It was mid afternoon by Bria's guess when she woke up and everyone was gone. The remote was on the floor where Zac had been, and there was glass of water next to it. She smiled at how thoughtful they were. Picking up the glass and setting it on the table by her head, she pushed the blanket off that they had put on her, and made her way to the bathroom. She was glad they wern't there when she looked into the mirror. Eyeliner smudged and her hair rumpled in an unsexy way. Almost like a rats next. She reached for a brush as she fixed her eyeliner. She wondered where they had gone. There wasn't any music, and she didn't hear any voices. When she was finished in the bathroom, she made her way around the house, then looked outside. There they were. Taylor was on the phone, and Zac and Isaac were standing next to him. It reminded her of the scene from the 'Strong Enough To Break' documentary, where they were talking to the rep with the record company talking about their songs being rejected. Feeling sad and hoping that's what they wern't talking about, she went to the kitchen and started digging through the cupboards. She wanted to make them something special. Like cookies or brownies and suprise them when they came back in. She wondered how long they'd been outside. She found a cookbook, and enough ingredients to make peanut butter cookies. Before she started, she found her beat up hoodie and took the iPod out of the pocket. With the battery almost dead, she turned it on and began to make cookies.

An hour and a half later, she had two batches done and one in the oven when they came in.
"Everything going okay?" She asked them as they smelled the air coming in.
"Yeah." Taylor said at the same time Zac said, "I smell peanut butter!" Bria laughed as the timer went off. She pulled the last batch out of the oven and set them on one of the cooling racks.
"Oh my god, homemade peanut butter cookies." Isaac said, practically drooling.
"Isaac will now worship you." Zac said, picking a cooled cookie. "He loves these things, and we never get to have them fresh."
"Oh these are so good." He told them, taking another cookie. "Thank you so much."
"I wanted to do something nice for you guys. This was the least I could do." She set out three glasses, then went to the fridge and took the milk out and poured them each glasses. As Isaac took his, he bowed to her.
"These are awesome. Thank you." Zac said. He looked around, and when he was sure no one was looking, he kissed her gently on her cheek.
"You're welcome." She couldn't help but grin.
"Hey. Let's put these on the table and play Texas Hold 'em. You know how to play Bria?" Taylor asked.
"Yeah, I know that game, but I'm not very good. At least, some of the time." She grinned in a challenge.
"Oh really." He smiled, narrowing his eyes.
"Really."
"Guys, we have a poker match to play!" Taylor called to his brothers, sitting down at the table with Bria.
"Awesome." Isaac said, sitting down and taking another cookie.
"I'm game." Zac said, sitting next to Bria. Taylor was on her other side, and Isaac was across from her.
"The looser has to go get Taco Bell for dinner," Taylor said, looking at everyone, "since it's Zac's night for dinner adn we know he was going to Taco Bell anyway." Bria laughed as Zac slapped Taylor on his arm.
"Alright, looser has to go to Taco Bell." Bria said.

Two hours later, Zac and Isaac were out, and Bria had Taylor in a chokehold. Her pile was way bigger than his. Zac was the dealer, and Isaac made random hilarious comments as a game commentator. He was so good at it, he had Bria laughing so hard she could hardly concentrate. Was that plot to make her loose? When Bria got a pair of aces, and then a full house with all the community cards, she put Taylor all in.
"Bria, you're lucky I don't back down from a dare and I like going to Taco Bell." He smiled as Bria laughed again. Now her stomach hurt along with the rest of her.
"I'm sorry Taylor." She said smiling.
"No you're not. Alright, what do you have? I've got a full house, jacks high. See if you can beat that."
"I'm sorry Taylor." She repeated, laying her cards down.
"Ouch." He said.
"You just took it up the ass Tay. She got you."
"I can feel that, thanks for pointing it out, Zac." Bria just laughed. "Okay. So what does everyone want from TB?" He pulled out his phone and wrote all the items down. "I'll be back in a minute. I'm taking your car Ike." He snatched the keys before Isaac could protest and ran out the door into the darkness.
"That was a great game Bria. Nobody's beat Tay before." Isaac said.
"Really? Cool." Bria got up and put the cookies on the counter then covered them for the night. She returned to her chair and sat. "You guys play alot?"
"On the road we did, until Tay started kicking our asses every time. We don't really play just by ourselves any more." Zac told her. Nodding, Bria started shuffeling the cards while Zac built towers with the chips. Isaac took one and slid it across the table at Zac's tower, trying to push the bottom chip out from under the stack.
"Ike! Quit!" Zac sent the chip flying back at Isaac. Catching it, it became a game of table air hockey. Bria sat and laughed as they insulted eachother and shucked the chip at eachother as hard as they could. This lasted about ten minutes, until the chip fell onto the floor more times than anyone wanted to pick it up again.
"We could play slapjack until Taylor gets back." Bria suggested. "But you can't slap really hard." Bria smiled when Isaac and Zac smiled too.
"Alright." They agreed. Bria shuffled the deck once more, then set the deck in the middle of the table. "Wilds count too." The boys nodded. She flipped the top card over with her left hand, her right hand ready.
They were almost done with the deck by the time Taylor came back. He returned the keys and set the bags on the table on top of the cards.
"Hey!" Zac said. "I was winning!" Bria giggled.
"Or you could not eat," Taylor said, sitting down.
"Still grouchy from the poker beat down?" Zac harrassed.
"No, the guy at the window at TB was an douche and fucked up the order twice. It took me forever. And I think he forgot to put any hot sauce in the bag. Next time, I nominate Bria to go. I bet they won't fuck up her order." he smiled sweetly at her. Next time? Bria asked herself? Well, so much for the leaving talk. Guess it'll have to wait a bit. Taylor passed out the food and the sodas. Or maybe now was the time.
"Yeah, about that," Bria started, "I was thinking that I should get out of your hair soon. I mean, I'm feeling a lot better thanks to you guys, and I know you're busy, and I feel like you've been taking a vacation from your lives to help me out-"
"You don't have to go so soon," Zac inturrupted.
"And I thank you for your hospitality. Besides. I'm getting eager to get to LA." They could only nod to that. They knew what that was like.
"Have you given singing any more thought?" Taylor asked hopefully, taking a bite of his burrito.
"As awesome as it would be to sing with you guys, for you guys, I was born to act. Just like you guys were born to sing. I definitely won't turn down a song or two with you guys, but acting's my thing."
"So when were you thinking about going?" Isaac asked. She looked at each of them. Taylor looking at her with sadness in his eyes, Zac with a mix of lust, hope and sadness, and finally Isaac. He didn't really look affected at all. She found it easiest to keep her attention on him.
"Well, that's the hard part. I love being here with you guys, you're all awesome, but, LA calls, so I'd like to leave sometime tomorrow." There was a long silence, followed by a "plop". Bria looked towards the sound, and saw Zac's taco had emptied itself onto the paper wrapper below as he staired open mouthed at her. She couldn't help but laugh. Isaac began laughing too.
"Your taco just took a shit." Isaac laughed, pointing.
"Son of a," Zac started, as he began picking it up and putting it back into the taco. Thank god for comic relief.
"I understand you wanting to go," Isaac said. "I think I can kind of compare it to us going to South By Southwest." Bria was careful. She didn't want to give any hint that she knew what that was like for them. "That's a big step in the music field." She said, trying to be really vague.
"We were just like you once. Fame hungry. Remember Zac?" Isaac looked at Zac, who was nibbeling on the same taco, sitting silent. He only nodded.
"Well, what can we do to help?" Taylor asked, sighing, looking at his uneaten food.
"Well, at the moment, maybe just a ride to the nearest freeway truck stop." Taylor's head snapped up.
"You're going to hitch rides?" He asked, shocked.
"That was my original plan." That's how I got here, she thought.
"Ike. Couldn't we at least loan her the money for a bus ticket?" Taylor looked to his older brother.
"Of course. You don't need to thumb your way to LA. Then you can put in a good word for us for soundtracks when you make it big." He smiled at her.
Returning the smile and eyes filling with tears, she said in a watery voice, "Thank you guys so much. I'll pay you back ten fold if I make it, I swear. You guys are great." Noticing that Isaac was finished and Zac and Taylor had basically pushed their food away, she said, "Well, we have a game of slapjack to restart." She smiled, hoping that would lift spirits again.

Chapter Nine