Wow, I'm completely overwhelmed by the number of reviews I got for the first chapter... thank you so much...
A lot of people wanted to know a bit more about the history of Lauren and Joey... hopefully this chapter will go into that in more detail...
Well, the last chapter ended on a bit of a cliffhanger didn't it? We pick up with this one from the same place... and you'll be able to find out what it was that Lauren found... and what happens after... it might be a little messy. I think Joey is going to have some explaining to do... How will Lauren take what he has to tell her?
Chapter 2.
Joey walked out of the bathroom and into the main room. Lauren was standing by the window, staring out into the dark. "Is there something you need to tell me…?" she asked, her voice much harder than it'd been a few minutes earlier.
Joey frowned, "Not that I can think of…" he said, slightly confused by her sudden change in attitude.
Lauren spun round to face him and Joey was taken back by the look of anger on her face. "I was going to just leave… while you were in the bathroom… but then I got angry… and I felt cheap… as cheap as the guys I used to go out with who'd fuck me down a dark alley somewhere and leave as soon as they'd got what they wanted… not bothering to make sure I was satisfied… or that I'd enjoyed it…" She glared at him, "I thought you were a nice guy… a good guy… someone different… Hell, I even thought there might be something else… something there…" She stopped talking, her breath heavy as she stared at him, hands on her hips. "Well?" She glared at him expectantly.
"I don't know what I've done to piss you off… but if you want to go, I'm not stopping you…" he said, his arms crossing, now slightly pissed off with how she was behaving.
"You don't know what you've done?" she spat, "Does your wife know you're here…?"
"My wife…" Joey breathed.
"I saw your wedding ring… on your bedside table…" she said, "You know, if you wanted to play around… if you're just here for a bit of fun on the side, you should really think about hiding it a bit better…" she told him indignantly.
"I don't have a wife…" Joey said softly, his previous anger dissipating noticeably.
"If you don't have a wife then why do you have a wedding ring…?" Lauren interrupted angrily.
"Anymore…" Joey finished. The room was silent and Joey knew he owed her an explanation. He also knew it was going to be a difficult few minutes when he finally said it. "I got married five years ago… Her name was Amy… She was the love of my life… One of a kind…" he said softly. "Life was perfect… we were perfect. We'd been married almost two years when we discovered that Amy was pregnant. I was overjoyed. Before Amy I'd never even thought about having a family… but I knew she would be the mother of my children as soon as I met her. She sailed through her pregnancy… we found out it was going to be a boy at the scan and picked a name for him. Christopher… after her dad." Joey stopped speaking, taking a couple of deep breaths. "She was seven months pregnant and she'd been unwell for a few days. I convinced her to go to the doctor. He examined her and we were told to go to the hospital… he mentioned getting an ultrasound. So we did what he said, wanting to make sure that Christopher was okay… We were so worried that there was something wrong with him… that we were going to lose him… but then we were told that…" He stopped again, his hands clenching at his thighs. "That…" He lowered his head, "Amy had a tumour… on her ovary. We were both shell shocked… we were told the tumour had been hidden by her uterus which is why it hadn't been picked up before… but because of the increased hormones from the pregnancy it had grown…"
"Joey, you don't…" Lauren whispered, interrupting him again.
Joey held up his hand, looking at her, "No, you're right… you deserve an explanation… and I need to say it… It's been more than two years and I never talk about it… to anyone…" He took a minute before he spoke again. "The tumour was advanced… the doctor who confirmed the sonographer's diagnosis told us that it would need to be removed… the whole ovary, not just the tumour." He told her, "He wanted to operate straight away… but that would be extremely dangerous for Christopher." He moved, sitting on the edge of the bed, his back to Lauren. All his energy had left his body with those last few words. "We talked about it and Amy didn't want to do it… she wanted to wait until he was born… We even spoke to the doctor about it but he told us that she didn't have that long… every day we waited was another day where the cancer spread… Amy was devastated… We both knew what we had to do… but it was the last thing either of us wanted…" he explained. "They took them down to theatre two days later… Her parents were there… so were my mum and sister… but I'd never felt so alone… Part of me was missing… the other half of me…" He leaned heavily on his knees, his head in his hands. "It was the longest three hours of my life… I wanted it over so badly… but then… when I saw the surgeon walking towards me, then all I wished was that it'd been longer. He took me to a side room… sat me down… sat opposite me… he told me the operation was more complicated than he'd anticipated, the tumour was much larger than expected… even larger than the scan had indicated… He also said it wasn't limited to just her ovary either… there were smaller tumours in her bladder, her bowels… He told me he suspected there were more tumours throughout her body. He said she was in intensive care… but there was little he could do for her. She was going to die…" He whispered the last words. "She got a little worse each day… she only lasted a week after the operation… I stayed by her side throughout desperately hoping for some kind of miracle… Trying to give her the strength to keep going… They broke the news she was brain dead… but they were keeping her alive in the hope that Christopher would survive… she was basically a living incubator which I detested and loved in equal measures…" He looked at Lauren as he felt her sit on the bed beside him. "He wasn't strong enough though…" he whispered, "He died four days after she did… I lost them both in the space of a week… I lost everything… my whole world." He said, several tears running down his face. "For the last two years I've barely been living… I haven't known how to carry on without her… I know I've worried my mum and sister… They eventually cornered me a couple of months ago, telling me it'd been enough time and they wanted to see me happy again." Joey took a deep breath, releasing it in a heavy sigh, "I sat there in silence, thinking of all the things I wanted to say in response, but not being quite brave enough to voice any of it. I've thought about why I didn't say anything so many times since then and have come to the conclusion that deep down, in my heart, I know they're right. And I also know Amy wouldn't be happy with me moping around the place, she'd want me to move on and try to be happy again. She wouldn't want me to waste the rest of my life feeling sorry for myself…" He was silent for several minutes but Lauren said nothing, watching him intently. "So Alice helped me complete a registration form and questionnaire for an online dating website that was supposed to match you with your ideal partner. I wasn't expecting anything from it but Alice and mum were so happy and excited when I received a couple of messages pretty much straight away. Their excitement didn't last long because I always managed to find a reason to reject them. I guess that was probably my first mistake." He glanced at her, "I've seen the disappointment on their faces every time I rejected one of them. After several weeks I still hadn't gone on a date and they both tried to talk me around once more. It was mum's turn to suggest a different approach. And that was how this weekend came about. Alice had found it advertised online when she'd been checking my messages from the dating site… and rejecting the ones she knew I'd refuse. She'd looked at the website that came up and had the information for me all ready for when I seemed reluctant." He laughed bitterly, "I saw the look of hope on mum's face and I couldn't take it away from her… not again… so in another moment of weakness I agreed. And that was how I ended up here…. Pretty sad case, right?" he said, the bitterness edging into his voice. "I came here for all the wrong reasons… I agreed to come here because I wanted to make them happy… Then I got here and realised I was still wearing my wedding ring. I've never been able to take it off… in my heart…"
"You're still married to her…" Lauren finished for him softly.
"Yeah... how stupid is that?" he said bitterly.
"It's not stupid, Joey… you've been through probably about the worst thing you could ever go through… It's difficult to move on from that…" she said gently.
"I took the ring off earlier… before I went downstairs… It didn't seem right to wear it when I was here on a matchmaking weekend and I wanted to avoid the questions about it too, I guess… I didn't expect to bring someone back up here so I wasn't exactly hiding it from you… I expected to come back up here and put it back on my finger… To be honest, I don't like not wearing it…"
Lauren leant forward and picked up the wedding ring from the bedside table. She sat upright again and pulled his left hand towards her. She slowly pushed the ring onto his third finger, struggling slightly to get it all the way down. "Better?" she whispered once it was back in place.
"A little…" he said. He laughed, "I bet this isn't what you were expecting when you came up here with me…?"
"Not really…" Lauren admitted, "but I can understand why you did what you did… and I'm not angry with you… not anymore…"
"I didn't mean to lead you on…" he said.
"You didn't… I pushed you to bring me up here…"
"I don't think I'm ready…" he admitted.
"You still love your wife." Lauren said simply.
"More than anything." Joey breathed. "I can't see that ever going away… not completely anyway…"
"That's okay." Lauren said. "Do you want to talk about her some more?" she asked him.
"You'd do that?" he said, surprised by her generous offer. He'd expected her to run from the room screaming now that she knew the truth.
"It sounds to me like you need to talk about her… and I'm guessing you don't get a chance to do that very much normally…"
"I don't…" he agreed. "I don't like talking about her because it upsets them… they loved her too…"
"Not as much as you did…" Lauren reminded him. "We can sit here… you can tell me about her… What did she look like?" she said, deciding to start before he changed his mind.
"Like you actually… although she was blonde. You remind me of her… not in a creepy way… I don't mean like that… but some of your mannerisms… the way you flirted with me downstairs… the way you called me out a few minutes ago… They're the kind of things Amy used to do…"
She was stunned by what he'd said and she wasn't sure how to react to it. After a short silence she started to speak, "Is that why you brought me up here… Was I supposed to be a replacement for her?" Lauren accused, some of her earlier anger returning.
Joey blinked, staring at her in surprise. "No… No one can ever replace her…" he said, pain in his voice.
"I'm sorry." Lauren said, knowing her words had hurt him and hating herself for it but she hadn't been able to stop herself from asking. She took a moment to compose herself before asking him something else. "How did you meet her?" she said, trying to lighten the atmosphere again. She stood up and moved around the bed, sliding onto the far side of it and lying down. Joey looked at her, a frown on his face. "I thought we could at least be comfortable while we talked…" she explained, patting the bed beside her. "Come on…" she said, "I won't try anything… I promise… No funny business…"
Joey moved to lie beside her and the room was quiet. Lauren giving him time to compose himself, the silence giving her a chance to look at him properly, studying him as he lay beside her. "I met her at work… tried to sell her a car…" he suddenly blurted out, a faraway look on his face.
"My dad sells cars…" Lauren told him, glad to find another thing that was common between them. "Are you any good?" she asked.
"I'm okay." He said but Lauren got the impression he was selling himself short. "She brought the car and then asked me out on a date… She smiled at me and her whole face lit up… it was captivating… so I said yes…" he closed his eyes, an image of her face appearing in his mind, distracting him for several minutes. "I didn't really do dating before Amy… I guess I slept around quite a lot. I know my mum was worried about me… and I probably gave her a few more grey hairs than she'd like to admit… Amy changed me though… I wanted to see her again… I asked her out at the end of our first date. For the first time ever I was worried she would say no… fortunately she didn't. Two dates turned into four… and before I knew it I'd been seeing her a month. She was the longest relationship I'd ever been in and we hadn't even slept with each other…" He laughed, "We did that on our one month anniversary… a way to mark the occasion she said…"
"How long after you started dating did you get engaged?" Lauren asked.
"After a month I knew she was the one… I wanted to settle down for the first time in my life… I was in love. It was almost a year before I asked her though…" Joey said, "She brought her car in to be serviced… and I asked her in the middle of the showroom…" He saw the look on her face, "It was much more romantic than that sounds…" he said quickly. "She said yes and I gave her the ring. I'd brought it about a month earlier and it'd been burning a hole in my pocket…" He bit his lip, "I was so scared she'd say no… I didn't think she'd want me… I was punching well above my weight when it came to her."
"Do you have a picture of her?" Lauren asked, wanting to know what she looked like but also dreading seeing it, still thinking of his earlier words about her similarity to his dead wife.
He pulled his wallet out of his pocket and opened it, "I know… I shouldn't be carrying a picture around of her either…" he said, catching her eyebrows raising as he tugged a small photo from one of the pockets. "I can't bring myself to take it out… not yet…" he said, his thumb brushing over the worn picture and Lauren saw the top of a small scan picture tucked into his wallet behind where it'd been. He held the photo of Amy out towards her and Lauren took it from him.
She wasn't surprised to see it was a picture from their wedding, "She looks beautiful…" she said, her eyes locked on the picture of the happy couple. Joey looked so happy in the picture, his whole demeanour lighter than it'd been in the time she'd known him. "You both look very much in love…" she whispered. She was relieved to see that other than both having long hair, the similarities between herself and Amy weren't that obvious.
"She was… and we were… I didn't think we could get any happier… until Christopher came along…" he said quietly. Lauren handed him back the photo and he put it carefully back in his wallet. "It was so hard… The bad times at the end have obliterated most of the happy memories I have of the time we had together. I was the happiest I'd ever been one minute… and completely torn apart the next… I'm not sure I'll ever recover from it…"
"It's okay, Joey…" Lauren said.
"I'm sorry, Lauren…" he whispered. "I know you must be disappointed..."
Lauren giggled, "Bit full of yourself there, ain't ya?" she teased, wanting to remove the sadness from his face, even if it was for just a moment.
He smiled, "I guess… I'm serious though… I got the impression you were expecting something… and it wasn't all this…" he finished, waving his hand around himself.
"It's fine, Joey." Lauren said, "I feel like I understand you a little better now…" she told him, "and anyway, I wasn't expecting anything from this weekend… if I come away from it with a new friend, then I think I've done well… I was expecting it to be a disaster to be honest… and it hasn't been that… not since I met you at the bar anyway…" she told him. "Even if nothing ever happens between us romantically, I'd like us to be friends… and I can be the person you can talk to… if you want…" she said softly, rolling onto her side and looking at him as he lay on the bed.
He turned his head, staring into her eyes, "I'd really like that, Lauren… and it'd be good to be able to talk to someone…" he told her, "Thanks…" he added in a whisper. She smiled at him, that brightness shining from her face again. It took his breath away. He'd only seen that with one other person. Amy. "So what do they have planned for us tomorrow?" he asked her softly, tearing his eyes from her face quickly.
Lauren rolled her eyes, "A group barbecue – weather permitting – for the afternoon… and then I think I read something about karaoke in the evening… Heaven help us…"
"Oh god…" Joey moaned. "I think I may need to de-stress beforehand… do you know if they have a gym here?"
Lauren smiled, "They do… fancy a gym buddy?" she asked.
"Sure." Joey said, smiling at her. He looked at her, trying to work out if he could ask her a personal question. "So…" he broached softly, "Earlier… I got the impression there was something you didn't say when you were talking about your previous relationships…" He saw her face darken and she looked away for a fraction of a second. "You don't have to tell me if you don't want to…"
"It's okay… it's just not something I talk about very often…" she said and Joey smiled slightly at the similarity to what he'd said to her, "I'm an alcoholic…" she stated, "Recovering… I've been sober just about two years now. I've fallen off the wagon twice… albeit with just one drink each time… but once is enough to break your sobriety…" she said. "I ended up in rehab nearly four years ago… my parents convinced me I needed to… and after twenty-four hours, I agreed with them." She was silent for almost a minute. "I was there for almost two months and when I came home I felt so much better. Life was still difficult… my reasons for drinking hadn't disappeared while I was gone… and I find it more complicated to go out with my friends now… They don't understand how difficult things can be… and they sometimes offer me a drink. Or even worse they don't invite me out in the first place."
"I can see why that would be hard…" Joey said. "And your family? Are they supportive?" he asked her.
"They try… but they don't always realise how much I struggle some days… How some days getting out of bed is just about as much as I can handle… None of them do… my friends too… I guess that's partly my fault because I hide it from them all…"
"That's a shame…" Joey said.
"Not drinking is making me boring too… and it's difficult for me to attract guys when I'm stone cold sober…" she added in explanation, biting her lip as vulnerability at that revelation was clear on her face.
"I completely disagree with that statement… all of them in fact…" Joey said. "I don't think you're boring… hell, I've laughed more tonight than I have in the last three years… and if it wasn't for…" he couldn't bring himself to say her name but he knew Lauren was aware of who he was talking about, "I'd definitely be attracted to you…" he finished in a whisper.
"You would?" Lauren whispered.
Joey nodded, "Come on, Lauren… look at you… you're gorgeous… big, brown eyes… stunning face… and I've noticed your boobs… they're quite enticing…" he admitted, a small smile on his face… his cheeks turning red. "And it's not just the way you look… you've looked after me this evening… an almost stranger… and you let me speak about my dead wife… I can tell you, not many people do that… not even people I've known my whole life…" he said sagely. "Especially not women who are a little interested in me…" he added softly.
"There's that ego of yours again, Joey…" she teased him.
"Admit it…" He teased back, "You like me…"
"I'll admit nothing…" Lauren said, although Joey noticed she wouldn't look him in the face.
He leant forward, "Admit it…" he whispered and her eyes turned towards him, surprised by how close he was.
She let out a huff of air and lay back on the bed, "Okay, I admit it… yes, I liked you… I saw you and I wanted you…" she told him, her face growing redder with each admission she made. "You're the best looking guy here… and all of the women know it…" she told him. "I saw you as soon as I walked in the bar, before the meal… it wasn't just the way you looked… I could see there was something hanging over you… It reminded me of my own cross I bear… I thought maybe you struggled in the same way I did but then I saw the glass of whisky so I knew it wasn't that… although I guess it could be…" she said, the last part more of a remark to herself than speaking to him. "You weren't like the other guys… you didn't fawn over me when I spoke to you… You didn't seem to be trying to get a look down my dress… but given your earlier comment, maybe you just hid it better than the others did…" she said, "You didn't try to cop a feel or just simply grab at me… and you didn't jump on me at the first opportunity… so you're already an improvement on most of the men I know…" She stopped speaking and looked at him, "It feels like I've known you forever… like there's something we share that's ebbing between us… I'm making no sense now… I'm sorry…"
"I know what you mean…" Joey whispered. "I thought it was the similarities you have to Amy…" he said, stumbling slightly over her name, "but I don't think it is… it's more than that…"
Lauren watched his face, seeing the hesitation on it and knowing he wasn't ready to make any sort of commitment to her. She bit her lip, taking a couple of deep breaths. "I know you're not ready for a relationship… and I understand if you never are…" she whispered, "But if the day should ever come when you are ready… when you want to try and get what you had with Amy again… with someone new… I'd like it if you looked me up… if you want to, that is… if you think you could possibly feel that way about me…" She took a deep breath, biting her lip as she stared at his face. He was watching her carefully and Lauren found she couldn't tear her eyes from him. After a long pause, she knew he was probably waiting for her to finish what she'd been saying but the problem was she didn't really know how to finish. She released her breath slowly, closing her eyes as she slowly leant forward. She expected him to move away from her, realising what she was about to do but he either didn't realise or he didn't notice and it wasn't until she softly pressed her mouth against his that she felt him tense. Then he surprised her slightly, hesitantly returning the kiss. She was watching his face as they pulled apart and she couldn't tell what he was thinking. "I'm sorry… that was a mistake… I shouldn't have done that…" she whispered, rolling onto her back and staring at the ceiling. Realisation of what she'd just done… how she'd basically just thrown herself at him despite everything he'd told her about not being ready for a relationship… everything sank in and she covered her face with her hands… silently begging for the earth to open up and swallow her whole so she could forget what she'd just done. "I'm so sorry…" she mumbled through her hands.
"Was it that bad a kiss…?" he asked her quietly, "I know I'm a little out of practice… but I've always been told I was pretty good at this…"
He was teasing her, she knew that and she slowly uncovered her face, turning her head slightly so she could look at him. His face was still blank and she wished she could read his thoughts and work out how he truly felt. "It was great…" she whispered softly. "And that's the problem…" she added, more to herself. She frowned slightly, glancing quickly at his face, "Did you think it was bad then?" she asked him tentatively, "because I haven't always got great reviews…" she added, looking down at her hands as they lay clasped on her stomach.
"No!" Joey said quickly, "It wasn't bad, Lauren… it was good… great even…" he added. He stared at her and she looked back at him, "I do think it wasn't the best idea we've ever had though…" he admitted, "I know I'm not ready… not for anything more than friendship anyway… I don't want to lead you on any more than I already have… I don't want to hurt you any more than I already have…" He stopped speaking, seeing the embarrassment on her face as she absorbed his words. "Is that okay?" he asked her softly when she didn't say anything straight away.
"Of course it is, Joey…" Lauren told him softly. "I shouldn't have forced myself on you like that… it's just about the worst thing I could've done and you'd think I'd know better than to do that…"
Again Joey felt she was talking more to herself than to him but her last words concerned him. "What does that mean?"
"What?" she asked.
"It's just about the worst thing you could've done…" he prompted.
Lauren sighed, "I know you're in a difficult place… and being in a relationship isn't the right thing for you right now…" she breathed. She glanced at him again, "I'd be lying if I said I didn't enjoy what just happened… I'd be lying if I said I didn't like you…" She whispered, trying once more to take in his reaction to what she'd said, "Is that okay with you?" she asked him.
He thought about it for longer than he probably should've done, "I think it is." He admitted. Lauren smiled at him, her face lighting up once more. Joey felt it was time to change the conversation and her words from earlier were still playing on his mind. "Tell me more about yourself, Lauren…" he asked. "What do you do for a living?"
She was relieved with the change of subject matter… albeit to an equally difficult topic to discuss. "Well I dropped out of school about the same time as my drinking started to get bad… I found my boyfriend of the time in bed with another girl and it sent me over the edge… It got worse still when my mum was diagnosed with cancer and she didn't tell anyone…" She stared into his eyes, seeing the pain her words brought back in them. "She eventually told me but made me swear to keep it to myself. It was a lot to bear… and I drank because it was the only way I could cope… That's when I dropped out of school… something had to give and that was the easiest option. I was going to the hospital with mum and supporting her through her treatment… looking after her once she was home again and also taking care of my brother and sister… while trying to hide the fact she was sick from everyone…"
"Where was your dad?" he asked, knowing he was around somewhere after she'd mentioned him earlier.
"They'd split up and he was living in Manchester at the time… he came back about ten months after I found out mum was sick… I'd just found out mum had stopped her treatment… I tried so hard to convince her that she had to keep trying but she wouldn't listen to me… Dad came back and I broke my promise, told him that mum was sick… and then everyone else found out too. Mum didn't take that too well… she even slapped me…"
"Did his return make things easier?" he asked.
"In a way… it certainly removed the pressure from me because dad took over the care of mum… and he convinced her to have the treatment again which was a huge relief… However it also meant I suddenly had a lot of free time on my hands… too much really and I saw the way the family were all looking at me… the disappointment on their faces because I'd kept it a secret… the embarrassment on their faces when I created a scene because I was drunk… again… So I kept as far away from people as possible… that was when I started drinking a hell of a lot… way more than I should've done. And I made a few dubious decisions on the men front too…"
"Dubious?" Joey asked.
"Well I'm sure some of my friends would say I slept around a bit… and I wasn't that picky about my choice of bed-mate… They were probably right on both fronts…" Lauren looked at Joey, "Does that change your opinion of me?" she asked him softly.
"No… I can understand you being like that… I would've quite happily lost myself in several bottles of whisky after Amy died… so I'd hardly be one to preach, would I? And I told you what I was like with women before I met Amy, didn't I?"
"But you didn't… drink the whisky, I mean… you were stronger than I was…" she murmured.
"No, I didn't… but only because my mum and sister were there for me… as well as Amy's parents. You didn't have that support network there, did you? They were all busy coping with other stuff…"
"I guess…" Lauren thought over what he'd said and could see the logic in it. "One night… well, I don't remember most of it… flashes here and there… but not anything constructive… and some of it I wonder if it's just my memory filling in the gaps for me…" She was silent again, "I was trying not to drink that night… I only had one before I left home… and it was just a diet coke once I was at the club… A guy offered to buy me a drink… and I gratefully accepted… money was tight so a free drink was never refused. After I drank it we danced together… I was boiling hot so I asked him if we could get some air." She looked at his face, "It's about this time that it starts to go a bit blurry…" she whispered, her face colouring. "I know we had sex… I don't remember much of that at all… not really… The next thing I really remember I was sitting on the ground in the alleyway… knickers around my ankles and a pounding headache… He was gone. I felt so ashamed. I re-dressed myself and then made my way home. The next day my body was really sore… and that was when I knew for sure that we'd fucked…" She glanced at him again, "Still not changed your mind?" she whispered.
He shook his head quickly, "Do you think he drugged you?" he asked her gently, "That would explain the memory loss..."
"I don't know… Maybe, I guess… It scared me… A couple of weeks later my dad took me to rehab…"
"If he drugged you then he raped you, babe…" Joey breathed, his hand lifting and pushing some hair back from her face, tucking it behind her ear. "Didn't you tell anyone what happened? A friend maybe?"
"God, no… I felt bad enough already without one of them judging me as well…" she said, "It was my fault… I was drunk… I brought it on myself…"
"Bollocks, babe…" Joey said, anger in his voice, "He took advantage of you… You hadn't drunk that much… not in comparison to what you usually did… and he probably slipped something into the drink he brought you… You weren't in control of the situation… You can't be held responsible for what happened afterwards… He didn't give you any choice, did he?" he said. Lauren shook her head. Joey saw tears welling in her eyes and he reacted instinctively again, wrapping his arms around her and pulling her into a hug. She started to cry as the reality of his words sunk in. He held her tighter, a hand brushing up and down her back, trying to comfort her from the pain of what had happened to her all that time ago… and the pain of carrying the weight of it around with her.
*JL*JL*
Lauren pulled away from Joey, embarrassment written all over her face, "Would you think badly of me if I stayed in here with you tonight?" she asked him. "I'm not expecting anything… I just don't want to be on my own… not tonight…" She didn't need to say anymore… he knew she was thinking about drinking after the emotional turmoil of the last half hour or so.
"I wouldn't think badly of you… I don't think I could… You're a great woman, Lauren… and I'm looking forward to getting to know you more…"
She smiled, "I'm just going to go back to my room… I think I should probably change into something a bit more comfortable…" she said.
"Bring something for tomorrow morning as well… you can change before we go downstairs for breakfast…" Joey said.
Lauren rolled off the bed and grabbed her clutch purse from the side. "I'll just be a few minutes…" she said as she headed towards the door.
*JL*JL*
Lauren knocked lightly on Joey's door, looking up and down the corridor to make sure there wasn't anyone around. The door opened and she slipped inside, Joey shutting the door behind her. He'd changed as well while she'd been gone and Lauren found herself staring at him for longer than she probably should. She walked back over to the bed and climbed back onto it, staring at him as he stood in the doorway. "What are you waiting over there for?" she asked him, smiling at him.
He walked over and got onto the bed, lying on his side so he was facing her. "This feels strange…" he admitted, "You're the first woman I've slept with… in any sense of the word… since Amy…"
"No funny business, I promise…" Lauren told him.
"I believe you." Joey said. "So the gym in the morning?" he asked.
"Sounds good to me." Lauren said. She closed her eyes, feeling her body starting to relax. She opened her eyes again, staring at Joey, "I'm glad I met you tonight… it seems my friends hadn't made such a huge mistake by booking this weekend for me after all…" Joey smiled at her but said nothing because her eyes fluttered shut and he knew she was asleep.
A/N: Were any of you expecting that? Joey's tale was heart-breaking, right? And Lauren has opened up to him as well. There does seem to be a spark between our pair, doesn't there? DON'T FORGET TO SEND ME A REVIEW. Back tomorrow…