Author's Note: Sorry about the Jan/Lucas stuff in this chapter and the last one. Jan will leave Lumi alone now, for the most part, I think. But it was either Jan or the fangirls and I figured Jan was the lesser of the two evils. Jan and Lucas are friends, that's all, despite Jan and her little crush on him. That crush is going to go away once I pair her up with someone else in later chapters. I won't say who I'm pairing her up with but I bet you could guess...
Nicole paid for her popcorn and started towards the entrance to the movie theatre. The movie had started about fifteen minutes ago but Nicole didn't seem to be in a hurry anymore, "I don't see why you had to make me wait in line with you while you got popcorn. The line was huge and the popcorn doesn't even look that good." Sami commented, eyeing the almost orange-tinted popcorn distastefully. Nicole grimaced and examined the popcorn.
"You're right, it looks toxic." Nicole agreed, "But who said anything about eating it? While you're busy apologizing to Lucas, I can distract myself by throwing popcorn at the poor, unsuspecting movie-watchers if the movie is boring. It's actually great fun, I like seeing how much popcorn I can get stuck in people's hair."
Sami stopped Nicole outside the movie theatre doors, "I'm not going to apologize to him right away. I'm going to wait for a while, to see what he does on his apparent 'date' with Jan."
"Sami, you're testing him?" Nicole pretended to look shocked, "That could be a very bad idea. You know, if we go in there and those two are hot and heavy in the back of the theatre, I'm going to be torn between wanting to laugh my head off and attacking Lucas."
"Shut up." Sami growled, "If you say anything else like that tonight, I will personally shove your head into that bag of lethal popcorn and suffocate you. I'm not testing him, I guess I just want to wait for a while, to get my nerve up."
Nicole laughed, "Sami, the day you lose your nerve will be the day hell freezes over. You don't need to get your nerve up, it's already there."
Giving Nicole a threatening look, Sami pushed the door to the movie theatre open and stepped inside. After her eyes adjusted to the dim light, her eyes probed the half-filled movie theatre for Lucas and Jan. Nicole came up beside Sami and spotted Lucas and Jan before Sami did.
"At least they aren't in the back of the theatre." Nicole whispered to Sami, noting how Jan and Lucas had chosen seats near the middle of the theatre, "But then again, it's always better in the middle."
Sami shuddered, "I'm not even going to ask what you mean by that." she and Nicole began navigating their way into the row of seats five rows behind Lucas and Jan. Nicole craned her neck for a better view of Lucas and Jan, then gasped indignantly.
"They already have popcorn. How did they get in here so fast? Didn't they have to suffer through the horrendous lines?" Nicole watched as Jan brought a handful of popcorn up to her mouth, "Wow, they're actually eating it. Maybe it doesn't taste so bad."
After staring at the popcorn doubtfully for several minutes, Nicole pushed a piece of popcorn into her mouth and immediately hacked, "Oh, God, this stuff is rancid." Nicole continued choking while Sami watched her with evident irritation.
"Are you always this noisy during movies?" Sami asked.
"No." Nicole muttered, "But we missed part of the movie and once I miss some of the movie, I can't concentrate so there's no point in paying attention, so I am trying to distract myself."
"Well, can you be a little quieter about it?" Sami hissed, "If you keep being so noisy, either Lucas or Jan is going to turn around and see us and that would be incredibly embarrassing,"
"Fine." Nicole turned away from Sami and picked up another piece of popcorn. But instead of eating it, she flung it at the couple five rows in front of her. The popcorn bounced of Lucas' head but it didn't look like Lucas had felt a thing. Nicole smiled triumphantly.
"Score!" another piece of popcorn was grasped between her fingers and her hand was poised to throw it, "Let's see if I can get it to stick in his hair." after a few unsuccessful attempts, Nicole gave up on Lucas and made Jan her new target. Sami grew bored of trying to concentrate on the movie and decided to join Nicole in throwing popcorn at Jan. Sami's first piece of thrown popcorn ended up trapped in Jan's dark curls. In addition to Nicole's successful hits, Jan now had at least five pieces of popcorn stuck in various places in her hair.
After a few mores tosses, Nicole grew bored and elbowed Sami in the ribs, "You've waited long enough. Go apologize now. As your publicist, I command you."
"No, I don't feel like it yet." Sami replied.
"Sami!" Nicole raised her voice a little louder than she should have and seconds later, she felt someone tapping her on the shoulder. She whirled around to see who was trying to get her attention. Despite the dim light, she could see that the man was about her age and that he was gorgeous. Ice blue eyes, that reminded her a lot of Brady's eyes, were boring into hers and annoyance was darkening his rugged features.
"Could you keep it down?" he asked impatiently but Nicole was too busy looking for signs of another person who might be sitting with this man. When she didn't see one, she couldn't stop herself from wondering if he was single, "I am trying to watch this."
Nicole flashed him an apologetic smile while her eyes gleamed flirtatiously, "I am so sorry. My friend can just be so infuriating sometimes. Here, take my popcorn as a... peace offering." she handed him the popcorn, glad to have the disgusting food off her hands.
"Thanks." the man broke into a smile, a very nice smile, Nicole observed. She stood up, tugging Sami to her feet as well.
"Me and my friend will just settle some things outside so we don't ruin the movie for you." Nicole navigated herself and Sami outside into the lobby. Nicole then led Sami into the bathroom, ignoring Sami's protests and complaints. Once they were inside the bathroom, Sami kicked Nicole angrily. Nicole flinched, the smacked Sami hard on the head in response. Before Sami could lash out at her again, Nicole spoke quickly.
"Why won't you apologize to Lucas?" Nicole demanded, "I mean it, you have to go say sorry now, before Jan starts trying to feel him up!"
"She wouldn't do that." Sami said uncertainly, "Can you just calm down? I want to wait a few more minutes."
"Right, and then a few more minutes and then a few more minutes." Nicole shot back sarcastically, "Sami, I can't keep babying you like this. I have better things to do, namely, the guy who was sitting behind us in the movie theatre!"
"You don't need to baby me. I can take of myse-" the bathroom door swung open and Jan stumbled into the bathroom, her face a bright shade of red. Sami and Nicole looked at her in confusion.
"Why is your face all red?" Sami asked. Jan started at the sound of Sami's voice.
"Isn't it obvious?" Nicole returned, "She and Lucas were having fun. I told you that you were going to end up waiting too long."
Jan sniffled, "We were not having fun. In fact, I am ready to die from the humiliation I just endured!"
Sami raised an eyebrow, "What happened?"
Jan groaned and pressed her hand against her forehead, "Lucas and I were just watching the movie and I was thinking about how dark and romantic it was sitting in the theatre with him. Then, at the exact moment I put some popcorn in my mouth, Lucas leaned over and I thought he was going to kiss me. Then I- I choked on a piece of popcorn. And I made this noise, it sounded something like hhhhgtha or something and then he gave me this really weird look."
"So, was he really trying to kiss you?" Sami prompted, her eyes widened with surprise.
"No." Jan blushed an ever deeper shade of red, "He... asked me if he could have some popcorn." she finished in a small voice.
"But I bet after he noticed all the bits of popcorn in your hair, he decided against it." Nicole spoke up with a knowing grin.
"Popcorn in my hair?" Jan turned around to face the mirror. When she saw all the tiny bits of popcorn, she shrieked angrily and began picking them out. While pulling popcorn out of her hair, she glowered at Nicole and Sami.
"And why are you two here? Were you trying to crash my date with Lucas? Because it didn't work."
"No, you did a good enough job of that yourself." Nicole said lightly, "And since you're so embarrassed, you won't want to face him anymore tonight and I guess that means Sami will have to fill in for you."
"No!" Jan screeched, "Lucas is my date. Mine!"
"Jan, you made a fool out of yourself. Why don't you just go back to the hotel and get Fantasy Shawn and Lucas to comfort you? I'm sure you never make yourself look stupid in front of them."
"You're right, I don't." Jan sighed in defeat and plucked out the last few bits of popcorn, "Have fun, Sami. I hope you don't choke on the popcorn like I did."
Nicole smiled brightly as Jan exited the bathroom, "All right, now that she is gone, I can go seduce that guy in the movie theatre while you go make-up with Lucas. And if you try and argue with me again, I will have to hurt you."
Muttering some rude things about what Nicole could go do to herself, Sami gave in and left the bathroom to go find Lucas. She reached the seat that had been previously occupied by Jan and sat down in it, waiting for Lucas to realize that she was there instead of Jan. He finally turned to look at her and did a double-take when he realized it was Sami.
"Sami? What's going on?" he shifted in his seat and waited silently for Sami to answer. Sami sat without speaking for a moment, doing her best to swallow her pride. Finally, she spoke.
"I followed you here so I could tell you that... I'm sorry about what I said earlier. I didn't mean any of it, I sort of lost it, that's all. But I hope you can, um, forgive me." Sami didn't look at him, not wanting to see his expression after hearing her words. She felt Lucas take one of her hands and squeeze it gently. She finally looked up and saw the grateful expression on Lucas' face.
"Don't worry about it. Things might have got a little out of hand but I forgive you." he whispered.
Sami smiled, "You better forgive me, especially after you went and took psycho bitch out on a date."
"Aw, Sami, you sound so-" Lucas stopped in mid-sentence. Sami realized he had been about to make a comment about her sounding jealous and then had stopped when he remembered their fight.
Not letting go of his hand, Sami took a deep breath, "I was a little jealous." she admitted, "I was lying when I said that you couldn't get woman to look at twice at you. And I guess I am sort of lucky that you're... I mean, that we're... you know, that I'm-"
Lucas seemed to understand that Sami didn't know how to finish her line of thought. Without prompting her to finish speaking, he kissed the top of her head and wrapped his arm around her. Lapsing into silence, Sami leaned her head against Lucas' shoulder, wondering how much longer he would continue to let her keep her feelings for him to herself.