The whole room got deathly quiet. Soli turned to my twin brother, a stern look on his face.
"The heck is wrong with you, man?" he reprimanded him. "Geez, what are you, a caveman?"
"Yeah, you were a little harsh," Nate admitted.
Derek opened his mouth and threw in his two cents as well, but I had stopped listening. My mind kept flashing back to the moment when Lauren had flung my arms off of her. She had a true look of anguish on her face. This was obviously deeper than just Josh being a butthead. Something else was wrong. But what? And why wouldn't she feel comfortable telling me?
I sighed and rested my chin in my cupped hand. "Just give it a rest, will ya?" I said to the now-arguing rest of the band. "And leave Josh alone. This isn't his fault."
"Isn't his fault? Did you hear how rude he was to Lauren?" Solomon always defended the short folk.
"He WAS, wasn't he? So very rude to me." Sol's wife was looking through a magazine, biting her nails and half-listening.
"Uh, not you, honey. The OTHER Lauren."
"Oh. Her." She tried to suppress a sneer and failed.
I started seeing red. How DARE she—
I felt a breeze and stopped my thought short. Derek had run past me and was heading down the hall. "I'll talk to her," he called to the rest of us.
"Oh, no, no, no, no," I stood up. "She's MY girlfriend. I'LL do the talking."
"I think I can handle it, Jacob."
"Uh, so can I."
"Maybe you can't," Derek said, surprisingly. "Maybe she would've told you already what her deal is if she'd wanted to tell you."
There was that red again. "What are you suggesting, Derek?"
"Maybe she doesn't trust you as much as you think she does."
This was not Derek. It couldn't be. This was New Derek. Impetuous Derek. Whoever he was, I felt a strong urge to punch him. "What would you know about that?"
"She talks to me, okay? She tells me about her problems. She tells me her secrets. She'll tell me what's going on." With eyes narrowed, he knocked on her door.
"What?"
"It's Derek."
"Come in."
He raised his eyebrows at me and went into her room, closing and—click!—locking the door behind him.
That did it.
NO ONE LOCKS THEMSELVES IN HER ROOM BUT ME.
Struggling to see through the angry haze in my view, I grabbed a paper clip and headed to her room. I popped the lock and practically roared through the doorway. I could barely make out the two shapes sitting on the bed.
I grabbed the shape closest to me and threw it to the floor. Good. The grunt that came from it was masculine. I was right.
Ignoring the pleas coming from the shape beneath me, I dropped to one knee and furiously hit it over and over again. The physical assault cleared my vision and my head. As the world came back into focus, I could see the bloodied face of Derek between my knees. Turning, I saw the freshly tear-stained face of the girl I love.
The look on her face broke my heart into a million pieces. The words that came from her mouth broke those million pieces into a million pieces.
"How could you?"
I opened my mouth. "I…I…"
"He's my best friend. The one I can trust. He was only trying to help, what is wrong with you?" She was crying again.
Screw it all.
"Baby, I didn't mean…I thought he…" The full impact of her words hit me. "What do you mean the 'one you can trust'? What about me?" My own eyes were starting to well up. I moved off of Derek, allowing the poor guy to breathe, and sat on the bed next to her. "Can't you trust me?"
"Well, after that lovely display, I'm not sure." Her brown eyes were bigger than usual. Dang, I love her eyes.
"I was just being overprotective. I only want you to be happy!" I brushed her hair back from her face.
Derek got up and hobbled out to the bathroom to wash his bloody nose off. Watching him leave, Lauren relaxed a bit. "Well, I have to admit…the fact that you punched out Derek in the name of love WAS pretty sexy."
I giggled. "You know how I do, girl."
She actually smiled and leaned her head back against my chest. "It's not that I don't trust you. It's just…I don't know. Derek is so easy to talk to. And when I get to see you, I want all our memories together to be happy. I don't want to waste our time by talking about deep, depressing topics."
"I care about EVERY aspect of your life, Lauren. Not just fluffy stuff." I kissed the top of her head.
"You're way too perfect to be real, you know that? Are you a robot?"
I grinned. "Nah, I'm an ISO. And so is Nathan."
…
Late that night, after everyone else had already left, we lay on her bed, tracing "constellations" in the cracks in her black ceiling. Lauren has a serious thing for stars.
We'd been there for hours. Of course, we hadn't traced constellations the ENTIRE time…
After identifying the Big Dipper, Lauren snuggled her face into my neck. "You know, your tactics are different after you've been mad," she mumbled.
"I know. Sorry."
"I didn't say I didn't like it," she smirked. "It was…more passionate."
"Now I'm hungry."
"What? Why?"
"You're making me think of passion fruit. Mmmm."
She playfully smacked me. "Dork."
I held her closer to me. "So is everything okay?"
"Everything's perfect now."
"No, I mean for real."
"Well, for the most part." She rolled away from me a bit. "I know you're probably dying to know what's going on, but I'll tell you when I feel it's the right time."
"That's fine. As long as I make you happy temporarily."
"You make me happy, perpetually," she assured me. "In everything that you do. In everything that you are. Ugh, I just love you so much it makes me sick."
"Well thanks!" I frowned at her.
"Shut up and have some dark chocolate," she said as she opened a candy bar.
"If I eat too much, it'll make ME sick too."
"And this is why I love you."
