His choice is cancelled, by a sudden interruption

"Well, I..." Zack was starting to reply to Ashley's offer - and seemed positively surprised by her daring suggestion -, even though it was obvious that he was torn between joining her in the shower, or following Vicky back to her room... She never got to hear his answer however, as they were suddenly interrupted by the sound of more people coming in through the front door, and a moment later they were joined in the living room by both Brandon and Gavin.

"Hi, again!" Smiled the former of the two, while the other seemed a little more receptive to the tension in the room, and followed up with a disappointed glance towards the empty kitchen. "I kinda thought you'd started with the lunch already...?"

"Well, it's that time already?" Ashley was the first to break out of her stupor, and managed a quick smile at the newcomers, before turning to continue towards the bathroom. "An excellent idea, really! I guess you can make it while I'm in the shower then...?"

And with that she was out of their sights, while just barely suppressing the urge to slam the bathroom door shut behind her, and she found herself wondering what the heck she'd been thinking. In a way she guessed she was glad for the interruption, as this wouldn't cause any further troubles to the already strained relationships in the group, and it would also mean that Zack and Vicky wouldn't have any time to themselves behind her back. But then again, she found herself unreasonably frustrated by the lack of Zachary's company while she stripped herself out of her swimsuit.

"Damn that guy!" She growled quietly to herself - while stepping into the shower -, and then wondered briefly if she was actually talking about Zack, or that buffoon of her boyfriend who'd managed to step right in between them. Thoughts like that about Brandon made her feel a bit guilty however, as he truly hadn't deserved her to be calling him something like that - and especially not when she'd just been on her way into cheating on him once again...

"Perhaps I should try and apologize to him later..." She pondered then - while remembering fondly their last night together -, but still it was Zachary's handsome face that popped up in her mind again, even while she tried her best to picture what she could do to get even with boyfriend.

"Oh, fuck it...!" She groaned in mild despair, while trying to just enjoy the sensation of warm water pouring down onto her naked skin, though she soon found her fingers moving on their own towards the other kind of wetness between her slender thighs - and no matter how she tried, it certainly wasn't Brandon who she pictured was in there with her in the shower...

Meanwhile, the three guys looked at one another as they were left on their own in the living room, and it took them a few moments to collect their thoughts enough to say or do anything useful together at all. To Zack it was fairly obvious why Ashley had been storming off in a hurry like that, while to Brandon it appeared like quite the mystery, and it was clearly making him a little uneasy.

"Lunch then, wasn't it...?" Gavin was the first of them to finally speak up, and then headed immediately for the kitchen, without looking back to see if the others were following him. When concerning Ashley he really didn't know what to think anymore, and he'd already decided to keep out of the other guys troubles. It was still just a few days ago after all, when the girl had been clearly upset about Brandon spending some time on his own with Heather, but ever since then she'd often been acting even more frivolous around the others than the busty cheerleader captain herself...

"Do you have some kind of plan then...?" Zachary pulled him out of the chain of thoughts, as he'd apparently been following right behind him into the kitchen, and caused them both to stop and look around for any clues of what to do.

"We could always heat up the grill again?" Suggested Brandon from the doorway, before the others had started to look into the fridge, but wasn't as well received as he'd hoped for.

"I think we should save that for dinner really..." His friends objected reluctantly, almost in chorus, which caused all three of them to burst into a short laughter.

"Well, alright then...!" Brandon agreed, while the tension between them seemed to finally drift away, and then he joined them in their search for something edible in the various cupboards and the shelves inside the fridge. "But don't you dare say a word about salad again!"

"Sounds good with me!" Said another voice from behind them, and they all looked back to find Victoria watching them from the doorway. Once again she was acting like nothing had happened at all between herself and Zack - as she was calmly combing her long blonde hair, without a hint of emotion towards him in her beautiful green eyes -, which only caused him even frustration than he'd already dealt with on the subject.

Still he managed to mirror that lack of emotions however, as he figured that this was hardly the appropriate time or place to speak about it anyways, and he tried his best to just smile and accept as she offered her help in trying to find them some food. The others were much more genuine on this matter of course, and he couldn't keep from feeling a little pang of jealousy as he noticed how each of his two friends threw appreciating glances at her slender figure - which wasn't made any better by the fact she was wearing little more than her lingerie and a white little t-shirt, which in turn was practically a see-through, due to the lingering wetness from her recent shower.

That's when he realized she wasn't quite acting like her usual self though, as he'd never seen her wearing something revealing like that without blushing heavily, and it caused him to pay a little more attention to how she moved through the kitchen between them.

It wasn't quite the sort of change in her that he'd come to wish for, though he could still conceive it as a small step on the right way - especially when she glanced back at him over her shoulder for a second, while she was leaning forwards over the counter, and winked at him flirtatiously when she could see him quickly looking up from her petite derriere...