let out a derisive sigh. "Ugh..., so high school."

"Hannah!" Taylor chuckled, although her voice betrayed a subtle warning tone. Her best friend was very provocative towards boys, men, and even a few girls that she found attractive since she was bisexual. The reason for her warning was that her brother had always harbored an enormous crush on Hannah ever since he got old enough to get interested in girls, which is why she told the blonde to not tease her brother years ago, so he did not get his hopes up. Hannah still threw some flirting remarks towards Connor from time to time, though.

"Uhn...," Connor stammered.

Hannah turned to Taylor, still smirking as she leaned in to whisper. "Can you believe the son of one of my Dad’s coworkers tried to hit on me there? He’s like sixteen!”

"Somehow I can, now can we go?" Taylor fired back, she never saw Hannah with a younger guy, but she wouldn't put it past her, and the last thing Taylor wanted was for Connor to think he got a shot.

“Will Ashley be at the park, Hannah?” Chloe asked, referring to Hannah’s younger sister who was kind of friends with them as well.

“Yep, her oafish boyfriend picked her up a while ago,” the older blonde replied. “Paris, take care of those three for us, okay?”

The little brunette grinned widely at one of the girls she saw as a role model besides Taylor herself. “Of course! I’m always on it!”

Taylor rolled her eyes. “Can we go?!” She repeated. “Pretty please?”

"Sure, Tay, don’t get your panties on fire, jeez!" Hannah replied and then waved at the four teens. "Bye, guys! Don't do anything I wouldn't do, alright?"

Taylor nodded and turned to her brother. "Ignore her, bye!"

The quartet watched as the two older girls walked off to Hannah's car, but Chloe noticed Connor had a thoughtful look on his face. "Con?"

"Sorry, I was just distracted," Connor answered as he motioned for his friends and cousin to follow him back to his own vehicle. For a brief moment, he considered taking Hannah up on her idea, but he figured it would be mean to leave Chloe to fend for herself in the park, since Paris and Leon could probably take care of themselves. She was just joking, anyway. Girls always are when it comes to me.

Amidst a crowd of excited kids, teenagers, and young adults walking around the newly-opened amusement park on the outskirts of Azure Rocks, there was one teenage girl that stood out, much in thanks to her stunning beauty, but also due to the expression of boredom marring her features, the only one in the middle of several happy faces around her. Possessing an incredible body, slender, yet buxom, Heather Ravers sighed, using a hand to push aside a strand of her long, dark-brown hair that had fallen over one of her electric-blue eyes. She was the first in her group of friends to have turned eighteen a few days ago, and they all thought this outing to check out the amusement park was the perfect opportunity to celebrate her birthday and Sharon’s, which would be tomorrow.

“You don’t seem happy,” a whisper in her ear penetrated her thoughts, spoken by the very reason of her distress.

She threw the handsome 20-year-old boy a smile. “I am happy, Andrew, it’s just… I think I’m getting a headache with all this noise,” she lied, trying to keep him from worrying too much.

A concerned look spread over the brown-haired boy’s face, his equally brown eyes narrowing as he assessed her. “We can leave if you want, I don’t care about this park if you’re not feeling it.”

“Don’t worry, okay?” She insisted. “If it gets worse, you’ll be the first to know.”

That answer seemed to have satisfied Andrew Nordstein, who just smiled at her and shifted his gaze to the path ahead of them, his right arm tightening around her shoulders. Heather fought the urge to let out another sigh, she normally didn’t have a problem in lying to guys, her college-aged hook-ups were all dumb and believed everything she said, which made it easier for her to give them their marching orders the next morning, but not Andrew, this was the guy who was a friend of her family, the one she lost her virginity to a couple of years ago and had enjoyed several fun sex sessions with ever since. He had even come to Azure Rocks just to see her this weekend, but there was something different in his eyes this time, where she previously saw just a playful sex partner, there was now a considerate, needy guy who acted like a boyfriend, something that Heather definitely wasn’t looking for at this point in her life.

No! I’ve got my senior year coming up, I’ll probably be cheer captain, and there are tons of things I still wanna do, I can’t get tied down now, especially to a guy whose family doesn’t even live in Azure Rocks and goes to college in the other side of the freaking country! She rambled in her head. Even if that guy is Andrew Nordstein!

Walking a few steps behind them was another pair, this one in a completely different mood, the perky blue-eyed blonde cheerleader and the stocky, well-built quarterback with brown eyes and black hair still seemed to be in the honeymoon phase of their seven-month relationship.

“I wanna go on the ferris wheel, Bran!” Ashley gushed, almost jumping up and down in excitement. “It’s gonna be so romantic!”

“Sure it will, baby,” Brandon smiled, squeezing her hand tighter. “Especially with y…,” he trailed, noticing the ass on a hot older girl that walked by them.

At first, Ashley Woodsen didn’t believe that Brandon Cole could be a nice boyfriend, given the way he acted so superior around anyone who wasn’t a football player, a cheerleader, a Honeybear, or a close friend to one of those three groups, but over the time he pursued her, Ashley became charmed by how much Brandon seemed to want her and he became her boyfriend, not the first one, but he ended up being the guy who took her virginity. However, there were rare times in which Ashley got the impression her own enthusiasm about the relationship was bigger than Brandon’s; times when they would go on a date and he would get this distracted look on his face.

“Hey,” she used a finger to turn his chin toward her and smiled up at him before pulling him for a brief kiss. “I love you.”

A wide grin spread across his face. “Damn, I love you too, Ash,” he replied, giving her another peck on the lips. If only Ashley knew how much he loved her, Brandon thought, but the way his gaze wandered when a sexy girl showed up, it was something he couldn’t turn off as much as he tried, like a male instinct telling him he should try and fuck as many women as he could. The way Heather’s jeans hugged her toned ass ahead of them wasn’t helping him one bit. Despite that, he had never cheated on Ashley, he wouldn’t be able to bear the disappointed look on her face if he did something and she found out.

Madison Cole made a gagging noise behind them, as much as she came to appreciate Ashley ever since she joined the cheerleading squad, the female Cole twin hated the double standards, Brandon could date all he wanted, but when it came to her, he and their father made her life a living hell, forbidding her from even having guy friends. God, I feel like a damn prisoner sometimes.

At her side, Victoria Walker smiled sympathetically, aware of the dark-haired girl’s troubles. They had become good friends after Madison joined the cheerleading squad that Vicky’s closest friends were a part of, and when Ashley began dating Brandon, the two of them started hanging out much more often than before. As they found a common interest in literature and reading, the making of a new friend cushioned the heartbreak Victoria suffered when her first and only boyfriend, Dustin Lewis, moved out of Azure Rocks with his family the previous semester.

The green-eyed blonde smiled as her gaze ran over her friends. Not counting the rest of the cheerleaders and Andrew, this was their usual group. She mentally laughed at the thought; since every one of her close friends became cheerleaders, people usually mistook her for one as well, but she never felt particularly interested in pursuing that path, as much as Heather insisted the summer before their freshman year. No, she wanted to land the chief editor job in the school newspaper and then go to college to become a full-fledged journalist, her lifelong dream ever since she was old enough to understand the comings and goings at the Azure Rocks Gazette, the town newspaper owned by her parents.

“There’s the ferris wheel,” Brandon pointed out while squeezing his girlfriend’s hand. “Wanna go now, Ash?”

“Sure!” The perky blonde turned to her other friends. “What about you guys?”

“We’re going too,” Andrew immediately replied, beating Heather to the punch as she was about to refuse the romantic activity.

“I’ll wait for you all,” Victoria said, giving Ashley a rueful smile that her best friend understood at once, it was still early for her to do stuff for couples that she could be enjoying with Dustin.

“Alright,” Brandon nodded. “C’mon, Maddie.”

Madison frowned. “But I don’t wanna go on the freaking wheel!” She complained. “What am I gonna do there all by myself?!”

“Well, there’s no way I’m letting you out of my sight,” Brandon fired back matter-of-factly. “Or you wanna take it up to Dad?”

After a tense staring contest, Madison threw her twin brother a murderous look before stomping her foot and walking past him toward the ferris wheel. “Fine, dammit!”

Victoria watched as the five of them got at the end of the line and chuckled at how excited Ashley and Andrew seemed to be, while Brandon just smiled at his girlfriend and Heather pouted at her friend-with-benefits’ side. A romantic at heart, Vicky couldn’t fathom how a relationship like that worked, she really missed Dustin for his company, how he treated her, and the companionship they shared; despite the fact that they never did anything sexual over the months that their relationship lasted, she truly loved the introspective and kind young man. Ashley always insisted for her to go on double dates with Brandon’s friends from the football team, and while they were nice, none of them seemed to be what she looked for in a guy, and besides, she was in no rush to find a new boyfriend so soon.

It’s probably better to only think about it when I go to college…, she thought before spotting someone she knew from school. “Hey, Connor!”

The boy in question looked up, a bit startled at his name being called, and his eyes widened when he saw who it was. Oh, shit! When he begged off from joining Chloe, Paris, and Leon on the rollercoaster and decided to wander around to check out the sights, Connor Bishop hadn’t imagined he would stumble into his other classmates, given how packed with people the park was that night. Yet, here she was, Victoria Walker, the one who attracted him the most, and therefore, left him the most nervous.

Victoria smiled politely as he walked toward her position by the rails that overlooked Misty Lake, realizing that they were the best example of how two different people could be great friends with a third person and never end up as friends on their own. Ashley usually hung out with their group and Connor’s one separately, and the most they had interacted with each other before had been in one of the Woodsen sisters’ birthday parties or school projects. It wasn’t that she was against hanging out with their group, but some of the cheerleaders in her friends’ clique were always insisting for them to ignore what they saw as the least popular students, which was something Victoria truly hated but never fought against.

“H-hi, Victoria,” Connor greeted back, stammering a bit at first, but quickly finding his footing next. “So, what’s up? You alone here?”

“No, Ash and the others just got in the ferris wheel,” she pointed at them. “I preferred to stay back and wait for them.”

Connor smiled. “You don’t like heights?” He felt like a joke was the perfect way to break the ice in this case, taking a page out of Leon’s book.

“No, it’s not that,” Victoria replied, looking down at her feet for a moment. “Things like a ferris wheel cart remind me too much of my ex-boyfriend.”

“Oh,” Connor almost staggered at the slip, wanting to kick himself in the balls for the insensitivity. Every boy in school felt jealous of Dustin Lewis for landing Victoria as a girlfriend when it happened, but he didn’t imagine she was still so hung up on him months after he moved out of town. “Sorry about that, I wasn’t thinking…”

“That’s okay,” she gave him a small smile to show she wasn’t upset. “People don’t have the obligation to know what’s going on in my head. Don’t worry, Connor,” she reassured him. “Let’s talk about a better subject. Hey! I didn’t have the chance to ask what you thought about Ms. Moreau’s idea.”

Eager to move on from his accidental mistake, Connor jumped into it. “It’s great, as she said, I can’t believe we never had a book club at school yet!”

Vicky enthusiastically nodded. “Right? I really love to read and discuss books, shame I won’t be able to be active in the club with the Busy Bear going on and all,” she said. “Even if I don’t get the chief editor job, it’s going to be Alice, and I’ll need to help her as much as I can.”

Connor imitated the nod, not knowing what to say about that, so he moved the subject back to clubs. “Madison said I might end up as this club’s president,” he said. “But I don’t know if I should be the one, the only experience I have in clubs was with a terrible president, Grace Smith was like a tyrant.”

The blonde girl laughed heartily at that. “Oh, yeah, Grace tends to be like that sometimes. Especially when it’s about something she really likes.”

He raised a curious eyebrow. “Oh, I didn’t know you were close friends with Grace. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you two together at school.”

“She’s my cousin,” Victoria answered with a grin, causing the boy’s stomach to drop at another faux pas. “Second cousin, actually, our mothers are cousins.”

“Dammit…,” Connor murmured, shaking his head as a look of anguish formed on his face. “I’m sorry, Victoria, I…”

“Hey, that’s okay, Connor, really,” she tried to calm him down. “Again, there’s no way you could know that, I don’t usually hang out with her beyond family dinners, sadly, and even those are pretty rare,” she clarified. “Besides, you’re right, Grace can be a… bitch… sometimes.”

That made him let out a nervous laugh, causing her to smile at him. Connor realized right then and there that there was no way he would ever make a move on the lovely Victoria Walker if he would be like a machine gun of mistakes and misunderstandings, he would only succeed in upsetting her. Luckily for him, the arrival of his friends saved him from keeping doing that.

“Con! You’ve totally missed it!” Chloe excitedly called him out. “ That rollercoaster? It was freaking awesome!”

“Chloe...,” Leon whispered, lightly elbowing his old friend when he saw that Connor was talking with one of the hottest girls in their year, but the redhead didn’t get it and angrily elbowed him back.

“Ow, Leon! Dammit!”

Paris walked by them. “Hey, Vicky!” She greeted the other girl, the two of them had hung out a few times over the past school year when Paris began asking Ashley and Heather about being a cheerleader and had built a certain rapport.

“Hi, Par!” The blonde replied and the two of them launched into a conversation, much to Connor’s happiness, now his cousin could distract Victoria from the lousy company he was.

What a fucking failure, he decided. I’ll never get a girlfriend this way, especially one of the top prospects like Victoria Walker. Maybe I should wait until I go to college, pretend I had a change of personality, and unleash it on those girls, they won’t know who I was in high school, anyways. Yeah, that’s the way.

“Hey, what’s going on?” Chloe asked, sensing her best friend was upset about something.

“Yeah, dude,” Leon agreed as he sidled up to the other two. “You look like someone just told you Orion was missing or something.”

Connor threw him an annoyed look, that was definitely something he didn’t like to hear about even in a hypothetical situation. “Nothing happened, guys, I’m just a bit tired from walking around so much,” he lied, it was better to keep the monumental flop he had just gone through as a secret.

“Well, let’s sit here, then,” Chloe suggested as she dragged him to a bench just behind them and forced Connor to sit before doing the same herself. “Those two will be at it for a while, anyway.”

Just as she predicted, the conversation between Victoria and Paris lasted for a few more minutes, enough time for the group led by Heather Ravers to return. Connor immediately tensed up by the arrival of Brandon while Madison blushed upon laying her gaze on Connor. Ashley just grinned widely at her other set of old friends.

“Hi, guys! I didn’t know you’d come!” She warmly threw her arms around Chloe first and then Connor.

“They wanted to check it out,” Connor merely said, pointing at his two closest friends and cousin, he was happy to see Ashley, something that didn’t happen too often over the past few years as they continually drifted apart.

Connor and Ashley had become friends at a very young age, just like him and Chloe, since their mothers had been friends back in their high school days, which also was the reason behind the unbreakable bond between Taylor and Hannah. Still, Ashley had her other group of friends that she was closer to, Heather and Victoria, and that eventually caused her and Connor and Chloe to drift away from each other as they got older and their interests began differing. Ashley still found time to hang out with her dear friends every once in a while, but it was rare, especially after she began dating Brandon, something that Hannah was always giving her a hard time for.

“Aww, you don’t need to sound so gloomy,” Ashley told him, giving him a nudge of encouragement. “You’re in an amusement park, mister!”

“That’s what I keep telling them,” Paris piped in. Madison wanted to reach out and talk to him, but she knew Brandon would flip, so she kept quiet, if only to protect the boy she had a small crush on.

“Ash’s right, Connor,” Heather’s lips twisted into the smirk all guys in the school were crazy for. She held some sympathy for Ashley’s friends and always wanted to ask her if she didn’t want to unite the groups, so to speak, but she figured it was a decision that Ashley needed to make. “Plenty of ways you can have fun in a night like this,” she waved her hand in the crowd’s direction, causing Madison to throw her an annoyed look and Connor and Leon to splutter in shock. The former had been really good friends with her cousin several years ago before he moved out of town, but he and Heather had never been close.

“Can we move on?” Brandon was getting impatient and lightly tugged on Ashley’s hand. “Remember I was gonna win you a bear?”

“Oh, yeah, I forgot,” Ashley replied, sheepishly.

Connor and Brandon’s gazes met at that moment and a flurry of memories was exchanged by the two boys in a matter of just a few seconds. Once inseparable friends due to their mothers having a previous friendship, it came as a surprise to everyone around them when Brandon started becoming a bit distant when they were five, before finally getting interested in sports when he was ten, and casting away his old friend in favor of another group that he played football with, dragging Madison along as well. However, it was when high school came along and Brandon got on the football team that the biggest shocker soured their connection for once and for all. Brandon started acting like a jerk, almost a bully, toward people he saw as beneath the group of popular kids in school; even if he had never said an insulting word to Connor himself, the blue-eyed boy had witnessed him tormenting other boys alongside his so-called friends, something that Connor couldn’t forgive him for.

He silently dared Brandon to make a snide remark now, but Connor knew he would never do that in front of Ashley, Heather, or Victoria, he wasn’t crazy to do anything that could cause him to lose the beautiful blonde as a girlfriend. Brandon let an almost imperceptible sigh as he broke the staring contest, letting the past slip away from his mind, a past where the two of them and another long-gone boy would be a dynamic trio that used to give the three sets of parents a few headaches.

“Eeeewww!” A new female voice groaned in disgust and interrupted every thought that could be crossing anyone’s mind at that moment. “Look at who you’re hanging out with, Heather, people will talk, you know?”

“Sharon!” Heather called out reproachfully as she turned to the side and saw the slender redhead walking toward her, jade-green eyes sparkling with malice, the new arrival causing Madison to seethe in anger.

Sharon Miller was one of the meanest girls at school, but everyone gave her a pass because she was friends with Heather, which didn’t reflect well on the brunette, but she wasn’t about to put an end to an old friendship, even if she had been questioning it pretty often over the past few years; Sharon had become too mean and competitive, she even wanted to fight Heather for the cheerleading captain position once senior year began. That was completely unacceptable, Heather thought, even if she was sure that she could beat her frenemy with a blindfold over her eyes.

“What?” Sharon fired back, playing dumb about why Heather had chided her. “You bring our reputation down and I’m the one being reprimanded?”

Ashley pouted at the blatant mistreatment of her old friends, she hated how mean and evil Sharon had gotten after Heather’s cousin moved away. “Alright, let’s get out of here,” she said. “C’mon, Bran.”

“Finally!” The quarterback said, quite relieved to be leaving that spot as his old friends just watched everything unfold, not being much troubled by the insults. “Let’s go, Maddie.”

However, Madison just leaned into her brother’s ear and whispered rather heatedly. “I’m not going anywhere with that bitch! If you want me to tag along, we’re splitting up from them!”

Brandon sighed, he didn’t want to have his sister acting as a third wheel if he needed to go anywhere with just Ashley, but he was well-aware of her dislike for Sharon, which he considered a time-bomb waiting to explode, and he wasn’t about to let that happen if he could help it. “Fine, you can come with me and Ash. Maybe if I win you a bear too, you’ll cool down your jets.”

“Don’t you dare, Brandon John Cole!” The tall brunette could be heard screaming as they left.

“Heather!” Ashley turned around to call out to her friend. “We’ll talk about that idea later!” The blue-eyed brunette, though, never heard her as she was too busy trading creative verbal jabs with Sharon.

“We should go too, while they’re not looking at us,” Connor whispered to Chloe and Leon.

“Yeah,” Leon nodded in agreement. “She’s hot as fuck, but I’m not too keen on being called names by Sharon Miller again tonight.”

Chloe made a signal for Paris to follow them and the quartet left as well, leaving Victoria and Andrew exasperated as they tried to make Heather and Sharon stop arguing, which proved fruitless due to the noise of the crowd and the two young women’ stubbornness.

Later, at Ravers Manor, the mansion where the Ravers family lived in the nicest neighborhood in Azure Rocks, Andrew was lying on Heather’s bed in her spacious bedroom, waiting for her to come out of the ensuite bathroom. Today was the day he would come clean, he decided, for far too long he tried to push those feelings out of his mind after they became frequent hook-up partners, but there was no denying it anymore, he wanted Heather Ravers as more than an old friend he occasionally fucked. Andrew knew it wasn’t fair to spring this up on her just before her senior year started and he went to college on the other side of the country, but he figured that, if anyone could make a long-distance relationship work, that was the two of them.

The sound of the door opening caught his attention and any thought that was in his mind evaporated at the sight of Heather strolling out of the bathroom. The dark-haired vixen smirked as she slowly walked toward the bed wearing a silky, dark-blue nightgown that reached the top of her thighs and was tied in a bow at her front, highlighting all the slender curves of her pale, smooth form.

“You like it?” She drawled, her voice dripping with arousal for her old friend-with-benefits.

“A lot,” Andrew croaked out, his eyes scanning her up and down. “Although if you already look this hot, I’m eager to see what you’re wearing underneath it,” he said before raising a teasing eyebrow. “Or is it nothing, huh?”

“You’ll find out,” she giggled while climbing on the bed. “Eventually,” she straddled him and leaned in for a passionate kiss as her fingers tangled in his short hair. Their tongues dueled in her mouth, his hands busy palming her ass as she rocked her crotch against his bulge between their bodies. He pulled away from her mouth and began peppering kisses down the column of her neck, drawing a moan from the blue-eyed girl.

“You are so sexy,” Andrew said, voice coming out muffled as Heather increased her pace on his bulge, the minx seemingly intent on making him cum in his pants. He stopped nibbling on her neck as a grin broke out on his face when he stared into her mischievous electric-blue eyes. It was time, he wouldn't be able to wait anymore. "Hey, can we talk a bit first?" He asked her, surprising the brunette, but she nodded affirmatively.

"Sure, what's up?"

Andrew got up from her bed and paced around the room for a few seconds before he settled on a couch near the bed. "So, I wanna say something. We do have fun together, right? We understand each other?" He inquired, and she nodded again, sitting beside him as she wondered why he was bringing that up. "Heather, I think I've always felt something for you, but over the past few times we've been together, I can't seem to stop thinking about you until we meet again, and I know you feel something too," he told her. "Hell, I couldn't even fuck any girl in the past month, that's how bad it is!"

Despite her growing suspicions about his current mindset, Heather was still shocked by his admission, she had never thought Andrew, of all people, would make a scene before her. The worst thing was that he was right, she did have some feelings for him, but she didn't want to. Right now, she didn't want anything getting in the way of finishing high school and graduating from a business college, and she figured a serious boyfriend was one of the worst distractions she could find. I'm doing really fine with my hook-ups, how dare you, Andrew?! Recomposing herself after his confession, she stared at him with a steely gaze. "So?"

Andrew's eyes widened, horrified by her casual attitude. "What do you mean, 'so'?" He exclaimed. "I pour my heart out to you and all you can do is stay there asking me 'so'? I know you feel the same way, dammit!"

The brunette cheerleader took a deep breath, her expression unwavering. "All I know is that you ruined our night to talk about silly stuff."

Andrew actually chuckled in astonishment. "So, that's all my feelings mean to you after all this time, huh? Silly stuff? Wow!" He demanded, standing up. "I didn't know you were a cold-hearted bitch, Heather."

Her lips slightly trembled, but she didn't concede. "Well, now you know."

The 20-year-old sighed. "Fine, have it your way, but see Heather, I think you're lying. You're lying to me and to yourself," he said, walking over to the door. He stopped with his hand on the doorknob. "A little piece of advice. I don't know if I can take waiting forever for you to figure out your life, but next time love knocks on your door, don't shut it in their face. You never know when it’s gonna be the last time."

That said, Andrew left the room, and Heather broke down crying the second the door closed. She threw herself over her large, spacious bed and started hitting the soft mattress. Damn you, Andrew! I hate you for ruining us! I hate you for being fucking right about everything!

Once she had cried over it enough, Heather went back to the bathroom and cleaned herself of the ruined make-up before returning to the bedroom. She doubted it would be possible to fall asleep soon after the emotional rollercoaster she just went through, so she decided to go downstairs and get a glass of water. Stepping out onto the third-floor corridor, the first thing she noticed was the eerie silence in the darkness that enveloped that Manor at that time, it had always been like this ever since she was five. Andrew probably had gone back downstairs to one of the guest rooms, and her aunt Sophia was most likely sleeping already, but there was a faint light coming out of her father’s study, causing her to smile for a second as she decided to go talk to him.

Heather found him leaning against the desk, a glass of scotch in hand as he looked up at the ceiling, a tired expression on his face. She lightly knocked on the door. “Hey, Dad.”

Robert Ravers looked up and smiled at the sight of his pumpkin, a welcoming respite from the busy night he had, having to be present for the opening of the amusement park as it was a Ravers Enterprises project in partnership with Smith Industries. “Evening, pumpkin,” the handsome 42-year-old man replied as he ran a hand through his short, dark-brown hair, and then his electric-blue eyes briefly took note of how little his daughter was wearing. “Andrew’s in for a nice surprise, it seems?”

Heather laughed at the joke, she and her father had a lot of freedom with each other to discuss their respective love affairs, one of the perks of living with him instead of her overbearing mother, she didn’t want to imagine how badly she would cope if she had left the Manor to live with her mother when they got divorced. The young woman loved her father and their frank relationship too much. “No, silly Daddy, he’s in his room downstairs,” she masked the truth a bit. “I just thought this would be comfortable to sleep in, that’s all. You like?” She didn’t know what possessed her to ask that, and then she also made a cute little twirl around herself, to show her father her entire outfit, which didn’t amount to much fabric covering her perfect body.

Robert guiltily allowed himself a brief second of admiring his daughter’s beauty, he was only human, after all, and Heather had grown into one of the most beautiful women he had ever laid eyes on. Sometimes he wondered if having such a gorgeous daughter was bad karma, a way that the high energies and entities that govern the universe found to punish him for all the hearts he broke during the course of his life. “Astounding, Heather,” he said, his cock unwittingly stirring at the sight before he looked up the ceiling again and regained his self-control. “So, pumpkin, how did you like the park?”

“It was okay, I can see my friends and I going there sometimes as a group, it was definitely a good project for the company,” she casually responded. Another one of the perks of living with her father was that he had been grooming her to take his place as CEO of Ravers Enterprises once she graduated college and had a few years of experience; being his successor was her dream as far as her future professional career was concerned. “No Leah tonight?”

Robert shook his head negatively, Leah Green was his 27-year-old personal secretary that also recently had become his girlfriend. “She had to visit her parents, her father injured his back or something,” he explained, the absence of his girlfriend being the factor that he decided was the likely culprit for the longer than usual looks he gave his daughter moments ago.

“Oh, poor Daddy,” Heather said in a teasing, provocative tone that no father should ever hear coming from a daughter’s mouth. “Alright, before I go, Dad, I’ve just remembered I needed to ask you something.”

“Shoot, anything you want, pumpkin,” Robert said, getting a bit dizzy by the drink, and as much as he didn’t want to admit, his daughter’s sexiness.

Heather smiled, she loved how he always gave her things she wanted, except when he thought it would be bad for her, he was a great father. “So, Ashley had this idea today, can we use the cabin for a few days, maybe towards the end of summer? It’d be so cool to spend my last high school summer with my friends there.”

“Hmm,” Robert mulled over the idea, he didn’t see a problem with them using the family cabin, but allowing a group of teenagers to stay by themselves at a cabin in another town one hour away, without any kind of supervision, didn’t exactly sit right by him, even if he trusted Heather to not let things get crazy, and he was willing to bet that the other parents would feel the same way. “Who’s going?”

“Well, we haven’t thought that far ahead yet,’ Heather responded. “But…, I imagine that it’d be me, Ashley, Victoria, Sharon, Madison, maybe Amber, Tanya, and Paris, perhaps Brandon will come if Ash’s still dating him by then,” she tapped her index finger on her chin, a thoughtful look coming across her face. The other arm crossed in front of her chest briefly drew Robert’s attention to his daughter’s large breasts covered by the nightgown, no eighteen-year-old should have a chest like that. “Maybe I should let Brandon invite a friend, so he doesn’t feel alone in the middle of a bunch of giggling and gossiping girls.”

Robert laughed. “Somehow, I doubt he’d mind, pumpkin,” he said. “But that confirms my fears, your mother would kill me if she heard I let a bunch of teenage girls stay at the cabin for a few days without anyone to look out for them, and I’d agree wholeheartedly with her.”

“But, Dad!” She whined cutely as the teenager she was. “I can take care of things, you know that!”

“I know, just hear me out,” Robert said, an idea forming in his sharp mind. “I want to give you your privacy, but I’m gonna be renting the Zurbruggs’ cabin for me and a few of the other parents that might want to come and make sure you girls are safe. I am in need of a vacation, anyway.”

Heather wanted to protest, but then she really thought about her father’s idea. While she would prefer to have total and complete privacy, she supposed that having the parents stay at another cabin wasn’t so bad, they could call upon them if anything bad happened, and it probably was the best she would be able to get from her father in this negotiation. “Alright, Dad, if it’s gonna make you feel better, then fine. I’ll be in touch with the girls, we’re planning it for the last week of summer, so, plenty of time to plan all this stuff, right?”

“Smart, Heather,” Robert smirked at his daughter. “Now, go get your water and hit the bed, don’t forget you’ve got brunch with your mother tomorrow.”

The young woman groaned in anguish, she hated spending time with her mother, all she did was grill her with questions about her life and annoy her with what she called ‘valid concerns’. “Dammit, don’t remind me!”

About two months later, everyone in the future senior class of Azure Rocks High School had already had their eighteenth birthdays, and there was roughly half a month left for the end of the break. That afternoon found two very attractive ladies chatting in the kitchen of the Woodsens’ house as they watched their respective children lounging in the pool.

“So, what do you think?” Sarah Woodsen inquired. A stunning, 40-year-old woman with long, slightly wavy blonde hair, blue eyes, and rather large breasts, she was Ashley and Hannah’s mother. “A trip to a cabin at Silver Lake on Robert Ravers’ money?”

The beautiful, 39-year-old brunette pondered the question. “You know what? I think it’s a great idea,” Monica Bishop answered with a smile. “I’m sure I can take a few days off from the clinic.” With long, dark-brown hair, icy-blue eyes, and a great, voluptuous body, the Ob/Gyn doctor attracted the attention of men wherever she went, just like her friend. Both women were wearing comfortable summer dresses, light-blue in Sarah’s case and red for Monica.

Monica and Sarah had been close friends ever since their middle school days, having been on the cheerleading squad once they reached high school and gone to the same college in the nearby town of Green Hills. That friendship translated to their kids as well, with Taylor and Hannah being attached at the hip ever since before they could walk, and to Connor and Ashley, even if their own friendship wasn’t as close as the one their older sisters shared nowadays.

“I might have to convince Greg, though,” Monica added with a grimace after a few moments.

Sarah’s expression twisted into a light frown. “You think he won’t make the time even for this?”

“I don’t think, I’m sure of it, Sar,” the brunette replied, a small smile forming on her perfect features. “If he wasn’t so sweet whenever he does make the time, well..., I don’t know how things would be at home.”

It was hard for Monica to be married to someone who spent more time at work than at her side, but being a doctor herself, she could understand why Gregory couldn’t just leave his neurosurgeon duties at the hospital for anyone to fill in, even for five days. The worst aspect of it all, though, was that they barely had time to fuck as it happened back when they got married; she had been a very sexual person during her high school years until she met Gregory, but their marriage had never lacked passion until he ascended to his current position at the Azure Rocks General Hospital.

“Well, that’s a shame, Damon seems to be pretty excited for it,” the blonde middle-school teacher said. “Uhn.., Mon, there’s something else I wanted to ask you,” Sarah fixed her gaze on her old friend. “Even if there’s no way to know how long Ashley’s relationship with Brandon Cole is going to last, Damon thought it’d be great if we invited the Coles to join us as well, and he already cleared it with Robert. We just need Vanessa and Waldon to give us an answer.”

“I see,” Monica nodded. “I know why you’re asking me this, but you can rest assured, Sarah, I don’t have anything against Vanessa Austen, on the contrary, we’re still great friends.”

Sarah smiled. “I just thought that, you know, the problem between Connor and Brandon could make things awkward somehow.”

Monica shook her head. “Yeah, it’s a shame they’re not friends anymore,” she said, catching sight of her son sitting on a chaise by the pool as Taylor, Hannah, and Ashley splashed around in the water. “But Vanessa and I are good, we’ve never stopped being friends. If they say yes, I don’t have a problem with it.”

That sent Monica on a trip down memory lane, aside from her friends in the cheerleading squad, she had been very good friends with Vanessa Austen and Daniel Ravers, who was Robert’s younger brother, when they were kids; she and Daniel had even dated for almost a year while Robert dated her older sister, Mallory, but that was before she met Gregory in her senior year and Daniel met Audrey in college. Their children had been great friends, but then Daniel and his family moved to a big city on the other side of the country thirteen years ago to run the branch of Ravers Enterprises in there, and ever since then, Connor and Brandon’s friendship hadn’t been the same without their third friend, and as a result, Madison also drifted away.

“You sure it’ll be okay, Mon?” Sarah insisted in the question, she didn’t seem so certain about her friend’s real thoughts on the matter of Vanessa Austen and Waldon Cole joining them.

Monica laughed. “Yes! I told you already, don’t worry about me and Van,” she said, glancing at her son outside one more time. Hmm, this might be the perfect chance for Connor and Brandon to make peace.

Out in the backyard of the Woodsen home, Connor dragged his gaze away from Hannah’s perfect body frolicking in the pool when Ashley climbed out of it, her petite, slim form also managing to capture his attention in the powder-blue bikini she was wearing, the top somehow making her medium-sized breasts even perkier. He averted his eyes before she could notice he was looking, the royal-blue color of the pool tiles looking very interesting right now, especially due to how it matched Hannah’s skimpy bikini.

Ashley picked up a towel in the nearby chaise and dried her face a bit before looking at her old male friend. “Hey, sure you don’t wanna get in?”

Connor nodded with an embarrassed smile. “Maybe later I’ll jump in a little. You know how I am with pool, I’m only good at the table variation,” he attempted a joke and she snickered at it, recalling the time Hannah tried to teach the two of them to play pool in a pub downtown a few years ago.

An uncomfortable silence that Ashley hated began growing between them, if only she hadn’t drifted away from him because her other friends were more interesting and she was too young to understand it in her mind, then they could have enjoyed the same kind of friendship that Taylor and Hannah had, or even like he and Chloe shared, perhaps she would have been the one to be his best friend by now. Likewise, Connor lamented the fact that he didn’t fight for her friendship when they began to grow distant; after that night in the park, he caught himself thinking about how he was terrible at chatting with Victoria Walker, and had his and Ashley’s friendship stayed a thing, he could have asked her for tips about her best friend by now.

I need to make this right, it’s why I asked Hannah to tell Taylor to bring him with her, Ashley decided before she turned to him again. “Hey, Connor, I wanna ask you something, but hear me out before you say no, okay?”

He raised a curious eyebrow at the mysterious wording on her question. “What?”

She shook her head negatively. “No, first you gotta promise me you won’t say no right away.”

Connor let out a sigh. “Ash, I can’t promise it if I don’t know what it is,” he said. “You’re only making me think it’s something I won’t like.”

“Alright, look,” the blonde made a pause to make sure she had his full attention. “Next week, Heather’s gonna take us to her cabin at Silver Lake to spend a few days, five, to be more specific. She obviously invited Hannah and me, but she said we could bring a few people ourselves too if they’re nice,” she explained. “Hannah surely asked Taylor and Peter, and since Heather was already planning on inviting Paris, I guess I wanted to ask if you, Chloe, and Leon wanted to come too.”

Connor’s first instinct was to vehemently refuse the invitation, to spend five days in close quarters with a bunch of beautiful, sexy girls he would be too anxious to make a move on while watching the popular guys they no doubt invited bagging every single one of those girls sounded too much like torture for him. Then he began mulling the idea over in his mind, it could end up being a lot of fun if he could get over the negative points, but the risk of the first scenario that popped up in his head materializing itself in the end was still greater.

“So, what do you think?” Ashley brought him out of his musings in a hopeful tone, an inquisitive look on her face.

“Well…,” he trailed, not really knowing what to tell her. If he could be honest with himself, there was a fifty-fifty chance of him either going along with it or declining the invitation. “I’ll think about it, I can ask Chloe and Leon and we’ll see.”

“Great! It’ll be so cool if you come!” She beamed at him, biting her bottom lip next as she remembered that there was another factor at play in all this. Now I just need to ask Bran if he’s okay with it. Seriously, those two gotta get over it!

“Which guys are going, anyway?” He asked, almost as an afterthought.

“As of now, only Brandon, and possibly you and Leon,” Ashley responded. “Bran asked Trent Thornton from the football team, but he hasn’t given us an answer yet.”

Connor stiffly nodded at the mention of Brandon, but he didn’t have any time to dwell on it because Hannah chose that moment to climb out of the pool and grace his eyes with a view of her incredible, voluptuous body, dripping water the entire way as she walked over to them. This time, he wasn’t able to pretend he wasn’t looking as his gaze followed a droplet of water disappearing in the middle of the older girl’s deep cleavage, her tits bouncing as she plopped down beside him and chuckled, both at his face and the annoyed look Ashley threw her.

“So, did he say yes?” She asked her little sister.

“He’s not sure yet,” Ashley replied, smiling at him. “I think it’ll hang on whether Chloe and Leon will join or not.”

“Aww, Connor, you gotta join us, buddy!” Hannah nudged his arm, her breasts wobbling mesmerizingly as he found his words failing at the heavenly sight. “Think about how fun it’ll be! Your sister already said yes.”

“Cut it out, Han, dammit!” Taylor chided her best friend, making her pout and put some distance between her and the younger guy. The older Bishop sibling sat on the foot of the chaise, her tall, slender body clad in a white one-piece with holes on both sides. “You’re coming with, Con, and that’s final.”

Connor frowned at his sister’s tone and then realized he was surrounded by the three girls in his chaise, causing him to let out a sigh. “Dammit, is this some kind of intervention?” He demanded, getting a hearty laugh from the three of them as a reward.

Note 2: This story re-uses a title I gave an old story that's no longer up. If you're new to my stories, please make yourself at home. For the readers who were following my other story, as I said in a note almost two weeks ago, my time is limited now both to write and plan a story, and that becomes even worse with a story that has the scope of my previous one, it would take years I don't have to finish it, I'm deeply sorry. However, there are a few scenes and things I still feel the need to do in a story with my characters (besides having a completed story) before I hang up my keyboard, so, my solution was to create this new story, where I can get to those scenes quicker and plan faster to finish it in about 50 chapters, give or take, since I won't have much time to write and updates will likely be slower. I want this story to take what I think that worked in At the Cabin and The Azure Lion/Azure Rocks and create a scenario that I hope everyone that was ever a fan of my characters can enjoy. This story will remain Private for the time being, and both At the Cabin and The Azure Lion will remain open for contributing writers. I hope you guys can join me one last time for this final trip around Azure Rocks and Silver Lake.