As the car pulled up to Grace's Grandma's house Joey didn't think he had ever been so glad to see that place in the about fourteen years he had known his best friend. They parked in the driveway and walked towards the door. When they got there they heard a dog barking inside.
"You know, no matter how many times I come here ole Basta will never get used to me!" Joey mused, a smile in his dark eyes. Just then the door opened revealing a blond haired girl who looked about Grace's age.They all thanked her for opening the door and walked in careful to push Basta along so that she wouldn't get out. As they did the girl crossed over through the family room to the piano, usually JC's first stop, where a dark haired girl was seated. This girl looked to be about Joey or JC's age. They all gave the girls a quick hello and proceeded toward the kitchen. When they got there Grace and Allison's grandmother was in there.
"Hey Grandma!" Joey started grinning although, afther about twelve or so years of coming here, of calling her 'Grandma', he still felt awkward addressing her as such. "Did you miss us?" he laughed.
"Joey! Boys the girls were expecting you. Joey, why did you dye your hair again? I thought you said you were going to grow it out this time." Grandma asked cracking, all but Joey, up. "The girls are downstairs if you want to go down there. If not, just one of you call them up, dinner is going to be ready soon. Now what do you all want to drink? anything?" she asked switching into Italian grandmother mode.
"No thanks Grandma, maybe later" Lance said politely as he made his way towards the stairs. Leaning on the rail he yelled down to the girls, "Hey Allison! Grace! Five, or at least four, strange men just walked in lookin' for y'all!" he called with a half-smile. Then they all listened to hear them say something like 'Hey wait a minute! That was Lance!' and they laughed as they heard the thundering steps as a twenty-year-old and a seventeen-year-old ran up the stairs and,like a five-year-old girl who hasn't seen her daddy in nearly a week, each towards their respective best friend tackling him with a hug. After that they did the same to each other member of the group.
"Hey, guys! How ya been? We've missed you!" Grace exclaimed excited to see her friends again after quite some time (and apparently in rare form).
"As we can all clearly see" JC laughed as he mockingly brushed himself off.
"Yeah, did y'all plan that?" Justin asked sort of glancing down acusingly at the two women who were both considerably shorter than him.
"Oh yeah about that," Allison started with a sheepish grin crossing her features, "we were just glad to see you!" That remark was met with Chris's retort of "well we're glad to se you too! but if we had planned the attack we were just hit with we would have two smashed girls and a WHOLE lot of trouble for all of us. Of course I guess we should all be thankful..." Chris cut of for suspense.
"Okay Chris and why is it we should all be thankful?" Lance asked almost sarcastically with a twinkle in his eyesand a smile gracing his face.
"We should all be thankful they don't weigh as much as Joey!" Chris finished and once again all but Joey laughed.
"Okay, guys, what is this? 'Bash-on-Joey' day at the Mickey Mouse Club?" Joey asked getting rather annoyed at his situation.
"You know..." JC started thoughtfully, "We never had one of those but i don't know that might've been pretty kewl!" JC laughed and Justin nodded his agreement.
"Awe shut up 'Wipeout'" Joey said quite sarcastically.
"Hey! Don't bring 'Wipeout' into this! I mean what did he ever do to you?" JC exclaimed starting to get annoyed.
"He was you wasn't he?" Joey said his voice getting louder.
"Okay y'all, drop it. No more fighting at least until we leave." Chris said stepping between the two.
"Okay." JC started hesitantly then turning to Allison and Grace he said "So...are y'all gonna introduce us to those two lovely ladies occupying my spot or will we be eating with strangers?"
"Oh yeah!" Grace half shouted as she dashed off toward the family room and all the guys followed.
"Dude! Slow up, man, I didn't mean we had to book it!" JC shouted toward the blur that was his friend Grace "Hey y'all? ya know I really thought that was Grace but...uhhh...has anyone ever seen her with that much energy?" JC asked his groupmates as they hit the family room.
"Hey! I heard that!" Grace exclaimed when they reached the piano giving JC a playful swat on the arm. "Okay here we go. This lovely young woman," Grace began putting an arm around the blonde girl's shoulders "Joey should remember her from about three or some odd years ago...drum roll please..." but Grace was cut off bye the blonde.
"Knock it off Grace." she said laughing at her friend's hyperness, "Okay because of that little monologue I'm going to introduce myself...how should I do it? MMC style?" so the girl stood up straight put her hands behind her back and smiling very big she said " Brandi! " and sat back down with a laugh.
"Hey that was pretty good! And you didn't make the cast?" JC laughed.
At the same time Joey exclaimed "Oh my gosh!!" he said giving her a hug, "I thought you looked familiar! Why didn't you say 'hey' or anything? Man, you've changed alot in just a couple years!" he exclaimed to one ear to the other.
"Well first to oh uhh I don't know your name" Brandi said looking at JC.
He did the same charade she did the and said "JC!"
"Well JC I didn't make the cast because I didn't try out I never had any real intrest in doing it. And to Joey; it was good to see you too but you see I figured that if you didn't recognize me on your own I didn't want to ruin Grace's surprise."
"Fine Brandi, whatever." Joey said as if his feelings were hurt. "But does that mean if this is Brandi then this other lovely girl who stole JC's spot is the other girl that I haven't seen in, like, forever and also the other girl who didn't say 'hi' to me; Susan!" Joey concluded proud of his deductive reasoning skills.
At that a smile crossed the, as of yet unheard from, girl's face She nodded and said "Well that's me" almost shyly which was out of character for this usually hyper girl.
Just then there was a quiet call from the kitchen but only Chris, who was standing back from the group and would make his introductions later...when the girls heads weren't spinning quite so rapidly, heard. "Hey guys? you know I hate to break up such a happy reunion but...it's time for dinner." Chris informed the eight younger men and women standing and talking before him and they all walked into the dining room.
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