I woke the next morning to find that the boys were all gone. Dwayne wasn't sitting in his bed, Marko and Paul weren't jamming to Guns N' Roses, and David... he wasn't sitting in his chair, surveying everything, trying to make conversation with me. I was completely and utterly alone.

"Great.. that's great. The dork left me here. They all left me here by myself. That's beautiful, that- that's nice." I got out of bed and made my way out. I wasn't going to sit there alone and wait for them to show up who knows when. Besides, I had to get home.

The sunlight shone directly on my face as I walked out. I raised a hand to shield my eyes and glanced around. The motorcycles were in their rightful places, but their riders were nowhere to be found. There was no way I was going to take one of their motorcycles, so I decided to walk back.

For a moment, I thought Paul might worry when he saw I wasn't there, but I dismissed the thought. I told him I was going home. He'd know where to find me.

As I was making my way home, I found myself walking by the comic shop. I thought I'd drop by for just a few minutes, see what the boys were up to.

"Alan! Eddie!" I called.

Alan poked his head out from the back room. "You rang?"

I smiled. "Just thought I'd check in on you and your idiot brother." I said, leaning against the counter.

"Idiot brother, huh?" a voice said behind me.

I jumped and quickly turned to see Edgar standing behind me. "You've really gotta stop doing that! Scared me half to death.. idiot." I laughed and picked up a comic book.

"How's business been?" I asked, leafing through the comic. I had picked up a horror comic. It was all about werewolves and how this kid accidentally killed one.

Edgar shrugged and plucked the comic from my hands. "Been alright, I guess." he muttered, putting the comic back where it belonged.

The bell above the door gave a little ringing sound and we all turned to see who had entered. It was Sam.

Sam ran up to the counter. "Jas! Man, do I have questions for you! But, before that, Mike and I covered for ya, last night. Mom was askin' where you were, so we told her you worked a long shift down here for Edgar and Alan. So, if Mom asks you anything about it, you play along, alright?"

He was talking pretty fast so it took me a minute to process everything. As soon as I had gotten everything figured out, I nodded. "Got it. Long shift, comic shop, alright."

Sam and I said goodbye to the Frog boys and started our walk home. Sam started firing questions at me, one after the other.

"So, what'd you guys do? How come you never told us you were leaving? Did anything happen? Where'd you go? That old hotel? Was Paul there?" Sam just couldn't stop asking questions.

I giggled. "Slow down. One at a time, kiddo. But, uh, yeah, Paul was there. I sure missed him.. We went to the hotel place, we didn't do much of anything, but hang out. And nothing happened. I'm perfectly fine." I flashed him a smile and wrapped my arm around his shoulder, giving him a kiss on the head.

More questions came and, in turn, I gave him more answers.

Sam pushed the door open and kicked off his shoes. "Mom, we're home!"

I followed him in and sat on the couch with him.

"Who's 'we', Sam?" Mrs. Emerson asked as she walked into the living room. She was drying her hands off with a towel when she looked at Sam and I.

I smiled and gave a little wave. "Morning, Mom, s- oh, God.. oh, I'm sorry, I called you Mom. Mrs. Emerson, I mean."

Mrs. Emerson giggled and shook her head. "No, it's ok, really. I'd quite like it if you called me Mom." she said with a warm smile.

That took me by surprise. I thought she might just say that it was alright and not to worry or that I could call her Lucy, but she wanted me to call her Mom. It made me pretty happy.

I nodded and smiled. "Ok.. but sorry about the long shift. Eddie and Alan just needed a bit of extra help."

"Oh, don't worry yourself about it, it's alright. The boys told me all about it." Mrs. Emerson, well, Mom, said sweetly.

Sam and I spent the next few hours playing video games and watching TV. 21 Jumpstreet came on a few times. No new episodes, just reruns. We talked about the characters and what kind of situation they'd find themselves in next.

"No, Jas, I'm telling ya, Tom and Doug are probably gonna team up again!"

I shook my head in disagreement. "No way, they've teamed up for the last five episodes. Doug might help out a little on the side, but I think he'll work with Ioki on this one."

I started to wonder where Mike was and what he was up to, but Sam said he was just asleep in his room. Man, he seemed to sleep a whole lot. Like a sloth or something.

"Hey, Sammy, how about we go back to the boardwalk? We could hang out with the Frog boys for a while." I suggested.

Sam shrugged and agreed. I kind of hoped I'd see Paul there again and we could go listen to music or play some of the games or something. But what if he dragged me back to his little hangout again?

Well, I'd worry about that bridge when I crossed it.