"Oh my God…when was the last time I slept in my own bed?" I ask as I flop down on my bed.

Daddy sets my suitcase down and puts his hands on his hips. "Um, a couple of weeks ago when you were here visiting Ashleigh in the hospital?"

I lift up my head and chuckle. "Oh. No, wait…I slept with mama in your bed. It just feels like forever since I've been home."

"Well, circumstances last time were unusual."

"True," I sigh.

He stands there and stares at me.

"What?" I ask sitting up.

"Your mama told me about Brad."

"Oh," I say looking down at my hands.

He sits down next to me and wraps an arm around my shoulder.

"It will all work out in the long run."

"I know," I say quietly. "I'll just miss him, that's all," I say with a shrug.

"He hasn't taken it yet, has he?"

I shake my head. "No, he hasn't given them an answer but it sounds so great for him," I say looking up at him. "He shouldn't pass it up…no matter what reason."

He leans over and kisses my temple.

"You never know…it might not be right for him."

"Adriana, phone," mama yells from downstairs.

"Coming," I yell back.

I run downstairs and get the phone.

When I hung up the phone mama asks, "How is Darcy?"

"She's good. She figured I'd be home by now. We're going to go do something later," I say sitting on a stool next to the counter in the kitchen.

Mama raises her eyebrows at me. "You'd better call Andre…"

I whine, "Do I have to?"

"Yes, you have to," she says tapping my nose. "Do you even know where you're going or what you're doing?"

"No," I say looking away.

"Well then."

"God, I can't even be normal and hang out with my old high school friends," I mumble.

"Nope, you gave up that privilege when you signed that recording contract."

I look into her eyes and when I don't see any sympathy I get off of the stool and storm up to my room.

Justin walks into the kitchen after passing a very pissed Adriana running up the stairs. He sees his wife leaning over the counter, her head in her hands. He walks over to her and rubs her back.

"You okay?"

She nods, not removing her head from her hands.

"I had to be the sensible mom and she didn't like that."

"You want me to go talk to her?"

She stands up and wraps her arms around his waist, resting her head against his chest.

"No, she'll think about it and realize that she can't go out without a bodyguard."

He pulls her back slightly so he can look her in the eyes. "She wanted to go out without a bodyguard?"

Britney nods.

"Where?"

"With her friends from school."

"Yeah, she'll get over it," he agrees.

After standing there a couple of minutes like that, Justin speaks up again.

"So all the guys and their families are going to be here the day after tomorrow…"

Britney nods.

"And Adriana still doesn't know about this, does she?"

"No, we're good at keeping secrets."

"I realize that," he says rubbing her stomach.

Britney pulls back and looks down.

"Britttt."

"Well…Adriana guessed."

"She guessed?"

"Well, she was kidding around. She noticed my symptoms and she joked that I was pregnant. I wasn't going to lie to her."

"So, how long has she known?"

"Since Ash was in the hospital."

Justin nods.

"Are you angry?"

He covers his heart with his hand. "Oh…that hurts. I can't believe you even have to ask me that."

"You know what I mean. I know you're not "I'm not going to talk to you" mad…but I kept this from you…that she knew."

He leans down and kisses her. "No, I'm not angry. But you realize you could have told me that she knew."

"It slipped my mind at the time."

"We going shopping?" Ashleigh asks as she skips into the kitchen.

Justin picks her up and sets her on the counter they're standing by.

"You want to?" Britney asks her.

Ashleigh nods. "Yes. I need some new clothes. The one I have from last year are out of style," she says looking down at the shirt she's wearing.

Britney puts both of her hands on her hips. "Who have you been hanging around, little miss thang?"

"It's on TV. They said what I was wearing last year is already out of style."

Britney leaned in and kissed her cheek. "Well, we must do something about that…oh and get something that fits you, too. I doubt all of your out of style clothes from last year will fit anyway. I think you've grown at least an inch since last year."

"Really? Wow, soon I'll be as tall as daddy."

They chuckle.

"Why don't you go see if sissy wants to come with us. She's in her room," Britney says lifting her off of the counter and setting her down.

"Cody too?"

"No, your daddy will take him shopping."

Justin glares at Britney. When Ashleigh skips out of the room, Britney grabs her lower back.

"I shouldn't have lifted her down like that."

"Oh Brit…don't say stuff like that…it only makes me worry," Justin says standing behind her and rubbing the spot she's holding.

"I just pulled something I think."

A few minutes later Ashleigh comes back into the kitchen.

"She says she doesn't want to come," she says sadly.

Justin and Britney look at each other.

"I'll be back," Britney says. She touches Ashleigh's head on her way by to go upstairs.

She knocks on Adriana's door. All she can hear is music playing so she knocks again.

I'm laying on my bed, staring up at the ceiling, trying to drown out my anger with music. Suddenly my door comes open.

"God, can't you knock?" I say sitting up quickly.

Mama stands by my bed, with her hands on her hips.

"First of all…don't ever use that tone with me."

She grabs the remote control from me and turns the stereo off.

"Do you understand me?"

I look down at my bedspread and nod. "Yes ma'am."

"Secondly, we had plans to go shopping with your sister today. You're not backing out of them so that you can pout."

I look up at her. "I’m not pouting."

"What are you doing then?"

When I don't answer her she picks up my shoes and throws them on the bed next to me.

"Be downstairs in five minutes."

She turns and leaves the room. I think I'm sitting here in shock now. My mother has never talked to me that way. Well, I've never given her a reason to, I guess.

Slowly I get up off of the bed and put my shoes on. I run a brush through my hair and go downstairs. Mama, Ashleigh and daddy are now in the family room.

I walk into the room with my head down.

"I'm ready," I say.

Daddy stands up and kisses the top of my head. "Have fun."

"Yeah."

I walk out the door as mama and Ashleigh say goodbye to daddy. I look up and see Andre waiting by the car.

"Of course," I say.

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asks.

"I should have figured you'd be here to take me shopping too. Do you need to go into the bathroom with me too?"

"With that attitude…you might make some enemies so that I will have to go into the bathroom with you…to save your butt."

"Ha ha."

I get into the car and wait for mama and Ashleigh to join me.

Ashleigh scoots in and sits next to me. She starts bouncing up and down.

"Can we go to the big mall?" she asks.

"Sounds good to me. Adriana, did you have any preferences."

"No," I mumble.

When we're almost there I look over at mama. She's taking deep breaths and trying not to let us notice.

"You okay?" I ask her.

She gives me a weak smile and nods. "I just felt a little nauseous."

"Maybe we should eat something when we get there…does that help?"

"Uh…not really. It will pass," she says patting my leg.

"You sick mommy?" Ashleigh asks.

"Just don't feel well right now honey. I'll feel better when we get to the mall."

And she was right. The nausea passed by the time we got to the mall and we went shopping for Ashleigh's school clothes. I picked up a couple of cute t-shirts along the way as well.

"I like this skirt," Ashleigh says holding up a plaid mini-skirt.

"It's too big for you," I tell her taking it from her and looking at it.

"No, for you."

I hold it up to me and look in the mirror.

"Excuse me."

"Yes?" I ask turning to look at two girls next to me.

"Aren't you that girl that's dating Marcus Tyler?"

I try not to laugh.

"Um, no. I'm not dating him."

"But didn't you used to?"

"Nope, never did. Maybe you're thinking of Sasha."

"Well we know she dated him but we thought you did too. You're Ana, right?"

"Yes…but trust me, I never dated Marcus. Wherever you heard that, it's wrong."

"We read it on his website."

I drop my hands to my sides and look at them.

"What?"

"Yeah, his official website there's pictures of other artists and his friends and under your picture it says something about dating you for a little bit before you left the tour."

I cover my mouth with my hand.

"Oh my God. Well sorry girls, don't believe everything you read. We did hang out a couple of times but I would hardly call that dating."

"Oh," they said, both sounding disappointed. "Well, can we get your autograph…please?"

I smile. "Sure."

I take the pen and paper from them and scribble a quick message and sign my name. Ashleigh walks closer to me and wraps her arms around my waist as she looks up at the two girls.

"You're a cutie," one of them says to her. "You look a lot like your daddy."

She smiles and nods.

"Tell her thank you," I whisper to her.

"Thank you."

"Thanks for signing these for us. We didn't mean to interrupt your day. We were just curious about you and Marcus because he's so hot."

"No problem."

The one girl walks away and the other stops and turns to look at me again.

"Is he a good kisser?"

"I wouldn't know," I shrug.

"Oh…okay. Thanks," she says before she turns around and catches up with her friends.

I look over and see Andre watching me. He nods his head and continues his watch.

"Did you know those girls?" mama asks. She had two bags in her hand of stuff she just bought for us.

"No. Get this…"

I told her what they said.

"His website? Hmmm that's strange."

We leave the store.

"Mama you haven't bought anything yet," Ashleigh says.

"I'm going to find something in one of these department stores," she says as we turn into Lord and Taylor.

We walk by the maternity section and I nudge her.

"Not yet, thank you very much," she says. "I just need roomier clothes right now. Why don't you two look in the junior's section and I'll be over here."

We meet up after about an hour.

"Mama did you buy something?" Ashleigh asks.

"I did. I'll show you when we get home."

We decide we're hungry and go find the food court. After that we go to a couple more stores.

"Sissy, look…it's your picture," Ashleigh says.

I walk over to her and she's looking at a postcard like thing with my picture on it. On the back it says, Ana is "Wanted".

"What is this?" I ask flipping it over.

Mama glances over my shoulder. 

"Who knows. They'll plaster your face on anything to make money."

I set the postcard down. "Can they do that?"

"I guess. Larry always spewed something off about the record company having certain rights or something. He was my lawyer so he would know."

"Weird."

On the drive back home, my cell phone rings.

"Hello?"

"Hi…enjoying being home?" Brad asks.

"Yes I am, actually. Mama and Ashleigh and I just went shopping."

"Uh oh, sounds like trouble."

I laugh. "You better be nice…I bought you something."

"Really? When do I get to see what it is?"

"Tomorrow."

"Not tonight?"

"Oh…I'm going out with some friends from school tonight."

"Oh okay. That's good, you probably haven't seen them in awhile."

"If I had known you wanted to do something I wouldn't have made plans…"

He laughs. "No really…Adriana, it's okay. Have fun."

"I'll have as much fun as I can with a bodyguard watching all my moves."

Mama gently slaps my leg.

"What are you talking about…we hardly ever notice Andre when we're out."

"Yeah but my friends aren't used to it."

"They'll be fine. I'll let you go. Have fun tonight. I can't wait to hear all about it tomorrow."

"You have fun too…doing whatever you're going to be doing."

"I will. Bye."

When we get home Aunt Kristen and Uncle JC's car is in the driveway.

"Oh company," mama says.

We pile out of the car and make our way inside.

Ashleigh is the first to greet them. She and Pete already make their way into her playroom.

"Ohhh shopping. Sounds like fun," Aunt Kristen says as she gives mama a hug.

"It was."

"Let me see what you got," she says peaking into the bag.

She skims the items and looks back up at mama.

"You'll have to model that light blue number later," she winks at her.

Mama laughs. "Only one person will be seeing that thank you very much."

They laugh and daddy and Uncle JC, who were talking notices that they're looking at him.

"Huh?" he says.

"You'll find out later," mama says, patting him on his butt as she walks by him.

I shake my head. "My parents," I say.