Story Of Her Life.

Nosey Neighbours.

The buses arrived back to North Shore High about an hour later than planned. The group was weary and stood sleepily to get their things and finally get home. Beth opened her eyes to fine herself leaning on Mr. Inman's shoulder lazily. She quickly straightened up and stood behind Mr. Conklin, who was the last in line to leave besides Inman and herself. He cocked his head back at Beth.

"Oh, by the way Beth, Alicia and I will be moving in this week and this weekend, so don't throw any big parties that I might have to call the cops on," Mr. Conklin winked.

"Conklin, please shut up," she said wearily.

Mr. Conklin simply laughed and high fived Mr. Inman before skipping down the steps to retrieve his bagage.

Beth gathered her things, said good-bye to Dana and Laura, who she'd barely seen all weekend, and then loaded them into the trunk of her little bug. When she slammed the door, she found a nicely chizzled face leaning against the back door of her car. Eric's face.

"All ready?" He questioned.

She simply nodded and followed him home. Their home. When she was loading her things into the laundry room, Eric followed her in.

"So... what are we going to do about this whole Conklin situation?" Eric asked, one hand leaning on the doorway enterance to the Laundry room. She simply sighed and shrugged. She was so sleepy she could fall out on the cold tile floor and not even bother getting up to a bed.

He looked into her eye knowingly and kissed her goodbye. He wondered over to the guest house to think about all that had happened that weekend. He had made a HUGE comittment he wans't sure he completely understood, but he knew one thing- he cared deeply for this girl, no matter how old she was, and he wansn't going to let anything ruin that, not even his "boss".

The next day, Eric and Beth spent the day lounging around on the couch, watching movies and snuggled comfortably atop one another. When the door bell rang, suddenly, frightening the two of them, Mr. Inman shot Beth a confused look as she rose to answer it. She peeked out the peep hole on the door. Mr. Conklin stood dressed in basketball shorts and a tank top.

"It's Mr. Conklin," she whispered. He looked at her with a so-what expression. "I have to open it Eric, shoo!" she pointed him to the staircase to hide until it was safe.

Beth quickly slipped on the tiny shorts laying in the middle of the livingroom floor and straigtened up her stringy hair. The door bell rang once more, and she opened it and greeted her History Teacher.

"Mr. Conklin!" she put on a cheerful voice. "What are you doing here?"

"Oh hey Beth, I was wondering if your mother was home?" he questioned.

Uh. Oh. He knows, and he's going to tell her, she's with a twenty-one-year-old teacher, and her life will be over. GREAT. "Uh, no. She has to go make evening rounds at the Hospital." Which was true. "Did you need something?" she asked.

"Just wondering if you guys had some nails, doing some construction on one of the rooms and we forgot the obvious." he smiled.

"Uh, sure... come on in," she said the last part a bit loud.

He followed her into the laundry room and waited patiently while she searched. She then headed out to the garage and quickly retrieved a box from the construction shelf.

"Were you busy?" he questioned indicating the mess of covers on the couch, and half-empty popcorn bowl.

"No, just relaxing by myself before I have to start another week tomorrow," she forced a smile.

"Just figured you had someone with you... Oh, by the way, who's Expedition is that out front? I thought your Mom drove a White explorer, and I know the bug is yours..."

Her face paled. "Uhm, it's my mom's friend's." she lied.

"They're here? I thought you said you're alone?" he shifted his weight questionably.

"I am alone, the person who owns that Expedition is staying in the guest house.... they're over there." she didn't specify the sex of that person purposefully. She half-expected him to piece the puzzle together right there. But he didn't.

"Oh cool... Well if you ever need anything when you're here alone, just come on over, sista." he grinned.

"Will do." she murmerd leading him towards the door.

"Ight well, have fun sitting here by yourself. If you get bored, Alicia could use some help unpacking." he wiggled his eyebrows.

"Uh, yeah right." she simply replied.

And within a minute, he was headed back down her driveway and across the street. Talk about nosey neighbors!

Eric trudded down the staircase. "Found some interesting things in your room," he said refering to a picture frame with a seventh grade picture of Troy Blake in it he was holding. Beth had put on her mother's lipstick that day and kissed him right on his cheek, so to speak. She had obviously had the biggest crush on him back then, she could have sworn she hid that DEEP within her mess-of-a-closet. Eric grinned.

Her eyes widened and she ran after him, grabbing at the picture frame. "Eric stop! No one was supposed to see that!" she screeched. He held the photo high above his head, and lauged at a leaping Beth trying to obtain it. She eventually jumped on his back and had him rolling around on the floor. She was on top of him when she eventually grabbed it.

"You're a bad boy," she whispered to him.

"Atleast I'm not a bad liar," he grinned to her. "What you told Conklin was so obvious. He's going to eventually realize that I drive that jeep, and then what? He'll expect something because you lied to him."

She stuck her tounge out at him. "I didn't lie to him technically, I just hid some of the truth," she called, climbing off of him and stomping up the stairs.

"This is going to be one hell of a year..." he muttered from the living room floor.