Always There

Study Dates

The school day ended and Melody and Neal met Sam and Bill at Melody's bus stop, they all stood in a group making small talk waiting for the bus and Kayla to come.

"Hey guys." Kayla greeted as she approached the group of four.

"Hey, what's up Kayla" Neal greeted her with a smile, Sam smiled politely and Bill just stared nervously at her.

"Sorry I'm late, Mrs. Forbes kept me in Orchestra late practicing my cello solo."

"It's all good. You're here before the bus got here. No worries." Melody assured her.

"You have a cello solo?" Sam asked her.

"Oh, yeah, we have a concert coming up and there's this Breval piece with a huge cello section." Kayla explained.

"Y-you must be really good." Bill told her.

Kayla smiled at him. "I- I don't know. Mrs. Forbes thinks so." She laughed.

The bus arrived and they all piled on and talked while they waited for it to drive to Melody's house. When they arrived Melody opened the front door and yelled in to her parents.

"I'm home, and I brought friends! We're going to be at the kitchen table studying!" She shouted. They all followed in behind her and sat around the table. Melody and Neal sat on one side of the table, Sam and Bill on the other and Kayla sat at the head of the table.

"Okay, where do we want to start?" Melody asked as she put her school books on the table.

"We've got that history test on Thursday. We could study for that." Kayla pointed out.

"Good idea." Bill agreed happily.

They spent the next hour studying for their american history test. Then moved on to their biology homework. While doing homework they also just talked about regular stuff and hung out. At first it was kind of awkward because the boys weren't used to Kayla yet, but after a while she fit right in. Bill was quiet at first, then he talked almost too much trying to make himself look cooler, but he settled down and once he got comfortable around Kayla everything else got comfortable.

"Hey kids, how's it going in here?" Melody's mom came into the dinning room to check on them, carrying a bowl of chips.

"Good. Just moved on to biology." Melody told her mother.

"Oh, that's nice. A very important subject." She told them sweetly in a classic, over protective motherly tone. "So, you must be these new friends I've heard so little about." She said little, giving Melody a look of disapproval. The boys all smiled up at her. "Which of you is this Neal that's been taking up so much of my girl's time?" She asked smiling sweetly at them all.

"I am, it's nice to meet you Mrs. Andopolis." Neal greeted her formally with a smile. Trying to make a good impression.

"Oh, that's right, I remember you. You're the one with the puppet." She said trying to still sound sweet but obviously remembering the puppet as strange.

Neal resisted his urge to correct her from puppet to figure. "Morty, that's right!" He said happily smiling up at her.

"And you are?" She said looking at Sam.

"Sam." He said politely.

"Which would make you Bill, am I right?" She said looking over at Bill.

"That's me." He smiled awkwardly at her.

"Bill is such a great name. What's it short for? William?" She asked.

"Oh, uh, yeah." He replied. No one ever called him William, so it was weird to hear.