Ryan Atwood couldn’t concentrate.

It wasn’t for lack of trying. He had homework to do, and even though it wasn’t due for a couple of days, it was designated study time. Logically speaking, he could just finish the admittedly easy work, and he would have nothing to worry about. However, he was distracted by something that had never bothered him before, at least in this way. Something that kept drawing his eye at the most inopportune times. (And lately, ‘inopportune times’ seemed to be all the time.)

Someone.

Marissa Cooper was biting her lip, muttering under her breath as she continued writing out notes for her English assignment. Her long hair was thrown into a casual ponytail, escaped blonde tendrils tickling her face as she worked. Ryan allowed his clear blue gaze to settle on her lips, pink and plump. She presented a certain innocence but now he was sitting here, he found himself wondering what his best friend would look like with messy hair, bruised lips and one of his sweatshirts. So many possibilities, so little time. He was startled abruptly out of his fantasy by her odd look, and in spite of himself, he was blushing. He doubted Marissa knew exactly what he was thinking. At least he hoped as much. Still, she was staring at him weird.

“Are you okay?” she questioned, wondering what had him so distracted. Ryan had been acting slightly strange around her lately. Marissa’s friend Summer Roberts suggested that he liked Marissa, something the blonde was quick to deny. He had a girlfriend and besides, Ryan and Marissa were friends. Had been since forever.

“Yeah, uh, I was just…thinking,” Ryan finally offered, knowing it sounded lame but he couldn’t come up with anything else. Over the summer, his perception of Marissa had shifted, and similar fantasies had been plaguing him at night. (And often during the day, for that matter.) The whole…situation freaked him out, and he had the feeling she would run for her life if she knew how many cold showers he had had to take recently over her. They had been best friends since they were five; now they were juniors in high school, and there wasn’t any particular reason why their friendship should change now.

Well, besides the fact that Ryan seemed to be too horny for his own good. Then again, he had an on-again off-again girlfriend, it wasn’t like he never got laid. All of a sudden, he was just noticing the smallest possible things about Marissa Cooper.

She had freckles spread across the bridge of her nose, and her eyes were most often a shade of indigo, but they could look green or grey depending on how the light hit them. Her favourite bands included The Clash and the Sex Pistols, plenty of punk. However, she had a small stash of CDs under her bed including Justin Timberlake, Nelly Furtado, and assorted pop. She denied the existence of this stash even though Ryan had seen it several times. And Marissa was sort of on hiatus with a certain Luke Ward, captain of the water polo team. Luke hated Ryan. Ryan hated Luke. Ryan knew that Luke was just a shallow, arrogant, bullying jerk, while Luke was certain that Ryan was planning to steal Marissa from him. It made things awkward at first, when Luke and Marissa started dating in freshman year. However, Marissa often ensured that the two boys weren’t forced together in her presence, and they both knew that whining about the other wouldn’t do any good. As for the hiatus thing, Marissa had merely told Ryan that one aspect of the relationship was ‘a problem’, though he wasn’t exactly sure what that meant. Could be anything, he reasoned.

“I really can’t concentrate,” he voiced, the determined procrastination a rare thing for him in any case.

With a shrug, Marissa flipped to the next page of her textbook. “Maybe you just need something to focus on,” she suggested absent-mindedly.

“Can I focus on you?” he replied, just as quick.

“If you must.”

More porn-ish thoughts and more quiet.

“Ryan?” Marissa said suddenly, breaking the newfound silence that had fallen between them, “Can I stay here tonight?”

Ryan looked up, “Why?” He didn’t mean to sound like an ass. He was just curious.

Marissa shrugged, obviously uncomfortable. “It’s okay if you don’t want me to. I can go stay at Summer’s. I get you probably have…er…things to do.”

Now he was feeling awkward himself. When did everything get so weird? “No, it’s fine. It’s just….I don’t know.” Marissa looked at him for a moment, forcing a smile. He had known her long enough to tell when she was clearly unhappy about something, and now he felt guilty because he’d been too wrapped up in his fantasies to even notice. “Hey…” He placed one hand over hers, making her begrudgingly pause in her escape from the bed. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

Marissa was silent for a few moments, picking up his hand and playing with it. “Mom and dad. Something weird is going on. I don’t know what, I just…” She faltered. “I know it’s about money. Which is weird, right? I was thinking, maybe dad got into trouble at work, because last time I checked, we had as much money as anyone else here.”

“So they’ve been fighting a lot?”

“I guess,” Marissa admitted. She felt slightly guilty, like she was making a big deal out of nothing. But the atmosphere in the Cooper home was nowhere near as comfortable as it should be. And it wasn’t like she was deaf; she did overhear Julie and Jimmy’s conversations. “It’s not like screaming or throwing things or anything insane like that. It’s more my mom bullying dad. Telling him to hurry up and fix things. Telling him to make sure that all of our credit cards are open for use for her next shopping trip or Newpsie day.” She rolled her eyes, dropping Ryan’s hand. “If I know one thing, it’s that there’s a problem. I just have to figure it out, but honestly, something tells me I’d be better off being kept in the dark.”

Ryan spent a moment considering this. In the small, beachside town of Newport Beach, wealth and status were everything. So, whatever was going on with Marissa’s parents could be a huge deal or a simple misunderstanding. He hoped for the latter. “It could just be that your dad forgot to pay a few bills and the credit cards got shut off for a week. He’s a financial planner, but he’s not a robot.”

Marissa nodded, visibly relieved with this reasoning. “Yeah, that’s probably it. He’s forgotten about bills before. I’m being stupid.”

“You can still stay here.”

“I’ll live, Ryan, I promise.” She smiled at him, but there was definitely an element missing from that smile. “Besides, eventually, the Cohens are going to think that we have a…thing going on. And it’s embarrassing enough that the entire school shares that opinion.”

To be honest, in Ryan’s wise opinion, the rumours weren’t that much of a bad thing. Anything that annoyed Luke was good. And after all, rumours had to begin somewhere, right? To Ryan’s frustration, Marissa had made another escape attempt. “Cooper,” he protested, “Come on. Stay.”

Marissa sighed, “It’s getting late, you know.” Well, it wasn’t even eight yet, but that wasn’t the point.

“I’ll even let you watch that stupid show you like,” he offered persuasively.

The corners of her mouth twitched. “You’re seriously going to sit through an entire episode of The Valley?” Ryan had never managed to survive a whole hour of the ridiculously popular teen drama before. Summer and Marissa were both huge fans, but given their love of soap operas and cheesy movies, this seemed to turn him off the show even more.

“If it’s going to keep you here, then yes, I will make that sacrifice.”

“Okay,” she finally caved, climbing back onto the bed, just in time for the new episode to start.

“So what is that problem with you and Luke?” Ryan asked during the ad break, glancing over at her. He was genuinely curious, but because Marissa was so sullen, he was also itching for a new reason to dislike the water polo captain. The list of Anti-Luke reasons could never be long enough…mostly because the guy kept coming up with interesting new ways to be an asshole.

Marissa squirmed slightly out of embarrassment. “He wants us to…uh…” She made a vague yet amusing gesture, “You know.”

Unable to think of anything else to do in the situation, Ryan pulled a face, “You really didn’t need to tell me that, Cooper.”

Her cheeks turning a steadily deeper shade of crimson, she shot back, “Well you were the one who asked!”

“I didn’t realise the mental images would be burned into my retinas.”

There was relative silence for the rest of the episode, and as the credits rolled, Marissa padded across the room in search of something to wear. Almost automatically, she selected one of Ryan’s signature items: a white wifebeater, and though they were huge on her, they were also exceptionally comfortable.

“Looks like I have to reuse the bra. Unless you want my boobs everywhere, and even though they’re small, that won’t be pleasant.” Marissa stole a pair of his boxers, and after rummaging in the section of Ryan’s shelves that belonged to her, she produced some clean underwear and headed off to the shower, leaving him all alone with his imagination. And his imagination was seriously not doing him any favours right now. This was ridiculous. He had a girlfriend…even though a certain Holly Fisher wasn’t much of an intellectual. Which sounded terrible. But she was remarkably like Jessica Simpson. Holly and Marissa were close friends, too, which made the conflict in Ryan’s mind even more frustrating. His girlfriend was hot, but his best friend was beautiful – and, hypothetically speaking, he had to admit that he would choose Marissa over Holly, in a romantic sense of things.

If it was some kind of life-or-death thing, Marissa was his entire world. Which might sound weird, but it was actually true. When Ryan was four, his father in prison and his mom off being a crack addict, he was taken to Newport by Sandy Cohen, and Ryan – even at that age – had his trust issues. Yet while Sandy and Kirsten’s son Seth was playing his Nintendo (yes, when he was four) it was Marissa that Ryan actually had as a play date, seeing as Julie had ditched her there for a trip to the spa. Ryan and Marissa had always had something of a connection; they could tell each other anything and tended to pick up on the other’s emotions easily. Which was why he felt guilty for having sex fantasies instead of seeing she was worried about her parents.

So there Ryan was, listening to the shower run, trying desperately to keep his mind out of the gutter. He hadn’t had this problem before. He had always known Marissa was attractive, he wasn’t blind after all, and if a particularly insufferable guy (ie Luke) drooled over her, he wouldn’t be happy about it. But that was normal. He had seen Marissa wander around in a bikini or just her bra and underwear, and accidentally walked in on her getting changed multiple times when they were much younger, but she still just remained Marissa to him. At the start of the summer something just seemed to click, and it had gone on for several months – way too long to be a simple crush, surely. Besides, it didn’t feel like a crush…well it did, in a way, just added to his usual feelings if that made any sense.

…it made no sense.

Why now? Was there no justice in this world? Ryan never got a moment’s peace. If he wasn’t with Marissa, he was talking to Seth, who always talked about himself. And if Ryan wasn’t with either of them, he was stuck with that imagination of his, or at school with people he didn’t like in the slightest…such as Luke, for one. It was a truly maddening cycle, and he doubted he could escape it anytime soon.

After Marissa emerged from the shower, Ryan went in for his own, leaving her to flip through the channels until she found Sleepless in Seattle. She then prepared the bed; she was very specific about the way she slept. She always had to be on her side, and the pillows had to be adequately fluffed and the covers perfectly neat before she actually went to sleep. This in itself took a while because of her tendency for strange sleeping positions.

Ryan reappeared to find Marissa under the covers; upon proper investigation, she had the sheets wrapped around her like a straitjacket. “Hey, give me those.”

She shook her head, “Nope. It’s comfy.”

“You look like a psych patient,” he pointed out while trying to unravel her. “I’ll make you a deal; I won’t complain about Luke for an entire week if you give me my sheets back.”

“Deal.” There was a hint of slyness in her smile, like she was pleased with her accomplishments for the night. “Thanks. And I love you.”

“Thank you.”

Marissa mumbled something under her breath, accidentally throwing the duvet over his face as she reached over to the bedside lamp. This exchange of words had been going on since they were shameless, probably sickeningly cute kids, and though it got slightly weird as they aged, it was one aspect of their friendship that was still perfectly routine. At one point when they were…probably about thirteen, looking back, and their relationship had been awkwardness at its finest, Ryan had responded to the gesture with ‘thank you’, shortly before he hid under the blankets to avoid Marissa’s wrath. These days, he only went with the thank you response to make her smile. Which she was doing, as much as she tried to hide it.

“You can stay under there,” she informed her blanket-covered best friend. “I’m never talking to you again, ever.”

Ryan was unable to help but laugh. “Are we allowed to be serious now?”

“No. I’m sulking and you’re ruining it.”

He emerged from under the duvet to kiss her forehead and mess up her hair as dramatically as possible; laughing, she tried to squirm away from him.

“Still ruining it…”

“I love you. Now let’s go to sleep.”

“Good idea,” Marissa reasoned, shifting around as she tried to get comfortable. This was another thing on Ryan’s list of problems (this particular list was titled ‘I’m having immoral thoughts about my best friend’.) Marissa had this…issue…where she had to squirm like all hell to find a decent place on the bed and it took her forever to go to sleep. Which wouldn’t be that bad, except this ensured that she pressed up against him. A lot. And eventually that was just going to get weird, seeing as he found it hard enough (pun intended) to keep himself in check when they were practically tangled in each other while they slept.

He really had to figure this thing out.

A/N2: Like I said, random idea I’m experimenting with…so tell me what you think, as usual.