Okay so Dean has been boyfriend/fiance of the year many times but here he is in this one putting in a new claim to the title...hope you like!
xXBalorBabeXx, Maybe Mama Ambrose just needs a hug? Hmmm. Maybe not then because I mean she does still have that untested right hook after all! Going to be some more Mama Ambrose coming up over the next few so let me know if things change!
Mandy, I wish I could write more than one story in a week/at a time. When I'm writing a story I have to focus on it totally until it's finished or else I lose my thread! Glad you liked the cuteness of the last chapter. More Dean being awesome in this one too!
Wolfgirl2013, Aww many thanks, hope you like this one too because there's a bit of a twist to it or well…maybe not a twist but something unexpected…I hope anyway!
Ohana1337, Well bubble wrap is certainly the way to go based on how much trouble Lauren tends to find herself in so that might actually be the best idea for her! Glad you like the two of them being all cute though and there's more here too…sweetness ahoy!
Minnie1015, Mama Ambrose can smell weakness! Btw this is based on me when a colleague hated me years back because I was younger than her. I tried soooo hard to make her like me but eventually gave up and that's when she changed her mind! Lesson: less is more.
Skovko, Dean has spent so long sticking his finger up to his mother that he's developed a tough skin that Lauren doesn't have. Our girl is a people pleaser born and bred. Still, she's got a few chapters to change the woman's mind (or try to!)
Labinnacslove, Yep, Lauren is in a brand new world and she is going to have to adapt or perish...except, not quite that dramatic...or maybe it is?! Still, Mama Ambrose won't be making it easy on her in the least!
Blast from the past then...
What Are The Chances
By the time we made it back to the apartment the clock had passed midnight and so we had tumbled into bed and then slept so heavily that when I had woken up the next morning, I sort of naturally assumed that my new in-law nemesis would be up and so therefore pulled my clothes on then stepped out with some reluctance into the kitchen area.
Dean was the only one there.
He was busy frying eggs in a beaten up skillet that looked like it had been used since the birth of time and on noticing me blinking into the lounge with hesitation, he snorted at me roughly,
"She won't be up for hours yet."
"Oh."
It sounded a lot more relieved than I had wanted and nor was that fact masked by my plopping heavily into a chair but then again the sense of having a reprieve felt fantastic and so I grinned as he propelled a plate of toast and eggs my way.
"Eat up Princess."
He looked totally adorable in his usually low slung and tantalizing denim jeans and with a brand new non-knife-slashed shirt whipped from his luggage. It was mostly plain grey with a slogan stamped across it that seemed to be promoting a spurious energy type drink and based on that I assumed it was a freebie he had been thrown by a company at a long distant point. He had a hoodie tied loosely about his little hipbones and then a baseball cap which he had inverted around, so that the peak protected the back of his neck from nothing except the hazy orange lights above where the oven hob was. He joined me at the table looking scruffy and unshaven and I beamed at him far too obviously.
"What?"
"Nothing," I shrugged, "Just remembering how much I love you."
"Rememberin' huh?" he threw me a wink and we then spent the rest of our breakfast lightly roasting one another about having spent the night in his teenage single bed which hadn't been the most roomy experience I had imagined and which had forced me into mostly sleeping draped over his chest and which for the purposes of humor he was bitching about bitterly,
"Those arms of yours have left marks on me look an' I'm pretty sure you drooled on my chest at one point as well because when I woke up it sure felt kinda slick down there."
I reached across to collect his empty plate up,
"What made you think that was drool?"
"Jesus Christ."
In taking the plates to the sink to clean the place up since I had no intention of letting his mother think we lived like hogs, I chuckled a little which then spurred him into following me, since no sooner had I started to run the hot water than he was pressed up against me with my back to his ribs.
"Fuck, I was startin' to think that Cincinnati had scared off my dirty girl."
"Nope."
He blew a breath into my ear pretty suggestively and then nuzzled his nose against it,
"I'm glad to hear that."
In order to heighten his sense of arousal, I arched my back which pushed my butt against his groin. His fingers tightened around my hips in response to it and then he let out an actual guttural growl, trying to sound like some desperate hound dog and doing such a worthy impression that I tipped my head back laughed, then squeaked again when his lips found my neck line and began to blow out more ticklish breaths.
"Dean you big goof, stop – ,"
I reached a hand out and tried to push him backwards to no avail and so was still writhing pathetically against his probing onslaught and shrieking when the bedroom door opened.
Ooh crap.
His mother if it was even physically possible, looked worse than she had actually had done the night before, with make-up on her face that she had smeared against the pillow having evidently forgotten she had been wearing it at all and big blueish circles hanging underneath her eyelids that hinted at a lifetime of heavy drinking and late nights out.
My in-law glared at us both,
"You're too loud in the mornings, out here laughing and banging and shit."
I winced,
"Oh, I – I'm really sorry."
Nor was I even remotely lying on that point because I honestly felt like the worst person there was there, since not ten seconds before I had been stood in her kitchen trying to rile her only son up while she tried to rest less than fifteen away from us. I mean what kind of sexual deviant was I that I so wantonly disregarded other people's homes? Not to mention the fact that I hadn't even considered that my fiancé's mother might be in a position to hear us both. Dean however seemed far less repentant and about ten times more sarcastic about it instead, simply leaning himself casually back against the countertop and folding his broad arms in over his chest,
"I see that full night sleep worked out well for you."
"Like you care,"
He shrugged back at her idly,
"You're right I don't."
It seemed like their fractured relationship from earlier had simply picked up from where they had left off and although in reality I should have left them to it, the awkward part of my brain couldn't leave the thing alone, since I hated confrontation in the best of occasions which was far from what the morning seemingly was and so therefore before I even knew what was happening I had turned into the room and was offering up a smile.
"Um, there are still some eggs left if you want them, I can put some toast in for you too if – ,"
Uh oh.
Her eyes spun in towards me super extra sharply as if for a brief moment she had forgotten I was there and then they narrowed into something pretty harshly appraising but made me stand still, frozen on the spot. Instantly I wished I hadn't said anything since the woman had hated me enough outright the night before and I honestly had no idea whether her opinions on me would worsen or else get mildly better for her booze soaked mind being cleared. Reaching a hand into the pocket of the robe that she had thrown on over the top of her thin gown, she pulled free a lighter and then fished out a box of cigarettes from underneath a newspaper on the table by her chair. In the time it took to blink, she had the blunt between her tight lips and was covering the flame that had newly burst into life but managed to get no further in her mission since Dean reached over the paper and ripped the cancer stick away.
His mother reacted,
"What the hell are you doing boy?"
"Not in front of Lauren."
"Are you fucking shitting me?"
It was something that Dean had been pretty resolute on from the moment to two of us had officially moved in, because he felt like my lungs were too pure to be sullied by nicotine and tar and other horrible things and which had probably not been helped by me almost hacking a lung up when I had inhaled an accidental breath of smoke one time. Honestly it was simply another example of his being perfect but suffice to say it went down badly with his mom.
"This is my house – ,"
"An' she's my fiancée, so you can bitch an' you can scream but you wanna smoke, you go outside."
For a second I thought it was entirely possible that she might have had an aneurysm right there and then, since her face registered little but unflinching outrage, but it turned out she was merely letting the phrasing sink in, because suddenly the thinly plucked eyebrows flickered my way,
"So it's true then? You're the girl my boy finally proposed to?"
I swallowed in total apprehension,
"Uh huh."
"Then allow me to ask you a little question here sweetheart, were you two ever gonna tell me 'bout the engagement or was the plan for me to hear it live along with everyone else in the world?"
Her gaze burnt through me and I gaped at her.
Oh no.
I was the reason she was so wildly pissed off because I was the idiot who had yelled across the broadcast that Dean and I were officially engaged and which the woman in front of me had evidently been watching and which had pretty unsurprisingly then caught her unawares. Little wonder then that she had hated me at first sight and was continuing to make me feel an inch from the ground, because she probably thought I was some loudmouth harlot who had ensnared her poor son and made him disregard his mom.
I hurried to make it right,
"No, no – oh god – I'm so, so sorry. It wasn't meant to be like that. I – I just got so heated in the moment that I said without meaning to and – of course we wanted you to know."
"Ha."
His mother blew the sound out with derision and in sheer desperation I looked towards Dean, who simply made a minute but comforting little shushing noise and then took my arm like he was trying to lead me away. Probably he knew that if he left me a moment longer I would have offered the frowning woman more than just leftover eggs and been halfway through hand squeezing her some fresh orange juice or my own blood before any of the three of us knew where we were.
He kept his tone even,
"Princess, how about you finish gettin' ready huh? Remember me promisin' to take you shoppin' for the day, hittin' up that market you said you liked the look of?"
"But – ,"
"No buts baby, get movin' for me."
He prodded me towards the bathroom like we were late for an appointment and I went with it panicking but also in a haze, that lasted right up to him throwing a cheerful wink at me before then levering the door shut with a pretty solid little click. What had just happened? I asked the question internally then stood for a moment trying to fight the tears back because crying wasn't going to do much of anything to help me and nor would feeling sorry help to smooth the waters out. Presuming that there were still any waters left to smooth that was –
Probably there was only a trickle at best.
Damn.
Heaving a sigh out I tried to be useful by attempting to follow through on what my fiancé had asked, but found it hard to paint on my makeup accurately since my hands were still sort of trembling in pure shock. Not that my surroundings were particularly inspiring, since the bathroom was small and possibly not the most clean and stacked to the rafters with various types of pill pots and razor blades that were for men but which didn't belong to Dean.
"Mom," I looked up at the ceiling in pleading, "Please make her like me, I know I've messed it all up, but if you could somehow let her know I'm not a horrible person then that would be great."
I missed her so much.
Particularly when being faced down by a woman who I had entertained crazy thoughts of maybe being the one to plug the hole but which was looking about as likely as hell freezing over or pigs beginning to fly like planes through the atmosphere. Huffing a final breath out I finished with some blusher and then turned to reluctantly push back through out the door and into whatever heated brawl was awaiting me before stopping when I realized that if I stood quietly then I could hear.
Dean especially,
"What the hell is your problem mom? You can't be nice to her for five minutes here?"
"You want me to crawl up her ass?"
I hoped not because that sounded uncomfortable to say the very least and nor did her idea strike Dean very happily since he continued to snarl,
"You haven't said more than ten words."
"So you want me to pretend and tell you I like her when she's been looking down her nose at me from the moment she arrived?"
Ouch.
Her words caught me much like a gut punch and I even let out a shocked little gasp, which I then hurriedly clamped with my hand to stop it from carrying but which continued to rumble on with a deeply lingering hurt, because how in the world could she think I had been judging her when all I had been trying to do was somehow help us get along? Maybe I had a bad resting bitch face I had never known about or a permanent sneer no one had ever brought up? Luckily however my man was still fighting hard for me and it carried in his tones,
"She fuckin' has not."
"I'm not a total idiot boy, I can see it."
"Then in that case all the drugs have finally gotten to your head mom, because trust me when I say that she is the least – like – judgey person you're probably ever gonna fuckin' meet in your life. I mean, she even got kidnapped by a cult leader hillbilly an' felt sorry for the guy because she thought he needed friends, so you if you really think she's thinkin' you're any type of anythin' then you're totally wrong because you don't know her at all, so I'm warnin' you now to stop playin' hard ball."
His mother sounded eerily defiant,
"Or you'll what?"
Deciding that the tension was again reaching a tipping point, I chose that moment to step back into the room, calling on all the acting prowess in my retinue to pretend like I hadn't been listening into the fractious words and also trying not to spider monkey to my fiancée for always, always having my back.
I tried to smile brightly across the space,
"I'm all ready."
Dean stepped in towards me at once, moving his hand over the small of my spinal cord in a hold that was both guiding and reassuring all at once.
"Sure thing Princess, let's get the fuck outta here."
He turned me round in the direction of the front door and the streets that I hoped were a whole lot less frightening for once again being bathed in warming sunlight and which I also hoped were far too early for the booze addled and drugged up population of the city to be out, but who still posed a genuinely far better option in terms of a welcome than his still glaring mom. In spite of that though, I paused on the threshold and then wet my lips as I tried to make amends,
"Um, we – we're heading to the market, is there anything we can get you?"
Her baggy eyes sneered,
"No thanks Princess why not get something for your own damn mom?"
Dean blew out a sharp breath from behind me like someone had popped him like a deflating balloon and he then stepped forward like he was going to erupt at her and which he led with a single and well used piece of terminology,
"Fuck."
I caught his arm before he managed to get further, keeping my own tone impeccably calm but pretty much vibrating apart on the inside because holy hell was her sentence ever a bruising one or a perhaps a little like being stabbed by a knife edge.
Nevertheless –
"Um, actually my mom died a year ago, it's the anniversary in a little over two weeks time now and so even though I would really, really love too – trust me on that one, I really, really would – unfortunately those days of buying presents for my mom are over and I know that they're never coming back, but if there's anything you would like then I'll be sure to pick it up for you."
It was the first time I had seen her truly speechless since we'd arrived and for a moment I wondered if I hadn't somehow broken her, but eventually she then shook her head a little.
"No."
Her gaze looked suspicious though, like she was caught between not believing me and potentially feeling horrendously bad.
"Okay then," I nodded, "In that case we'll be back later."
I turned at that point and strode shakily through the door, swallowing down a lump of what I hoped was adrenaline as the light of the morning almost blinded me outright but at least took me away from the appraisingly blinking woman who had never been very likely to fall in love with me anyway but who I had then managed to totally stump from out of nowhere, which had probably revoked my few remaining brownie points straight off.
Crap.
"Princess? Hey – ,"
Dean caught up with me kerbside when I ground to a halt beside our rental car, fingers clenched in too tightly around the handle as I tried to figure out all the spinning in my head and knowing it he turned me carefully towards him and then planted a proud little smack on my lips.
I mumbled across it,
"Now she's going to really hate me."
"Yeah maybe, but if it helps I love you more, because I gotta tell you baby, that was pretty kickass."
"It was?"
He unlocked the doors,
"Come on are you kiddin' me? I fuckin' love it when you get all feisty like that."
"Even with your mom?"
He kissed me again and then winked at me roguishly before tucking me into the passenger seat, helping to ease me in through my bewilderment with his usual guiding touch,
"Especially with her."
"Oh."
In total it took us about twenty minutes to make it into town where the market was being held and the moment we stepped into the row of little pop-ups and brightly painted stalls, I felt like I was home. Mostly the offerings were locally produced and food based and so for the first forty minutes I pretty much sampled away the hurt until I was waddling I had inhaled so many cheese offerings and tiny bites of candy and artisanal breads. Dean ate too, but mostly laughed at me, which I found a little confusing and so frowned at him,
"What?"
He shrugged back coolly,
"S' just fuckin' nice to see you happy."
I wound my arm through his and then gave him a kiss, planting it squarely in over his cheek bone and then further rewarding him with another solid beam, because possibly for the first time since we had hit his home city, I had genuinely found a place where I belonged and frankly where I could have remained forever since every last street and shop front caught my eye.
"Oooh, antiques stall."
I rapidly untangled myself from the loving embrace of his ever solid arm before bustling over to the cloth covered table and beginning to scan everything I could find.
It was one of those stands that was littered with trinkets and earrings and necklaces and little silver things and so was therefore precisely the type of fare to loved to sift through like an overgrown magpie attracted to all the bling. Dean snorted at me then turned back to a record stall to continue leafing through the copious LPs and then tried to make out like he wasn't really with me as I began to pick things up with admiring ooh's and aah's. I filtered my way along the little table eagerly for the first few minutes – foraging like a squirrel through the pretty stuff – then stopped in amazement like I had been struck by a bolt of lightning while at the same time breathing out a very un-me word.
"Fuck."
Beside me a man who had been browsing through the items, blinked at me in a measure of surprise, then cleared his throat as I blushed in embarrassment and tried to find the right words to explain. But there were none, because lying on the table in front of me on a blue velvet cloth was a tiny earring with a cameo, that showed the pale white features of a woman turned sideways surrounded by scalloping as well and a carefully bent hook all of which was set on a purple background that looked achingly familiar.
"That – that belonged to my mom, I – I know I would recognize it anywhere. Oh my god, I can't believe it. I was so convinced that it would always be lost."
My brain felt like it was bursting with fireworks and more genuine excitement than I had felt since Dean proposed, because how had the earring wound up there of all places and perhaps more importantly, where the hell had it been? I launched from the table through the crowd like a maniac, bellowing breathlessly,
"Dean, Dean – ,"
"Princess what's wrong?" he caught me by the elbows clearly expecting all hell to have broken loose and in return I pointed at the stall with a shaky finger and an incoherent sentence,
"It – it's my mom."
"What?"
"She – her – ,"
"Lauren? Hey take a breath for me."
Not able to make him understand my mad babble, I simply grabbed his arm and towed him along behind, which ended when I sort of propelled him at the table and then furnished my crazy gabble by throwing in a desperate point.
"Look."
"At what?"
"At the – ," I turned then let my mouth fall open in conjunction with a stone dropping into my gut, because the little patch of velvet where I could have sworn the earring had been was instead was looking back blankly at me, "No, it – it's gone."
I stifled a snuffle.
Maybe I had somehow dreamed it all up? I mean, I had been thinking a lot about my mother and thanks to the disaster that was my in-law relationship, perhaps it was no wonder I was going insane.
"Princess, you okay?"
I opened my mouth to answer, or else to press miserably up against his chest but then stopped at the sound of a rustling of money and a familiar flash of purple somewhere off to my right. In a second I was again looking straight at my mother's earring but being held in the hand of the man I had loudly sworn beside and who was seemingly in the process of actually buying it and who I tore towards feeling panicky,
"Hey, that's mine."
Hard green eyes turned back towards me, framed beneath a sneer.
"I think you'll find that it's mine, given that I just paid good money for it."
"Lauren?" Dean stepped in closely behind, unsurprisingly sounding pretty massively bewildered, but he stopped when his eyes fell on the item in the hand, whereupon he blew a pretty stunned sounding breath out and blinked a little, "Fuck, is that – ?"
Yeah.
Hell yeah.
In response to the continued cold hard gaze of the man in front of us though and his seeming reluctance to give the earring up, I groped around my neck for the missing piece of the puzzle that Dean had converted into a pendant seven months back and which I pulled out frantically to prove that I was the owner and not a crazy person.
"I – I have the other one, look, my mom lost it a year back and we tried everything to find it, so maybe if you could – ,"
"No."
Dean frowned at the all-out sharpness of the answer, not liking it one bit.
"Hey watch it man, this isn't a fuckin' shake down we're tryin' 'a pull here, so be reasonable alright? We'll buy the thing back. I mean, how much did you pay for it?"
He was already reaching into his pocket for the wallet and cash he had tucked away inside and in the moment I was so relieved for having his level head with me that I could have turned round and kissed him right there, but didn't since my brain was pretty much a swirling vomit-mix of excitement, bewilderment and total relief. I was so freaking close to having a part of my mom back and it made me want to dance.
Hard green eyes blinked,
"Fifty dollars."
"Alright man," Dean nodded, then briskly began to count the bills out, only to find himself rapidly halted as our brand new nemesis offered up a toothy grin,
"But I won't be selling it for any less than five hundred."
"You fuckin' what now?" Dean barked back in shock as his hackles rose then bristled in warning and as his blue eyes sparked in murderous throes. For my own part I merely stared back pretty stupidly while letting my mouth fall open and then closed, because I had literally told the guy how important to me the earring was to me and he was using that against us to make a quick buck.
Remorselessly.
He shrugged,
"Take it or leave it man, but I figure this thing is pretty valuable to your girl, so if you wanna make her happy then that's what it's gonna cost you."
Dean stepped forward hotly,
"You scum-sucking son of a no good – ,"
I grabbed him and then rapidly inserted myself between them, knowing that the chances of my fiancée lashing out at him were building like a bubbling soda stream of rage and not wanting him arrested for punching the guy unconscious but also secretly liking how suddenly frightened the man looked.
"Dean," I pleaded, my heart beating wildly as I forced the bitter words out, "Let him have it – it's okay."
"No it isn't Lauren."
He was right about that part since the thought of leaving my strongest memory of my mother in the hands of an asshole was almost more than I could bear, but it still wasn't enough to risk Dean getting in trouble because he was my priority and always would be.
Luckily however, I was his too.
He grumbled then rifled through the bills in his wallet before looking up, still angry but at least a measure more calm.
"I've got two hundred on me here and that's it man, take it or leave it."
I totally held my breath, convinced that the guy was going to hold out for a fortune and that I would have to turn and walk myself away. Fortunately however the fact that Dean was wearing denims that had holes in the kneecaps that were not of the fashion kind, evidently convinced the guy that we were unlikely to be millionaires because he grinned pretty suddenly and then swiped the held out cash.
"Deal,"
He practically tossed the earring at me and I caught it clumsily and then hauled it to my chest, holding it like I had just caught a baby that had been flung from a building that was licking with flames, then tearing up a little because the sensation was powerful and my head was still spinning from it even being there.
It felt like my mom was sending me a message.
Honey, you're going to be okay.
By the time I looked up again, the asshole guy had vanished, probably with a none-too-subtle click of his heels too based on the look Dean was wearing on his features, which was equal parts pissed at having had to lose the money and murderous at the guy for having tried to play me. He turned towards me to make sure I wasn't shaken and I responded by moving closer then hugging him tight, whispering into his chest in adoration and lifelong gratitude,
"Thank you so, so, so, so much."
He grunted a mildly but then brushed my hair out as he settled his fractious mood again, before snorting very lightly in a wry sounding amusement that made everything okay.
"Let's call it compensation for puttin' up with my mom."
Next chapter things come to head with Mama Ambrose and an unwelcome visitor comes to call but probably won't be who you think it is...presuming you're thinking what I'm thinking you're thinking and not thinking what I'm not thinking...
