A/N: Hey guys! This book is now up to 747 reads and I'm so excited!!! Please tell others about the book if you like it!! Now, I figured it's been some time without any Collin, so I'm going to make this chapter his POV! It starts right after the last chapter just cuz I don't think it's necessary to repeat it in another POV. So here it is, and please comment guys, thx!!! :-D

P.s. I'll tell you when to play the video and it'll make more sense. ;-)

***

Collin's POV

Watching Stephanie dance and sing is one of the most exhilarating things I've ever experienced. No concert and no fan meet and greet has ever given me the high that this girl laughing and singing does. But I know it's safer to keep her as a best friend, because my life is way too hectic, and she shouldn't be brought into that circus. Doesn't mean I'm selfless enough to not be her friend, though.

Amy and Noah do some elaborate dance moves to the song "Dj got us fallin' in love again" that just came through the speakers, and I watch my best friend's face light up. It's so great to see him finally smiling again after such a long time with fake smiles for the paparazzi. I smile at Stephanie's adorable laugh as I twirl her, when suddenly a furious voice covered in fake sweetness comes from the doorway.

"Guys, what are you doing there?" Says a voice strained with controlled anger. I look over and see a girl that looks exactly like all the fake blondes I know in Hollywood glaring at Stephanie, and the director at her side looking bored.

"Just in case your brain cells have died from all the bleach you put in your hair, let me explain it to you Barbie. It's called dancing, it's when you move to the rhythm of the music." Amy says with a big, fake smile. I look at Noah who's struggling not to smile and I smirk.

The blonde glares at Amy, then turns back to me with a flirtatious smile, completely ignoring Stephanie. I raise an eyebrow at her as she twirls a piece of her hair and bats her, probably fake also, eyelashes.

"I'm Stacy, it's soo great to meet you. I'm, like, your biggest fan." She said giggling. Stephanie rolls her eyes and I hear Amy cough and say something that sounded suspiciously like "bimbo". This time Noah can't contain his laughter, but tries and fails to cover it up with a cough. Stacy's jaw clenches, but she keeps her smile intact.

"Well, it's nice to meet another fan, Stacy." I tell her with my fake smile. I then look at the director who's looking at all of us with annoyance and say, " Ma'am Noah, Blake and I have chosen Amy, Jessica and Stephanie as our partners."

Stacy turns red with anger at being dismissed, but I ignore her and look at Mrs.Benson as she nods.

"That's perfect gentlemen, I'll go write it down now. Please, do come out now as we're about to get started on lessons and signing up for events." She tells us. We all nod and she leaves the room with an angry Stacy. I look back at Stephanie who has a mix of emotions in her sky blue eyes.

"Hey, who was that girl? It looked like there's some bad blood between you two." I ask her. She pulls away from my arms and they immediately feel empty without her. She sighs and answers.

"That's my stepsister, unfortunately."

I look at her in surprise. These two girls are nothing alike and not the slightest bit of affection us there for each other. I'd heard of bad step-families, but this one seemed to take the cake.

Just as I'm going to ask her more, though, Amy came over and interlocked their elbows.

"We should get going before the lovely Mrs. Benson comes back." She says.

I nod slowly, but I know this isn't over. I want to know more about Stephanie, about why she has a step-family and much more.

We walk back to the grand ballroom and sit as a group at a table. I look around and see many girls glaring at our table, and I sigh. They all want the person they hear about on tv or in magazines, but that wasn't me. They couldn't find out who I was through Wikipedia or people magazine.

Luckily, at that exact second Mrs. Benson finished writing and demands everyone's attention.

"Alright, ladies and gentlemen, now that you have partners I want to do sign ups for events that are coming up, so we can get those over with and start our first lesson. The first sign up is for the upcoming carnival. There are spots for: teaching dancing classes, manning the ticket booth, giving makeovers, and manning the kissing booth, putting on plays, and being an act in the talent show. Each one of these has shifts, and you're only allowed to take on two shifts. All the papers to sign up on are up on the wall and you can come and sign up, now." She said.

Immediately, everyone got up to get a space in something good. Amy and Noah went straight for the dancing classes, and Blake brought Jess to sign up for putting on plays since he was an up and coming actor. I looked at Stephanie who looked a bit lost, and smirked while bringing her to sign up for the kissing booth. She looked at me with wide eyes and tried to get away, but there was no way that was happening. She was going to sign up, and it was going to be on a separate shift as me. Not that I wanted to kiss her or anything, I just wanted to be able to be there so I could keep away all the creeps.

We signed up, Stephanie with a lot of encouragement, and I dragged her to the talent show sheet.

"You will do this with me Stephanie, I don't care if I have to drag you with me on stage, but you will sing with me." I say sternly. She shakes her head and tries to step away from my grip.

"Collin, no, I told you. I don't want others to know. It'll just bring complications I don't want." She said pleading with me. I stopped, and turned to her.

"Stephanie, you shouldn't be worried. You're amazing and people will love you. They can't tell you to become famous, because only you can decide that. Singing in front of an audience just means doing what you enjoy, and what you're really good at." I say earnestly. It bugged me that she felt she had to hide because of what others might do. I'd get her to sing if it was the last thing I did.

She bit her lip looking very anxious, and I fought myself to stop from looking down at the perfect, soft, plump and pink lip caught in her teeth. She nodded slowly, and I lit up with excitement. I brought her to the sign up sheet before she could change her mind, and then sat down with her and gave her a big hug.

"You won't regret this Stephanie, trust me. It'll be great." I tell her. She looks at me with a nervous but excited smile.

"I got to say, I'm anxious, but also super excited to finally sing in front of an audience." She tells me. I smile back, and turn around as Mrs. Benson goes back to the podium.

***

"That had to be the most boring 20 minutes of my life!" Amy says as we all gather outside after the lesson.

We all laugh, but we know it's the truth. I mean, all the woman did was teach the girls "how to handle a fan properly" and how to address superiors. It took everything in me not to fall asleep on the shiny mahogany table.

"Hey guys, my parents are having a barbecue today. Y'all want to come?" Jessica asks us. Blake immediately says yes, but I have a feeling he'd say yes to anything that meant spending time with her. Stephanie and Amy nod too saying they had nothing to do today, so Noah and I agreed also. Thank God I don't have to do any press stuff today.

"Awesome! So why don't you guys give me your numbers and I'll text you the address so you can go home and change first." Jess tells us. We all nod in agreement, because honestly, no one wants to stay in these formal clothes.

We all head our separate ways, and Noah and I tell his mom we're leaving once we change. Serena immediately gets annoying, and starts making kissing faces until Sam threatens to tell Jenna all her secrets. God I love that kid.

We arrive at Jess' house, a traditional two-floor home with a Puerto Rico flag waving from the rooftop. We get out of the car and immediately the sound of salsa music and rapid fire Spanish hits our ears. I look at Noah with raised eyebrows and he shrugged and knocked on the door.

An old lady swings the door open with a cane held over head and says "Quienes son ustedes! Linda! Vinieron los maliantes esos otra vez!"

While Noah and I look at her with caution a harried middle-aged woman comes running from the kitchen. She gently takes the cane out of the old lady's hand and gets her to go away from the door and with an apologetic smile at us brings her into the living room, but not before the old lady gives us a suspicious look behind her back.

At that moment Jess comes and smiles at us.

"Hey guys! I heard Abuela got to you guys first, so sorry about that. She refused to take her medication today so she's going a little crazy. Anyways, come with me to the backyard where the party's really at!" She says.

We follow her past a kitchen full of women cooking and arguing in rapid fire spanish, the living room with crazy grams on the couch giving me the evil eye, and finally reach the backdoor to get to the backyard.

It's a spacious place with a dance floor organized in the middle with a stereo system blasting the salsa music I'd heard before and couples dancing away, strobe lights hanging overhead, and a big barbecue grill on the other side of the dance floor surrounded by men with beers in their hands.

"So make yourselves comfortable and eat as much as you like! I have to go back in to greet the girls and make sure Blake doesn't get intercepted by Abuela as he comes back from the bathroom!" Jess tells us with a laugh. We chuckle and move toward the food table when she leaves.

"Good God, this smells good!" Noah says as we pile our plates high. I laugh.

"I know right! Don't tell Jenna, but this might beat her cooking!" I say.

Noah gasps in mock outrage and I laugh harder as we reach an empty table to sit at that'll give us a good view of the door and the dance floor.

I'm halfway through the most amazing pulled pork I've ever had in my life (the lady who gave it to me said it was pernil), when I suddenly feel Noah and stiffen and stop eating. (A/N: Play video now!) I look at him in alarm and see him staring at the backdoor. I look over to see Amy in a flowy looking white dress with her hair out and Stephanie in a pink strapless shirt with tight, dark jeans. I stop eating, too, and watch as Jess comes out hand in hand with Blake and introduces them to two hispanic guys. They smile and laugh, then the boys lead them to the dance floor. We watch in silence as they start dance to Robin Thicke's "Everything I can't have". I look over at Noah who's struggling to unclench his jaw as Amy dances professionally with the, admittedly great at dancing, family member of Jess. He looks at me and we silently nod. Time to get our girls back.

We get up and Noah immediately looks for a way in with Amy, but I'm intercepted by one of Jess' spinster aunts who asks me to dance. I, gentlemen that I am, agree and bring her to the dance floor. I dance slowly with her and watch with amusement as my best friend slowly but surely makes his way over to Amy and her dancing partner by dancing with everyone on the way.

I'm finally able to switch partners, and someone up there must love me, because Stephanie turns out to be the person next to me.

"Fancy seeing you here," she says with a smile. I wink and dip her quickly. I bring her back up and see her cheeks are an adorable shade of red and her beautiful smile is bringing out the dimples I love so much on her.

I continue dancing and twirling Stephanie to the fast rhythm of the song, and I look over to see Noah dip Amy and stare into her eyes when he brings her back up. I smile; those two are so in love and can't even see it.

The song ends, and when everyone claps I realize only Noah, Amy, Steph, and I were left on the dance floor. We smile indulgently at the crowd and walk back to our table where Jess and Blake have gotten seats for all of us with more food.

"Damn girl," she says to Amy once we're seated and eating. "You sure got some sofrito on you. Are you sure you don't have any Hispanic blood?"

We all laugh and Amy assures her she's just a good dancer. We resume talking and eating until a big man and the woman who'd taken away crazy grams earlier came over.

"Hello!" The big man says with a heavy Spanish accent once they reached us. I look at him and realized by the way Jess resembles him and the woman that these are her parents.

"It's very good to meet you all. I am Rafael, but everyone calls me Raffy. We moved recently, and it's nice to see my daughter with friends already. However, I would like to talk to you young man." Raffy says looking at Blake with a deadly look in his eye.

Noah and I look at Blake with wide eyes, as he nervously gets up and walks away with Raffy.

"Mami, por favor dime que no le va hacer nada? El me lo prometio!" Jess says to her mom. We all look at her weirdly since we have no idea what she just said, except for Steph who has a smirk on her face.

"Hay mamita, no se. Tu sabes como es tu padre! Dejame ir tras ellos antes de que el pobre muchacho lo asusten demasiado. Pero dejame desirte, escojiste uno bello!" Her mom, Tita she'd told us, says. She walks away quickly with a wave and a wink in our direction, and we all turned to Jess who looks totally pissed off and red in the face.

"Uh, what just happened?" Amy asks. Jess blushes further.

"Sorry guys, I was just making sure my dad didn't go to kill Blake." She replies with wierd look on her face. Steph crosses her arms and gets a mischievous look.

"Did you know that I take Spanish and that when I was little my mom taught me Spanish since she was fluent after many years of learning the language? She even lived in Spain for a year in college." She says with a very pronounced smirk. Jess turned a deep red and glared at her, but I could see the smile she was fighting back.

"So? It's not like anything bad was said." She says.

"Oh no, nothing bad. Just very interesting. "Steph answers with an excited gleam in her eyes an evil smile on her lips. Just as Jess is about to say something, however, two tall and beautiful identical girls come out of the house who look like twenty year old versions of Jess. They walk over to our table, and one of them ruffles Jess hair.

"Hey guys! It's real great to meet you!" She says with a bright smile, and her sister nods with a bright smile of her own. "I'm Sophia and she's Elena, and as you've probably guessed by now, we're Jess' twin older sisters. Most people can tell us apart by our hair length. I'm the bob cut, and Elena is always the one with hair to her waist."

We introduce ourselves, and when the introductions are over, Elena looks over at Jess with an evil grin.

"So who's the delicious looking guy papi's practically gutting in the living room?" She asks. Jess' eyes widen ansd she runs over to the backdoor and hurries inside the house. The twins start laughing so hard, that by the end they actually have to wipe off tears.

"Oh man, that was priceless!" Sophia says. Elena nods and looks over at us.

"Don't worry, that isn't happening. In fact, they're the best of buddies in there, watching baseball together."

We laugh, relieved that our friend isn't actually getting killed, when crazy grams comes out of the house and narrows her eyes at Noah and I. She swiftly walks over and points a shaking finger.

"LOS MALIANTES!" She yells, and everyone in the room looks over and sighs. Elena shakes her head, and both twins grab her arms.

"Abuela, vamonos, necesitas beberte la pastilla. No puedes estar asi!" We hear Sophie saying as they walk her back into the house while she struggles against them.

Amy and Steph look at us with identical smirks, and we glare at them. This is NOT funny!

We talk about everything and anything until the party seems to wind down, and we decide to dance one last time before we leave to the last song of the night. It was a soft and sweet song, with a woman crooning the lyrics in a melodic voice.

The sun sets in the background, and the strobe lights ahead give Steph an ethereal glow as she sways in my arms. I hold her head tight to my pulsing heartbeat, and I wonder if I've ever felt so at peace. No, I decide, life has never been this good.

***

Unknown POV

"Sir, we found him in San Diego. He's staying in his best friend's home."

I look up from my desk and stare intently at my right hand man, Steve. I stroke the stubble on my cheek and get a thoughtful look on my face.

"Alright, don't reveal yourself. This needs to be done slowly and delicately. I can't show myself now or my plan won't work." I say.

Steve looks at me with a sympathetic face and walks away. I turn toward my big bay window, and a deep sigh rattles my body.

I'm coming Collin.

***

A/N: Say WHAAATTT? Lol, what do you guys think? What do you think will happen with the dutiful debutantes? Who do think the unknown POV is? What did you think of Jess' family? Did you understand the Spanish? Heehee, if you didn't it's okay, it actually makes it better for me. :P But yeah, I modelled Jess' family sort of after mine, so I hope you liked that! Anyways, as always please comment, vote, share, and follow! Thanks for reading!