The sound of the bell had been bliss to Tee's ears that afternoon. A full day of school work combined with Carmen's relentless complaining about her phone had landed Tee with not only a splitting headache but a three page history essay to complete as well. And that was why, after a brief phone call with Mike who'd agreed to pick her up an hour and a half later, Tee found herself sitting alone in the art room, a blank sketching pad in front of her.

Ever since she could remember, art had always been her escape. On one of Keith's bad days back when her and Johnny had been small children, Tee had used to crawl into the cramped space at the bottom of her mum's closet along with her crayons and any scrap pieces of paper she could find. Although those first works of art had been nothing but scribbles that she'd long since lost, they had allowed her to run away from reality and enter the sunny world of childish sketches where clouds had faces and everyone held hands.

Tee was glad to say that she'd since improved hugely from wonky unicorns with five legs however the sentiment still stood. Stressful day equalled releasing her paints.

Grabbing her nearest HB, Tee's hand hovered over the blank page as she pondered, uncertain of what the finished result may be. Reluctant to waste any more time, the pencil touched the page and she began to sketch. Unfortunately, she only managed five minutes of blissful peace before the door to the art room was pushed open.

"Mind if I sit in here?" Came a boy's voice, startling Tee from the trance she had entered.

Instinctively, Tee's hand fell down on her sketch pad and she leant forward, her light hair effectively hiding her drawing from view. Turning around, she then blushed crimson red.

In her eyes, Miles Reed really was gorgeous, much more so than Danny, whatever Carmen and half the girls in their school thought. He had this one lock of dark hair that always managed to fall over his right eye despite the fact that he was constantly brushing it back, and he had a dusting of freckles painted over his tanned skin. Personally, Tee believed that his eyes were his best feature; sparkling bright and blue with smile crinkles on the outside.

Currently, though, he wasn't smiling. In fact, he was looking at Tee expectantly, his mouth drawn into a thin line. Tee then took that moment to realise that she'd been staring at him for far too long. "Um, yeah of course," she said breathlessly, tripping over her words.

"Thanks," he smiled.

Tee practically melted in her seat. And then she melted further when he chose to sit at the same table as her instead of any of the other five. What was going on? Perhaps she'd fallen asleep in history and this was some wonderful dream.

As Miles was unpacking his art things – a badly organised folder shoved to the brim with paper and a pencil with a blunt nib - he accidentally glanced over at her work which, in Tee's melting stage, she'd stopped hiding. "Did you draw that?" He asked, brushing that lock of hair out of his eye to look closer.

Tee mumbled something incomprehensible that might have been a yes. For some stupid reason her mouth and brain had stopped cooperating.

"It's amazing," he said.

"It's a tree," Tee corrected. Her blush took a turn for the worst – she may now have passed for a radish. Why had she said that? Why on earth had she said that?

Apparently Miles was deaf to her awkward comments for he twisted his head to get a better look. "I wish I could draw like that," he said enviously. "Look," and he rummaged through his folder hastily, scattering what could've been a whole tree in paper on the floor. "This is the best I can do."

He held up an odd-looking squiggle that might have been a donkey... or a dog... or even a cat. "That's a nice, um, donkey," Tee managed, opting for her first guess.

"It's a bear."

"Oh."

Miles laughed and Tee could have sworn right then that it was the best sound she's ever heard. "No, don't worry. One of my mates thought it was a fish so it could have been worse."

Tucking a stray strand of hair behind her ear, Tee smiled, though it may have better resembled a grimace. She was still having some trouble getting her mouth to work. "So why did you take art?" She asked, then immediately thought that that might sound a little harsh on his drawing skill so she added, "if you don't like it, I mean."

Miles shrugged, leaning back on his chair with that cool grace that every popular, attractive boy seems to have. "Thought it was an easy GCSE. Turns out I was wrong. I've never had this much coursework in my life."

Tee found herself nodding along. "Yeah, I know, at least five hours a week. I don't think I get that much from any of my other subjects," she said, blatantly ignoring the awful history essay on Hitler's rise to power sitting calmly in her bag.

"Well I did hardly any work outside of art class for a year and now the due in date's next week, I'm basically screwed." He leant down to gather the paper he'd dropped earlier. "Still," he sat back upright to look at her. "Doesn't really matter if I get a D."

In the brief silence that followed while Tee desperately tried to think of something witty and funny to say, she found herself glancing back down at her own assembled art work, debating whether she should declare that actually she wasn't a massive fan of art and she didn't care if she got a D either. Unfortunately, Miles gained a different cue from her silence. "Sorry," he said, doing that adorable thing where he pushed his hair out of his eyes again. "I'm distracting you aren't I?"

Just a little, Tee's pounding heart shouted. But, "not really," was what she squeaked.

"Oh, good," Miles grinned. "Because I was wondering if you wanted to meet up on Saturday?"

And then Tee's pounding heart stopped. For a split second she honestly thought that she was going to collapse onto the tiled floor and die. Two seconds later, however, she came to the conclusion that she was very much alive and that Miles was staring at her with those gorgeous blue eyes, waiting for an answer. "Like, a date?"

He nodded. "Only if you want t-"

"-Yes," Tee interrupted before he could change his mind.

"Oh, cool," Miles smirked and Tee, her artwork completely forgotten as she stared at him in a daze, wondering why on earth the hottest and most popular boy in school (Finch was excluded from the equation) had asked her out, thought that this was one of the best days of her life.

Tee was smiling and it was beginning to irk Ryan. In all fairness, he usually became annoyed when she smiled, or, in fact, when anyone who wasn't him or Harry smiled. In his experience, people tended to smile when something had gone their way, and, if it had gone their way then it probably hadn't gone Ryan's.

Today, though, Tee's smile was different from her normal one. Ever since Mike had dropped her back at the Dumping Ground (he refused to call it 'home') after her extra art session, she'd been doing nothing short of grinning from ear to ear. Occasionally she would bite her lip and glance down at the floor, lost in her own pathetically small world as she tucked away a stray strand of hair.

Now, Ryan liked to believe - and, indeed, he had every right to believe - that observing behaviours then extrapolating in order to discover and thereby analyse someone's personality was his forte. It had been his number one survival method for living in care since pretty much before he could remember and had came in useful more times than he cared to count. And so it was by using this method that Ryan quickly came to the conclusion that Tee had had some sort of romantic encounter and, thanks to the conversation he, Bailey and Tyler had overheard the previous night, he could make an educated guess and say that the other person involved had been Miles Reed.

And for a reason that Ryan couldn't quite put his finger on, that made him even more annoyed with Tee's damn smile.

"So?" Ryan heard Carmen say over the top of his magazine as the dark-haired girl took a seat next to Tee on the sofa opposite him.

"So what?" Tee asked, pretending to focus on whatever rubbish Tyler was watching on TV.

"Oh, come on," Carmen said, nudging her friend. "I've known you since forever. What's the grin for?"

Try as she might to suppress it, Tee's smile came sliding back onto her face. "I'm not telling you," she declared. "You'll have to wait until Saturday."

Carmen groaned. "But that's, like, a whole two days away."

"One and a half days, actually," Tee said, her eyeline dropping to the ground as she brushed a lock of hair behind her ear yet again. That movement was becoming very repetitive.

"One and a half days too many," Carmen muttered. But when it became obvious that Tee wouldn't budge in her decision, Carmen sighed, tucking her legs up underneath her and twisting around on the sofa so that she could see the TV better. "Er, why are we watching Pointless?" She asked.

"Because apparently Tyler likes quiz shows now," Floss replied from by the pool table where she'd been watching Jody and Bailey play a game.

Immediately, Carmen's eyes narrowed as she glared at the red-head. "Who asked you?"

"You did," Floss said with all the nine-year-old sass she could muster.

"No, I asked the room in general, I didn't want you to answer-"

"Okay," Tee said loudly, cutting off the argument before it truly began. "Carms, I know you're annoyed about your phone but can you two not do this right now? I'm trying to be happy."

"Fine," Floss said before flouncing from the room and yelling, "May-Li, what's for dinner?"

Carmen settled back into the couch and Ryan, sensing that any drama was over for now – or until tea at the very least – and thinking that he'd have more success reading his magazine in the quiet of his own room, got to his feet.

This, apparently, was what Tyler and Jody had been waiting for as they jumped to their own feet a split second later and followed him out, leaving Carmen to lunge for the remote.

"Hey, Ryan," Jody said, careful to keep her voice down. "Have you sent Tyler the recording yet?"

"Yeah," Ryan said glancing back over his shoulder at the two of them as he started up the stairs. "I sent it this morning."

Jody turned to glare at Tyler. "You said he hadn't."

Looking a little guilty, Tyler fished around in his pocket for a second before withdrawing his phone and glancing down at the screen. "Oh," he said, then, "I, um, don't get very good service. Sorry."

"Tyler!" Jody exclaimed. "How are we supposed to become the greatest pranksters ever when you're such an idiot!"

Tyler threw his hands up, nearly dropping his phone over the banister as he did so. "I said I was sorry!"

"So why are you trying to annoy Tee and Carmen?" Ryan interrupted, not particularly keen to be subjected to another argument.

Jody shrugged. "They're funny when they're embarrassed."

"Plus, we think you and Tee would make a great couple," Tyler snickered, grinning down at his phone which now held that wonderful, wonderful recording on it.

Ryan raised his eyebrows. "You are kidding," he said dryly.

"Not at all," Jody said. "I mean, ignoring all of the millions of fights you guys have-"

Tyler snickered again, cutting her off. "Like that time when you stole Tee's phone for, like, five minutes then she refused to speak to you for a whole five days."

Jody nodded. "Or the time when she threw you a birthday party then let that kid from your old care home crash it. Kind of a mean move."

"Or that time when she told literally everyone about your past with Chloe."

"And then of course there's just the usual petty arguments."

"But aside from that, you're perfect for each other," Tyler finished with an innocent grin.

But Ryan had stopped listening. "What?" He said, so dangerously that the other two took a small step back.

"We were just joking," Jody said, crossing her arms over her jacket. "We do know you don't actually like each other."

"No," Ryan said. "No that. The thing about Chloe."

Tyler shrugged, relaxing now he realised that it wasn't them Ryan was annoyed with. "Oh. We thought you knew. It was Tee – and Sasha as well, actually – who told us all about Chloe's accident. No idea how they knew, though."

"But I thought it was Mike who-"

"Nah. He did confirm it though," Jody said, frowning at him. Then she tugged at Tyler's sleeve. "C'mon, we have stuff to do."

"Oh, sure," Tyler said, smiling briefly at Ryan then following his friend off down the corridor.

Once they'd disappeared, Ryan leant back against the cream wall, running a hand over his head.

It had been Tee. Tee who'd said that he'd pushed Chloe out of the window (regardless of whether he actually had or not). And to think he'd blamed Mike. And then enacted revenge on him.

Whoops.

He almost felt guilty.

Still, Mike had confirmed it', Jody had said, so at least there was that. But Tee. It didn't surprise him. She'd had it out for him since day one; whilst all the others had been praising him for catching the thief, Tee had been the only one who'd been suspicious. Sasha too, he supposed, fell into that category. The shorter girl may not dislike him as much as Tee did but she sure wasn't opposed to calling him out on something.

They'd gotten involved in his family business, then let Mike take the fall for it. And he was so going to make them pay.

I'm sorry about the wait for an update :/ Life got in the way. BUT, on the plus side, thank you, thank you, thank you, for all of the reviews. You guys are awesome, keep it up! I can't believe TDG is over now until September. It seems like such a long wait however I am going to keep on updating and (fingers crossed) so are some of the other TDG ff writers. So we've got that to keep us going.

Review please! :) xx