ONE:

"What are you doing here?" Adam asked me as I walked into the living room of our spacious house.

"Geez Adam, a nice 'Hi Elliana, I'm happy to see you' would be nice," I said, half joking.

He sighed and ran his hand through his hair, "Sorry Ellie, the auditions have just been frustrating. The band is never going to find a good guitarist to replace Ryan."

"Oh c'mon Adam, it's only been a week that you've had the auditions."

"Well then it's been a hell of a long week. You have no idea how many people think they're great, when they really suck." I chuckled and he glared at me before smiling himself.

"Adam, you here?" someone called out. Then in came Tanner Wilkson and Blake Edwards.

Okay, let me explain a few things to prevent any confusion. Adam Patterson is my very own eighteen year old brother, just a year older than me. He has blonde hair, blue eyes, a 6'4" lean body, and an amazing singing voice. Adam and I look alike in the sense that we both have natural blonde hair and blue eyes, but I'm only a mere 5'4" compared to his tall figure.

Tanner and Blake are the same age as Adam, and the three of them have been best friends since they could talk. They were also best friends with Ryan, and together they formed their band a year ago, calling it Unknown Jealousy. Wondering why their band is called that? Well, when they first started playing instruments and creating songs for fun, Ryan was going out with a very pretty girl. Apparently the other guys felt a little jealous that Ryan was going out with a pretty girl or something, but they didn't want to admit it. But, the girl ended up flirting with a bunch of other guys, and eventually broke up with Ryan. When Adam told suggested 'Unknown Jealousy', Ryan thought it was cool and agreed to name their band that. To me, it sounds like they left out part of the whole story, but that's the basics I guess.

Anyway, since I'm only a year younger than them, the boys have always been extra brothers to me. I didn't fall for Tanner's brown hair and green eyes, or Blake's multicolored hair and warm smile. Ryan was also like another brother to me, so I was just as sad as everyone else when he moved two weeks ago. At first, the band didn't want to find a new band guitarist, but it's what they want to do with their future, so they had to find someone.

"Hey guys," I said to Tanner and Blake. They smiled back and sat next to me on the couch.

"Hey Ellie. I thought you were supposed to be hanging out with Sandra now?" Tanner wondered.

"She's on her way over now, but she takes forever to get ready. Are you having more auditions later?"

"Yeah, we told everyone who called to meet us here in a few hours," Blake answered.

"Oh, okay. Has anyone had at least some potential?"

Tanner laughed, "Hah, definitely not." Blake and Adam nodded in agreement. That's when I heard the doorbell ring, but the door was opened before it could finish ringing.

"Hey!" Sandra greeted happily. Sandra White has been my best friend ever since we discovered each other's love for Disney movies. We still watch Disney movies together too, even at the age of seventeen. She has long dark brown hair and bright blue eyes. She is one of the funniest, kindest, most random people I know and I don't know what I'd do without her.

However, when Sandra let herself into my house, she brought over a boy who looked about our age behind her. I've never seen him before, so I thought that maybe he was new. Our neighborhood constantly had upper middle-class houses on sale, so it wasn't surprising that new families moved in every month.

I jumped off the couch to hug my best friend. "Hey! And who is this you brought?" I asked.

She smiled brightly, "This is my new neighbor!"

The boy smiled at me. He was actually quite cute, with his straight brown hair coming out of his Volcom hat, shining brown eyes, and a tall lean figure. "Hi, I'm Carter," he said, holding out his hand to greet me. I took it, smiling.

"Hi, I'm Elliana."

"But we call her Ellie," Sandra interjected.

"Whoa wait a second, who are you?" Adam asked, even though Carter just introduced himself. Oh great, now he was going into his older brother protective mode. Please queue the eye rolling!

Carter's smile faltered, but it remained on his face. "I'm Carter."

Tanner and Blake stood up too, but they knew not to act as protective as my brother. Otherwise I would seriously get pissed off at them, which they knew to avoid.

"What's your last name?" Adam asked a little rudely.

"Jenkins."

"How old are you?"

"Seventeen."

"Adam! Can you stop interrogating him?"

"Well we don't know him Ellie!" Adam said, getting frustrated.

"Well stop acting so rude so that we can get to know him!"

He sighed but before he could say anything more, I grabbed Sandra and Carter's arms and pulled them into the kitchen, hoping Adam would stay in the living room. I guess he got the memo because he didn't follow us.

"Sorry, sometimes my older brother goes into that protective mode," I told Carter.

He smiled, "It's okay, I understand."

I smiled back, "So what do you want to do?"

Carter shrugged while Sandra answered me, "Actually, I have to go back home to help my mom. She said something about chores I think."

"But you just got here!" I whined.

She rolled her eyes playfully. "I see you almost every day Ellie," she laughed.

I stuck my tongue out at her, "Fine, go have fun with your chores, but can you at least come back to watch the auditions with me?"

"Auditions?" Carter asked.

I nodded, "My brother and the other guys you saw, Tanner and Blake, have a band, but their guitarist moved two weeks ago. So they're looking for a new one, with absolutely no luck so far."

"Oh. Well my brother plays guitar."

"You have a brother?"

"Yeah, he's a year older than me. He's been playing guitar for years, but never tried out for a band or anything."

"Is he good?"

"Yeah, he's pretty awesome at guitar."

"Do you think he would want to audition?"

Carter shrugged, "I don't know, I can ask him though. When are the auditions?"

"The next auditions are in a few hours."

He nodded, "Okay, I'll go back with Sandra and ask him."

I jumped up and down with excitement, "YAY! Maybe they'll actually find the guitarist they've been looking for!"

Carter laughed and Sandra ignored my usual behavior. "I can't promise he'll come though. Sometimes he can have an I'm-better-than-you attitude, so I don't know if he'll try out, you know?"

"What if you beg him to come? No, really, Adam hasn't been able to find ANYONE that's even close to good, so this would be like the best thing ever."

He smiled, "You haven't even heard him play."

"You said he's been playing for years, so he HAS to be good!"

"Okay okay, I'll ask him."

"THANK YOU!" I shouted excitedly before hugging my new friend. Carter was a little surprised at first, but he hugged me back. The weird thing is, I feel like I've known him way longer instead of just knowing him for just twenty minutes. He seemed trustworthy and nice.

"Alright, let's go," Sandra said, hugging me before she left.

"I'll see you in a few hours, and hopefully your brother too!"

After they left, I skipped to the living room. Adam, Blake and Tanner were talking about something when I entered the room.

"Guess what?!"

"What?" Blake said.

"I think I got you a guitarist!"

"Huh?" Tanner said.

"Well, not really. Carter's brother has played guitar for years, so he must be good, right? Anyway, I told Carter that the next auditions were in a few hours, and he said he'd ask him!"

Adam glared at me, "We still don't even know Carter, so why would we let his brother into the band?"

I glared back since he was ruining my happy mood. "Why would you let some random stranger in your band then? Do you get to know them well enough before you accept them into your band? Stop being an idiot, Adam."

"How the hell am I being an idiot?"

I rolled my eyes, "You were so rude to Carter! He and his family are new in this town, so he doesn't know anyone. Obviously he's nice if Sandra brought him here. It's not like she'd bring a total jerk to meet us. Just give him and his brother a fair chance, got it?" I explained before stomping off to my room down the hall.

After a couple hours of relaxing in my room, I became extremely bored. I still didn't want to go out there and see Adam since he was just being a stupid protective brother. I'm turning eighteen in a few months, so do I really need someone to protect me? I think I can handle myself, thank you very much.

Not being able to stand my boredom, I decided to switch on some music and put my clothes away that I had yet to get around to. I put on a CD that only had Disney songs on it and started taking clothes from the huge pile behind me. As I took clothes, I folded them and put them on my bed, but once the song 'Under The Sea' came on from the Little Mermaid, I couldn't refrain myself from singing loudly and dancing wildly.

I was just starting to sing the chorus when I turned around and saw that my door was half open. Not only was my door half open for no reason, but a guy was leaning against my doorway, amused at my singing and weird dancing.

The second I saw him, I screamed at tripped backwards over the pile of clothes on my floor. I scrambled to get up and shut the music off before walking over to the guy.

"Who the hell are you?!"

The guy simply smirked in return, not answering at first. When he finally spoke, he said, "Nice dance moves."

I glared back at them after he mocked me, "Again, who the hell are you?"

"Why Under The Sea? Surely you could've picked a better song," he said, ignoring my question for the second time.

I crossed my arms across my chest, "Actually, it happens to be one of my favorite songs. Do you have a problem with that?"

He shrugged, "To each their own I guess."

"Scott! C'mon, we have a few things to go over," Adam called from down the hall. So his name was Scott apparently.

Without saying anything else, he straightened himself up and walked away from my room, probably to the recording studio we had in our basement. The only reason he could be here is for auditions, like many of the other guys (and some girls) have been coming to our house, and auditions tonight started not too long ago. I shook my head in disbelief at the guy who had insulted my song choice. It's Disney, how could you beat that?! Whatever, I shut my door all the way and went back to putting my clothes away, but before I did, I made sure to blast another Disney song and sang along with it.

Since it was the summer, I was definitely liking that I could sleep late everyday if I wanted to. Usually I only slept until nine though. So when I got up around that time, I took a shower, got dressed, and went into the kitchen. Sometimes it's nice to have parents that work a lot (both of my parents are lawyers) because if they were here, they'd probably wake me up early every chance they got. Both my parents are morning people, constantly up by six or seven.

When I walked into the kitchen, I called Sandra right away and asked her to come over, bringing Carter along if he wanted to join us. She agreed and said they'd be over in twenty minutes or so.

Soon Sandra and Carter rang the doorbell, but once again walked in before the doorbell could finish ringing. They walked into the living room and sat on the same couch I was on.

"Hey, how are you two?" I asked.

"Good," they both answered. We talked about different things, and I learned more about Carter. He was actually funnier than I first thought, and the three of us were getting along really well. Just as we were talking about favorite things of ours, I heard the basement door open from the hall on the other side of the living room. I ignored it since it was probably just Adam practicing down there. He usually stayed down there for the majority of the day, only coming up for a bathroom break or to get food.

"What's your favorite song?" Carter asked me.

"Well I have ton of favorite songs, but one of them is—"

"Under The Sea, unfortunately," someone interrupted me. I looked away from Carter and saw Adam, Tanner, Blake, and…Scott?!

"What are you doing here?" I asked rudely.

"He's our new guitarist," Tanner said, confused at my tone.

"WHAT?!"

Scott smirked at my reaction and I focused my attention on Adam. "Can I talk to you in the kitchen Adam?"

He looked confused, but nodded and followed me out of the living room. Once we were safely in the kitchen, I flipped out a little.

"What the hell is he doing here?!"

"Tanner told you, he's our new guitarist," Adam said simply.

"But what about Carter's brother!"

"That is Carter's brother. His name is Scott Jenkins."

"Huh? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!"

"No? Why, what's wrong with him?"

"Yesterday he mocked my Disney song," I said quietly.

Adam laughed, "Well I do that too, Ellie."

"Yeah, but you're not a total stranger. And he's…rude."

He rolled his eyes now, "You're the one who suggested to give him a chance, so we did. It turned out he was the best we've seen yet, and we probably won't find someone better than him anytime soon. Maybe you should give him a chance now. He's actually pretty cool."

I sighed. "Fine," I said so that I could just end this conversation. Adam walked back into the living room and I slowly followed him. Without glancing at Scott again, I asked Sandra and Carter if they wanted to go out somewhere. They agreed and we left, saying a general goodbye to everyone else. Before leaving, I finally glanced back at the guys, only to see Scott smirking straight at me. Yeah right, like I'd give a jerk like him a chance. I'd rather just leave to avoid his stupid smirk. But I know I'd be seeing a lot more of him now that he was part of my brother's band. Oh lucky me.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hello! So I used to have a website with character pictures, but it's no longer active. Therefore, I picked a "cast" that would play each character:

Brittany Snow as Elliana Patterson

Logan Lerman as Scott Jenkins

William Moseley as Carter Jenkins

Alexandra Daddario as Sandra White

Hunter Parrish as Adam Patterson

Jack Barakat as Blake Edwards

Avan Jogia as Tanner Wilkson

Shaun Sipos as Josh Flanning

Susan Coffey as Riley James

Thanks, and please ignore any mention of a website from here on!

~Savanna