"Hi Suze! " Doc came out of the kitchen, a huge smile on his face.

"Hey" Doc was my youngest stepbrother, and by far my favourite. A nerd to the core, he was only about twelve, and..well...he came in handy for homework...

"What are you doing here?" I asked him. It was summer, and everyone I knew was at the beach. Sleepy,( real name Jake) , Dopey( Brad) were all down at the beach. Probably.

Doc flashed a grin at me " I had some homework to finish.."

Jeeze. he must be the only guy in Carmel to actually DO his summer homework. His teachers must love him.

"Well....that's great..." I told him, going for the stairs. However, Doc called after me.

" Wait, Suze.." Aw, crap...Doc....not now......

I turned. " Yeah?"

"Erm...why is your hair ruffled?" Oh....right....my HAIR?!

He stared at my hair curiously. Managing not to have mentle images of me stomping home with a birds nest for hair, possibly..."Oh, er...I fell.."

You FELL? Oh please.

Smiling at him, in a nervous sort of way, I quickly excused myself.

Finally, slamming my bedroom door, I slumped to the floor, sighing deeply. I felt my hair.

Three words.

Oh, my God.

It had escaped from the elegant bun I'd put it in this morning, and half of it was hanging down my face. Doc must have been having a laugh when he described it as "ruffled"... and....this thought struck me with horror....I had walked down the street like that..

I guess I had been too angry at Paul to notice. Oops...!

Looking at myself in the mirror, I sighed. Now, normally, I'm not a vain person, I cant be, what with fighting the dead..., but every girl likes to look her best, don 't they?

My lipgloss had been smeared right off my lips, and was non-existant, my eyeshadow was berely there.

It' s good thing I didnt put on mascara.

The thought made me laugh out loud. I washed my face, carefully removing all traces of the make up, then, went back into my room.

Ahh....my sanctuary, the only place, basically, that I can get away from my stepbrothers..

I hoped Jesse would be here, but the only thing that I saw, was the dust floating dreamily onto the window seat. He usually sat there. He sat there almost every evening, when I would come back up from dinner, and I would usually find him reading one of those books, like, I dunno, Moby Dick or something.

It had been a while, now I came to think of it. I hadn't really noticed, because I had been so preoccupied with Paul.

NO. Not that way.

Paul, was a mediator as well. I hadnt realised it up until a few months ago, when Jesse and I were kinda...stuck, on the astral plane ( basically, limbo), and...er..well...its a long story...See...( Okay, here we go)....in 1850, Jesse had been engaged to a girl , Maria de Silva, his....cousin.. ( eww.....if you ask me...) and he was on his way to the wedding, when, * drumroll* another guy strangled him to death.

Apparently, Maria told him to take Jesse out, cos she didnt want to marry him. She wanted to marry Felix instead. Oh, and the fact that she'd heard that Jesse was about to break off the engagement, after hearing about them together.

I mean, how could you pick a guy with a dodgy moustache, over....* Choke* Jesse????

Anyway, back to the story. So, basically, thats how Jesse ended up in my room.

So, one hundred and fifty years later, my stepdad had been installing a hot tub in the back garden, when, Dopey had shoved a spade through a skull, that just so happened to be Jesse's dead body.

And that had woken Maria up. Man, she could pack a punch. Holding a knife to my neck..almost strangling me in my bed....calling me a stupid little girl...well...I got mad.

But, thats not all she did. She told Pauls little brother to exorcise Jesse, because she said that I didnt like him, and wanted him gone.

It couldnt have been further from the truth.

After I realised what happened, I went back up to get him. And there was only one way to get there . Exorcism.

So, I er.......I got Father Dom to exorcise me.

I found Jesse, and after we cleared up the confusion, we were all set to go down, when...Paul shows up. And proceeds to inform me that I didnt have to exorcise myself. Well...

He told me a lot, and afterwards, we agreed on if I came to see him, every wednesday, he wouldnt take Jesse out. What would you have done?

And thats where I was today..only it had...er....gotten out of hand.....

Paul was staring at me. I turned the pages of the book , trying to block him out, except all my efforts went to pot when a few moments later, he breathed heavily, and leaned towards me.

I looked up. I couldn't ignore him any more. " Paul? What do you think you are do-"

I didnt get very far, because his lips pressed against mine, eagerly, hungrily. He pushed me backwards on the bed, and continued intensely kissing me.

"Paul!" I managed to choke out. "St-" he pressed harder.

"Oh, come on, Suze, you're enjoying this as much as I am.." He whispered against my lips.

Ehh...no, actually. Not really, Paul.

He was too heavy, way too heavy to lift off me, I cast my gaze around the room hopelessly, when I saw, standing at the other side of the room, Jesse, wearing a insanely shocked expression...

I stared at the window sill for another minute, hoping against hope.....but, no Jesse appeared. Probably sulking...

I knew Jesse didn't approve of ...me, being so forward, God knows, he almost flipped when he saw me kissing Tad Beaument in his car. In fact, you'd think he was jealous....

Sigh.

Wishful thinking Suze.

So, watcha think? Honestly, I would love to know. If you got slightly confused in this chapter, Im sorry. I was on a high when writing. Thanks to lyngan, and Kelly Jackson-est.1995 for taking the time out to review. Would you like me to go on?

Please review!