Chapter IV

The next day at school Ricky stood with Grace at her locker, he had been with Adrian last night and his 'bed buddy' decided to tell Grace.

"I thought you were done with that?" she asked sadly "why are you still sleeping with her?"

Ricky sighed, Adrian was messing with what he was trying to do again, and her jealousy was starting to get worse. He put his hands in his pockets "I don't know… I'm trying to change Grace."

She shook her head "not hard enough if you can't stay faithful."

He knew where this was going but he decided to see if he could salvage it "old habits die hard even more so when you are addicted."

"So you're a sex addict now?" Grace asked looking down.

"I guess" he said.

Grace shook her head "maybe… we should take a break I'm not having sex before marriage… my first time with Jack was bad enough, I can't give you what you want."

Ricky nodded he had to focus on trying to get with Amy right now anyway a girlfriend just made matters harder "I think that's a good idea… so friends?"

Grace smiled sadly "sure I'll always be your friend."

Ricky smirked sexily "but if you change your mind on the sex thing…"

Grace blushed looking down "uh ok… if I do, maybe we can try again."

"One last kiss" he said "before we become just friends."

She moved into him still blushing as he leaned down giving one of his best passionate kisses, Grace almost wanted to change her mind about the break up. As they broke apart they hugged and smiled at each other "see you around Grace."

"See you Ricky."

They parted ways and Ricky found himself walking down the hall until he spotted Ashley, moving over to her locker he smirked as she noticed him "yo."

"Yo yourself" she said putting her books away, she turned to him again "wanna hang out with me and Griffin again after school?"

"I can't" he said "work… I don't get off till eight."

Ashley nodded "you coming by to see John after?"

"Yeah."

She smiled slightly "Well I'll see you tonight; we can hang out with John."

"Adrian is moving next door to you guys today" he said sounding unenthused.

"Not thinking of cheating on Grace are you" Ashley asked her eyes meeting his and staying there.

He shook his head "kinda hard to cheat when you don't have a girlfriend" at her raised eyebrow he elaborated "Grace and I broke it off about five minutes ago."

Ashley blinked a few times "oh uh sorry?"

Ricky smirked "it was mutual we're still friends" he nodded to Griffin as the younger boy came up to them.

Griffin smiled "Hey Ricky, morning Ashley."

Ben stood with Amy talking about taking her on a date "…and they have great wings so I thought you might like to go there, are you sure your sister will watch John?"

Amy shrugged "if not I can try to bribe her."

Ben smiled "if she says no tell her I'll pay her twenty bucks an hour to watch him so we can get out."

Amy nodded "ok thanks Ben, I'll see you later."

"Bye Amy, I love you."

"I love you too" she said giving him a quick kiss.

The day passed in relative normalcy, Adrian was avoiding Ricky after she was told by Grace they broke up. She didn't want to get into a fight with him and he would come to her when he cooled off. Ricky went straight to work plotting his next move and what to talk to Amy about tonight, but that was shot down when Ben left early saying he had a date with Amy tonight.

Ashley spent her day with Griffin watching twilight zone in her garage room, Amy came in at four "Ashley?"

The younger girl looked up from where she was laying on the bed with her head in her hands, Griffin sat on the floor with a bowl of popcorn "hmmm?"

"I need a favor, huge favor in fact" Amy said pleadingly "can you watch John tonight from about six to nine?"

"Why can't you" Ashley asked in her low monotone voice.

Amy shook her head "please let's not fight I'll pay you."

Ashley perked up "how much?"

"Twenty an hour" Amy said "an easy sixty dollars."

Ashley smirked "deal."

At six Ben and Amy were on their way to dinner, at a small restaurant that supposedly had very good chicken wings.

Ben sat on the other side of the table "so… been awhile since we've been out."

Amy smiled "yeah, John has been a handful."

Ben held back a sigh he didn't want to talk about John, he wanted it to just be about them tonight, and sadly he didn't speak up fast enough because Amy brought up the one person he really didn't like to talk about.

"Did you hear Ricky and Grace broke up today" Amy shook her head "like no one saw that coming, they just don't go together."

Ben couldn't place the tone of voice she was using, was it wistful? And again his thinking caused Amy to continue to ramble on.

"They didn't even look right together, she's too preppy and nice, sometimes too nice, it kind of bugs me…"

Ben wondered why Amy was only complaining about Grace and not Ricky, but he finally joined the conversation "maybe… he and Adrian are kind of perfect for each other."

Amy made a face "Adrian? I don't like her… she's such a…"

Ben coughed "uh yeah, but so is Ricky."

Amy looked offended for a second then looked down "yeah, I guess he is."

"Does that bother you? You don't like him or something do you?"

Amy's head shot up "NO! No absolutely not… it's just he's John's father it doesn't feel right to talk about him like that now."

Ben tried to divert the conversation elsewhere before they fought over something stupid "you know Alice and Henry have slept together… uh again."

Amy quirked her delicate brow "you're not trying to talk me into sex again are you?"

Ben slapped his face "no sorry, bad conversation topic…"

~Juergens' Household~

Shortly after eight Ricky knocked on the door after a few moments he was greeted by Ashley "hey come in."

He followed her to the living room to see John lying on a blanket on the floor rolling back and forth; he smiled and took off his jacket "so when is Amy getting back from her date?"

"Jealous?" Ashley asked plopping down onto the couch turning the television's volume back up a little,

"Nope" Ricky said "just wondering… where's your mom and dad?"

Ashley shook her head "on a date, my dad's idea that he can woo her and rekindle their relationship."

Ricky found himself sitting on the floor letting John play with his fingers "you don't sound convinced."

Ashley couldn't believe she was talking about this with Ricky she hadn't even told Griffin her troubles or thoughts, sighing she shrugged "I love my dad, shocking I know" she said seeing Ricky's amused face.

"But if he cheated on her when they were married before what is trying to feel something for each other going to do? If the feeling can fade like last time what's the point? To just keep going until it happens again?"

Ricky shrugged "I don't know I was adopted, my real parents didn't act like parents so I have no way of telling you what their reasons are."

Ashley looked at the ceiling "I'm just saying if my dad was able to do that to my mom before what's to stop him if something happens like whatever happened this time."

Ricky thought for a minute "I don't know how to answer that, I'm not a good example myself of faithfulness or commitments."

She smiled a small smile "doesn't matter, it was just nice to get that off my shoulders for the moment."

Ricky smirked, he was getting Ashley to warm up to him, and her parents were next… enough so that he could weasel his way into Amy's pants… or so he tried to convince himself.

They began talking about school, music and anything else that they wandered across while talking. Their dislike of Infomercials lasted thirty-five minutes for no apparent reason considering they had the same view on the matter.

During this time Ricky had fed, burped and changed John then put him to sleep before coming back with the baby monitor and sitting next to Ashley. Their discussion turned to relationships and Ashley asked him a question she had been wondering a long time "you know you're not half bad, I mean I thought you were an asshole before I met you but you're ok… but why do you sleep around so much?"

Ricky found himself thinking for a minute, sure people knew about his dad and some of what happened, not that he was going to tell her anything like that. He leaned forward "there's a lot of reasons actually… but number one is that I like sex."

Ashley blinked "you like sex?"

He nodded "that's definitely enough reason right there, people do it all the time, one night stands, friends with benefits not to mention sex if you're in a relationship. I'm not saying people are right or wrong, it's up to the individual person to decide whether they want to have sex there is nothing wrong with it, some people just believe differently."

"So Amy decided to get pregnant" she couldn't help herself as that slipped out.

Ricky sighed "why am I always the bad guy? Did Amy even tell you what happened at band camp? I mean exactly what happened?"

Ashley shook her head "she never wants to talk about it."

Ricky ran a hand through his hair "I'll tell you then, I'm tired of people making me the bad guy all the time."

Ricky explained how he had met Amy, how they hung out and went to get coffee the night after her solo performance. He told her what happened on the couch up to the point where she was about to leave and he asked her to stay for a few more minutes.

"So you convinced her to stay, sleep with her, she ends up pregnant…"

Ricky interrupted her "no you see where things went wrong was we started slowly she had ample opportunity to say no, she didn't. I thought she knew what she was doing, and contrary to what she told her friends it lasted more than a few minutes and she enjoyed it."

Ashley looked appalled but he continued "she could have asked me to stop at anytime but she didn't, we were together for almost an hour having sex, not a quick wham! Bam! Thank you M'am!"

"But you didn't know she was a virgin? You didn't stop it either…"

Ricky sighed "that's what I brought her there for; I didn't know she knew nothing about sex at all, seriously she seemed to know what she was doing…"

"Ok I've had too much talking about my sister's sex life" Ashley said groaning "forget I asked."

"Point is" Ricky said "we both messed up, I assumed too much and she didn't ask questions."

Ashley noticed the time "You should go Amy will be back soon, and my parents probably won't be far behind. I don't feel like fighting with them because we were alone."

He nodded and got up grabbing his jacket, Ashley followed suit showing him out, Ricky opened the door and stopped turning around "uh well John's already asleep, give him a kiss from me" he joked.

Ashley wouldn't ever be able to answer why she did what she did at that moment, she smiled at Ricky then found herself leaning into him and kissing him on the lips.

It was a short kiss both of them froze when they realized what was going on, Ashley stepped way back "I have no idea why I did that!"

Ricky just turned and walked away, this didn't change or ruin his plans… no not one bit, but he hated the fact he liked kissing Ashley, in a different way than he liked kissing other girls.

He drove away quickly; this was not part of the plan.