step into the clear, tag; alex, marissa, ryan

[seth cohen]

so it was that time of the day again, when sandy cohen had been the welcoming neighbour and invited the new family on the street over to dinner. truthfully, seth wasn't too sure about it, but then again, he had spoken to ryan previously and he knew that he seemed all right with him coming over. it was just the rest of the family? but who knew really. seth had over heard something sandy said to kirsten about how the atwoods moved here after they struck it lucky. that was a seriously big break, which meant that if at all, ryan wasn't going to be a popular kid, in the nicest of ways.

making his way out of his room, seth made his way out of the house and down to the pool house. seth had given a call to marissa before and asked her to come over for some sort of support, and also so she could figure out whether ryan was going to be a 'popular' kid as well. it was always a good reason anyway, not to mention both of them could suss him out, discuss it later and then agree on a finding. walking up the few steps, seth gently rapped on the glass door before speaking. "al, it's me. we have to get ready soon, the new people are coming soon," he called out, looking up at the sky and looking a little bored.

[alex kelly]

completely bored in the poolhouse, alex had been laying on the poolhouse bed, playing with the cell phone the cohens had given her in some attempt to find the rest of her family. mainly that consisted of calling her friends back in corona, and then the friends of her brothers, but each and every phone call resulted in a dead end. which sucked, because alex kind of wanted to be with her family again. not that the cohens weren't great, and newport was definitely something different from corona, but there was just something about being with a family that nothing could replace - not even a surrogate or loaner one. sighing, alex was about to give up and throw her headphones on and blare some sort of music - what yet she wasn't sure - but when there was a knock on the poolhouse door, the blonde heard seth's voice and groaned, remembering that sandy had invited the new neighbours over for dinner. wasn't sandy cohen the welcoming shepherd of newport beach?

"i'm ready seth," the blonde called back, deciding not to change out of the black wifebeater and destroyed denim jeans she had been wearing all day. after all, this was how she did things, and she wasn't going to dress up in the ... nonexistent closet she had for the neighbours who probably wouldn't even like her. sure, she heard sandy say something about how they had gotten a break of sorts to allow them to move to newport beach, but she still was a bit sketchy about them. after all, they were rich and now part of newport beach's inner circle of society, so who knew how that'd spoil them?

[marissa cooper]

Marissa had to admit that she was excited to be having dinner at the Cohens. She had eaten over with Seth so many times before, but this time was different. This time, Ryan would be there, too. It had been a few days since Marissa had run into the mystery boy, and she still couldn't shake him from her thoughts. If it weren't for the fact that it had her smiling more than usual she would think it to be very weird and uncomfortable.

Kirsten let Marissa in, as warmly as ever, and said that Seth was back in the pool house with Alex. Marissa smiled a thanks and walked through the living room into the back yard. She could see Seth and Alex through the windows. It wasn't until she reached the door that she realized that she had been holding her breath a little--she was trying to figure out if Ryan had already gotten there and was somewhere inside. He wasn't. What was the big deal? Why did she care? She was just being stupid. She was stupid to hold her breath and stupid to spend extra time getting ready for dinner. Was it going to be obvious that she was wearing more makeup than usual?

"Hey guys," Marissa greeted, opening the poolhouse door. "Wow, it really is weird having you live back here, now... I don't think I ever came in here much until you came," she commented, dropping her purse off against a wall and kicking off her shoes before taking a seat on the bed. "I really like it, though,"