Sorry it's been so long! I know, I have a problem with updating… But, don't worry, I know where I'm going with this one and have no writer's block! :D

Anyway, one of the reasons it took me so long to add another chapter was because I thought that no one cared about this couple anymore. That tends to happen when a show ends, people just…forget. Sad, I know, but also true! However I'll try to keep this going because I'm still a hardcore JATIE shipper and will support them for as long as it takes! :)

Sooo, enjoy! (BTW, I've kinda based Ryan's character off of Derek Venturi from Life With Derek. Don't know if you caught that or not… Hey! I may be sixteen but I DO remember that wonderful show! XD)

James continued to stare at Katie from his spot next to Ryan, his mouth slightly open in awe. "I-I can't believe that she's right there.." He said softly, almost as if he didn't mean to say it out loud.

"Well, what are you waiting for? Go talk to her!" Ryan clapped him on the back, giving him a small push forward, but James shook his head.

"No, I can't." He sighed. "I doubt she'd even want to see me."

"You never know unless you try." Ryan pushed him again.

"Would you stop? Look, it's best if I just…steer clear of her altogether."

"What? Come on, you're sounding like a wimp right now, man. What if I just call her name? What is it, Katie? I could-"

"No!" James exclaimed, going as far as to hide behind the brick siding of a nearby building.

Ryan just laughed out loud. "Seriously? What has gotten in to you, James?" He walked over, still chuckling, but also looking at Katie out of the corner of his eye.

"You don't get it, and I don't feel like explaining it right now." James whispered, his back up against the wall.

"Uh, newsflash, she can't hear us from this far away." Ryan whispered back, clearly mocking his cousin.

"Wow, it would really help if I had a tree hat right now…" James muttered.

"A what?" Ryan asked, craning his neck to hear. "A tree…what?"

James rolled his eyes. "Never mind, let's just go get something to eat and-"

"Oh no, she's coming this way!" Ryan said, his eyes wide and directed Katie's way.

"What?" James nearly shouted.

Suddenly the nineteen year old erupted into a fit of laughter. "Just kidding! Dude, you need to relax." He said, putting his hands on James' shoulders.

James just brushed him off. "No, I don't. I need to get out of here." But he contradicted his own words by peering around the corner, watching Katie again. "It's been so long, almost three years…"

Ryan turned in Katie's direction. "She's pretty cute."

"Yeah, she is." James half smiled, his eyes on nothing but her.

"I still don't see why you don't just go over and talk to her. I mean, you obviously want to. What's the big deal?" Ryan wondered aloud, looking at his cousin again.

James sighed, looked at Katie once more, then dropped his gaze to the ground. "It's complicated. And a bit of a long story."

"Well, I've got nothing better to do." Ryan shrugged, looking at his bare wrist as if there was a watch on it. "And you're too much of a coward to go over there." James scoffed. "So why don't you tell me this long and complicated story?"

James raised an eyebrow. "Oh come on! It beats job hunting, that's for sure!" He sighed again and nodded, beginning to walk the other way. Ryan smiled and ran to catch up so that they were side by side again.

"Fine, but no interrupting. And I'll only say what I'm about to say once. Then that's it." James stated, his eyes facing forward.

Ryan shoved his hands into his pockets to keep them warmer and nodded. "Fair enough."

They walked in silence for a full two minutes before Ryan sighed. "Okay, so you've obviously never told a story before…"

"Well what do you want to know?" James chuckled.

"I don't know, let's start off with…how you guys met?" Ryan suggested, shrugging his shoulders once.

"Okay, well..let's see, I met her when I was about nine…" James wondered aloud.

"What? So you guys were, like, childhood sweethearts?"

"Not exactly. She was four-"

Ryan stopped walking altogether, causing James to follow suit. "You met her, Katie – your exgirlfriend – when she was just four years old?" The shock was evident in his tone.

James caught on and let out a laugh. "No, it's not as weird as it sounds."

"It sounds pretty weird." Ryan shook his head as they started walking again.

"It's not like we started our relationship that young! She was your age, nineteen, when we got together." James explained and watched as his cousin nodded in approval. "No, before that she was simply Kendall's sister." He said the last two words while holding his hands up as if he were laying out an imaginary headline.

"But you watched her go through her teenage years. Her awkward years." Ryan pointed out.

"I said no interrupting." James reminded him.

"Whatever. Doesn't that make it…uncomfortable?"

James shrugged while shaking his head. "She watchedme go through my awkward years. How's that any different?"

Ryan thought about it before nodding. "Okay, you got me there. Continue."

"Alright, well..yeah, like I said she was just my best friend's little sister. I didn't really pay much attention to her at first. Of course that's when I was pubescent and only cared about myself, sports and girls. Why would I care about a girl five years younger than me?

"Then came the audition. I can remember it so clearly; the angry mob of girls, sitting in Kendall's living room watching TV while trying to heal from the mob, claiming how one day I'd rise to the top and marry Nicole Scherzinger…"

He could tell that Ryan approved by his whistle at the singer's name.

"Yeah, I was stupid and completely naïve." James chuckled.

"But you had good taste." Ryan smirked, clapping him on the back.

James rolled his eyes and continued, "Anyway, that's when we saw the commercial announcing Gustavo's visit to Minnesota and how he was looking for the 'next big thing'. And I remember thinking how perfect I was for that opportunity, how nobody deserved it more than me."

"Wow, you were really modest too!" Ryan remarked sarcastically.

James rolled his eyes again. "Shut up. Anyway, since none of us could drive we had to get Mrs.-"

"Wait, are you gonna retell the story of how you got famous again?" James looked at him. "Because I get that inspiring tale every time Brooke wants to give me an example of how hard work will get a person far in life."

James couldn't help but feel flattered. "She does?"

Ryan noticed and rolled his eyes. "Seriously?"

"Well, she's right." James smirked. "Although it was Kendall who really got us there-"

"Is there a fast forward button?" Ryan remarked. "Tell me something I haven't heard yet! Tell me more about this Katie chick."

James narrowed his eyes at Ryan's choice of words but nodded. "Fine. What I was going to say was that after we moved to California, my relationship with Katie changed. We got closer, became more involved in each other's lives, got to know each other and became friends... All this being completely platonic, of course."

"Of course." Ryan nodded, facing forward.

James looked forward as well and smiled, remembering back on the times he had with Katie before they got involved romantically. "We used to get in so much trouble. Well, it was more me getting into the trouble and her helping me get out. I swear our life was a sitcom.

"I knew that she was important to me from the start, more so than any of the other girls in my life. I just always passed it off as sort of a brotherly way, like she was my little sister as well as Kendall's. But that changed. I don't know how it did, I don't even know when it did, it just…suddenly she was different."

"Puberty?" Ryan piped up, arching one of his eyebrows. When all he got was a weird look, he shrugged. "What? You said that she changed! I just thought you meant puberty…"

James rolled his eyes and laughed. "Okay, I guess that was part of it. But it wasn't just physical. Suddenly she became this person that I couldn't live without. Someone that I could talk to for hours without getting bored, someone that I could really lean on for support.

"And I swear it all happened instantaneously. Because she changed from my faux sister to one of my closest friends almost overnight. But I didn't question it because…it was pretty great."

James suddenly couldn't contain the smile on his face. "You may think this sounds cheesy, but I remember one night I couldn't sleep. So I went over to her room, which was right next to mine, hoping to God that she was awake. Fortunately she was, so I explained my situation and she confessed that she was dealing with the same problem."

"So what did you do?" Ryan questioned. Then he smirked. "Oh, wait, I think I know."

James shook his head. "I didn't sleep with her, if that's what you were thinking." He knew he was right when he saw Ryan's gaze drop to the ground. "No, instead we stole Kendall's car keys – because neither of us had a car at the time – and drove around LA all night."

"That's it?" He looked over. "You just…drove?"

"Yep. Until the sun came up." James nodded. "I remember going to McDonald's early enough to get pancakes, which are surprisingly good by the way, and eating them on the hood of the car somewhere in Beverly Hills."

"Wow." Was all Ryan had to say.

James shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and looked down at the concrete beneath them. "That's just the kind of stuff we did back then. And it was some of the best times of my life." He looked up again. "All of my favorite memories have Katie in them. She was always just there."

"You fell in love." Ryan said suddenly. When James raised his eyebrows, he clarified, "That's what happened. You said that it all came about instantly, right? Well, I heard that love can do that kind of thing."

James looked passed him to the empty street, lost in thought. Then he nodded, the hint of a smile on his lips. "Yeah, I guess I did."

"Did you ever exchange the 'L' word with each other?" Ryan questioned as they began walking again.

"Yeah, but I don't think it meant that much. Since we'd known each other for so long, that word could've meant anything. And it's not like we ever sat down and talked about our feelings. Even though we were together for two years…"

"That's strange." Ryan commented dryly.

"What do you mean?"

"Well, you were together for two years. Usually people make it a point to talk about that after such a long amount of time."

James sighed. "Not us."

"So what did Kendall think? I mean, when you got together with Katie?"

"He wasn't happy!" James chuckled, grinning. "He was actually pretty thrown off. Here he thought I considered Katie a sister, and then we announce that we're together. Come to think of it…everyone was shocked.."

"Everyone?"

"Well, okay, not everyone. Some people, like Jo – Kendall's fiancé – said that our relationship was inevitable. Personally I never thought it would happen, and I'm pretty sure that Katie felt the same way. But it happened alright, and we weren't about to lie and pretend that we didn't have those feelings when we clearly did. That's just stupid."

"Agreed." Ryan nodded. "I'm glad you guys skipped all that 'We should sneak around but then break up because we're not accepted by society only to get back together and live happily ever after!' crap."

James chuckled. "Right. And eventually Kendall consented to it. He then loved the idea! You know, after hating it…You see, Katie is a very head strong person. She can be more determined to get something than me. So, when she wanted to be in this relationship, she wasn't going to give up. She's also persuasive, I think that's one of the reasons Kendall finally accepted us."

"Sounds like a handful."

"No, she was great. And you'd really want her on your side." James smirked.

"So what happened? I mean, you guys sounded so happy and carefree. It's like nothing was wrong with your relationship." Ryan asked.

James stopped walking, staring at his shoes, and sighed. "Every relationship has something wrong with it, Ryan."

Ryan noticed that this was the part of the story that James was dreading. He slowly walked over and rested a hand on his cousin's shoulder. "You know what? Never mind. We can talk about this later-"

"Things got harder for us." James continued, ignoring Ryan altogether. "The band got more and more popular, which meant that I was away a lot. And that put a strain on us. Katie began to feel as if I didn't care about her anymore, which wasn't true in the least."

"Didn't she understand, having been in the business for a while?"

"It's different when it's your boyfriend, I guess." James shrugged. "And it didn't help that I chose to be on tour more than I chose to be with her. But I couldn't help it. I get so caught up in the thick of it that I lose track and only focus on myself sometimes."

"So..you two broke up over long distance?" Ryan tried to clarify.

James finally looked him in the eye again. "It wasn't just my fault, if that's what you mean." He then let his head fall back, staring up at the completely white sky. "Katie wasn't perfect either. She had this problem with letting her feelings show. It's hard to be in a relationship with someone like that, because you never know what they're thinking. And they expect you to.

"She also had this..certain image of me. She never said it, but I could tell that she thought about it sometimes. Her whole life I had been known as the womanizer, the ladies man. She could get so jealous over absolutely nothing and not believe me when I told her that she was the only girl that I wanted."

"I hate clingy girls." Ryan commented.

"She wasn't clingy, she was definitely independent. That was one of the things I loved most about her. It made her different from the rest." He sighed. "That doesn't mean that it wasn't also a problem. Like I said before; she'd never open up to me. Rarely I'd get to see a glimpse of the inside, but it would go as soon as it would come and I'd be left to guess again. It got tiring."

"Sounds like torture." Ryan chuckled, his attempt to lighten the mood.

James cracked a small smile. "That's the thing; it sounds like hell, but it wasn't. I loved being with Katie, and the good times definitely outweighed the bad. And when she left, I just felt…empty inside. Like I lost my best friend. And, in a way, I guess I did."

"So she dumped you?"

"It was more of a mutual breakup. I think I'm actually the one who said the words. But she was the one to totally cut me out of her life. She moved six states away for God's sake! I mean, back there, that was the first time I've seen her in three years!"

James sighed for the umpteenth time and leaned against a nearby wall, blowing a deep breath out. "And you wanna know the worst part?"

"What?"

James clenched his jaw, staring at the ground yet again. "I don't regret a single moment of it. If I could go back and do it all again, I would, and not change a thing about it."

"Man, you're lucky." Ryan sighed. "At least you've experienced that kind of feeling. Like the great Alfred Lord said, "It's better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all."

James just looked at him for a long minute before showing a half smile. "You're pretty smart, you know that?"

Ryan shrugged. "Nah, I just read a lot." Then he leaned in and whispered, "But don't let Brooke know that. I've got a reputation to uphold."

James chuckled and came over, draping a loose arm over Ryan's shoulders. "Don't worry, I won't breathe a word."

"And, hey, I really appreciate you opening up to me about all this Katie stuff." Ryan replied honestly. "It sounds like you needed to vent."

"Thanks for listening. But, uh, let's not make a habit of it…" James said in slight awkwardness.

"Agreed." Ryan nodded, stepping out of James' embrace. The older of the two simply smiled and they began walking again, this time for home.

"Well, we didn't get you a job today."

"Oh darn." Ryan groaned sarcastically.

"But we can try again tomorrow." James said in the same tone.

Ryan looked up at him with narrow eyes. "You're lucky I like you, otherwise you'd be getting the cold shoulder that's reserved for Brooke."

"I'll remember that." James nodded.

They continued to walk in silence until Ryan asked the one question that had been on his mind since the beginning of James' story. "James, do you ever miss Katie?"

James was quiet for a long moment before saying in a low voice, "Every damn day."