Disclaimer: I do not own JA or any of the characters.
Chapter 31: Distractions
Amy walked in the front door, with a dreamy smile on her face.
Lauren who had been sitting on the couch jumped up and stormed up to her mom. "Where have you been?"
"What?" Amy snapped out of her thoughts at her angry daughter's voice.
"You are never here when I need you." Lauren spun round and stomped up the stairs.
"Lauren! What are you talking about?"
"About Dad, and Mr Van Exel, and… urgh!" Lauren continued on to her room, slamming the door behind her.
Amy shook her head and walked into the kitchen. Sometimes it just wasn't worth it to keep on arguing with her, and just let her scream at herself for a bit. Making a new pot of coffee, she leant against the counter. 'Finally, some normality.'
"AMY!" Maxine's voice yelled out from the family room.
"What?" Amy poured more coffee into her mug and walked to the family room.
"Why is your daughter crying?"
"I have no idea. She yelled at me, and I just left her to calm down."
"She is very upset." Maxine looked at Amy disapprovingly. "You should go talk to her."
"Not when she is just going to yell at me. When she has calmed down I will go and see what is wrong."
"Amy, there is something wrong with her. She wanted to speak to you but you weren't here."
"Ma, I don't need you to tell me I wasn't here; I know. But she doesn't need to snap my head off like that!" Amy quickly moved towards the stairs. She wasn't particularly interested in being involved in another argument.
Arriving outside Lauren's door, she tried to open it, but it was locked.
"Lauren, honey, if you want to speak to me about something, you are going to have to unlock your door."
Amy listened to some muttering behind the door, before it was unlocked and then opened.
Standing before her, was the tear soaked face of Lauren.
"Noodle, what's the matter?"
"I broke up with Victor." Lauren ran back to her bed and buried her face in her pillow.
Amy felt slightly bewildered. "I thought everything was going ok with you two."
"I don't want to be dating my brother."
"What?" Amy sat down next to Lauren, and laid a hand on her shoulder. "But Victor isn't your brother."
"He will be though, won't he? I mean if you and David get married and stuff, we will be brother and sister." Lauren rolled onto her back, sniffling.
"David and I... well we aren't that serious yet. My life is so messed up and it is only just settling down, there is no way I can do anything like that right now."
Lauren wiped her eyes with the back of her hands. "But it will happen eventually."
"Maybe," Amy looked at Lauren with her head tilted on one side. "You are young and have plenty of time to fall in love again."
"We had so much fun together."
"You can still have fun. You can be friends, you don't have to be going out with somebody to hang out with them." Amy stroked a strand of hair that had come loose from Lauren's ponytail, behind her ear. "Friends still have fun."
"I didn't think about that." Sitting up, Lauren smiled again. "I'm going to go call him."
Amy fell back on the bed, covering her face with her hands. "Why is it teenagers lose the ability to think?"
Not expecting somebody to answer to sat up quickly when David walked into the room. "You do know that talking to yourself is the first sign of madness?"
"Having kids is the first sign of madness actually!" Amy laughed, as she stood up.
Wrapping his arms around her, David pulled her to him.
"What are you doing here anyway? I only just left your house, you need to finish your paperwork."
"I finished," at her disbelieving face, David smiled. "I did finish it. Then gave it to Abner to deal with."
"He is going to kill you one day."
"Only after he has paid back all the favours that I have done for him; which will be a long way off."
"Good." Amy snuggled into his arms.
"So what was that you were muttering about teenagers?"
"Lauren broke up with Victor, and didn't realise that they could still be friends and have fun."
"I see."
Amy looked up at him. "What?"
"Nothing, it just explains the weird mood Victor was in when I spoke to him."
Amy smiled and stroked his cheek. "I think we should stop talk about the terrible two."
David's eyes glazed over, "Mmm, good plan. "Just as he began to lower his mouth to hers, there was an indignant squeal behind them.
"Get. a. room!"
"We're in one thanks," Amy grinned.
"Not mine!" Lauren screeched.
"Sorry, Lauren, your mother distracted me." David took Amy's hand and quickly moved out of the room.
David chuckled as the door was slammed behind them. "I think that was definitely the wrong room to get distracted in."
"Maybe." Amy pulled him towards her room. "I know one, where being distracted, is just fine to the owner."
"Well perhaps, it would be better to be in there then." David smiled and let himself be led.
AN: Apologies to the long gap between the last few chapters. There are no excuses, only that I got caught up with my HP stories.
There will only be one more chapter of this story, as I feel that it has come to its natural conclusion - Chapter 32 should be up within the next week.
Thank you to everyone who decides to review!