“Hi.” She responded, her lips upturning in a tight, forced smile.

“This is Ashley.” Glen introduced proudly, his biceps flexed as he outstretched an arm towards her.

“Nice to meet you Ashley, I’m Spencer.” The other girl introduced her face lighting up in a genuine smile. If the brunette hadn’t been so irked she might have appreciated it just a tad bit more.

“So you two live around here?” Ashley inquired, curious to see just how secluded she was in her aunts home. After all, she should have a backup plan incase Josie started to get all Mommy Dearest on her.

Glen nodded, looking incredibly pleased with himself for some bizarre reason, “Yep. Just around the corner.”

Meanwhile the blonde girl was squinting slightly, her head cocked to the side as her lips pulled into a contemplative frown, “You know, you look just like Josie… You aren’t her niece are you?”

“The one and only.” She replied without any enthusiasm, her arms crossing over her chest. She wondered just how much these two knew about her sordid past.

Glen’s eyes widened then ran over her one more time, seeming to notice the similarities now that his sister had mentioned it, “Oh, we’ve heard about you.”

“That’s never a good thing.” Ashley spoke, smirking slightly at his ominous tone.

The other girl laughed in response, her blue eyes crinkling at the corners, “Well, not much trouble to get in out here.”

“We’ll see about that.” Replied the dark haired girl, smiling briefly. She was sure that she could find some kind of scandal to stir up in this small town. How hard could it really be? Maybe if she pissed her aunt off enough she’d get sent home. That or to some kind of boot camp for misbehaving teens.

Spencer chuckled, shaking her head slightly at the mischievous girl standing in front of her. She had a feeling that this summer was going to be a little more eventful than the previous 14 had been, “Good luck with that.”

“We should be getting home.” Glen spoke as he finally pealed his eyes off of the slender brunette and turned them to his sister, “You know what Mom said…”

“Okay.” The blonde agreed, nodding slightly as she wiped her muddy hand off on her cutoff jean shorts before offering it to Ashley, “It was nice meeting you.”

Ashley hesitated briefly before shaking it, their two hands rising and falling in one motion before separating, “Yeah. You too.”

Ashley watched the pair leave and was surprised to realize that she’d actually sort of meant it. She was relieved she had some people her age nearby. Besides, the blonde girl had seemed nice. Not that her usual crowd was composed of a lot of nice people, but the girl pulled it off well. Smiling to herself she turned and walked home, unaware that the girl heading the opposite direction was doing the same exact thing.