Moving In With R5
~Chapter Two~
Laura wakes up in a sour mood. Although she's almost always a very positive person, the first to give everyone she encounters a sweet smile, but in all honesty, she's just not a morning person.
Laura yawns as she descends the stairs with messy bed-head, wearing nothing but an old Beatles tee-shirt and pink piggy pajama shorts.
She comes downstairs to find all the Lynches dressed and ready to take on the day.
"Someone's not an early riser," Stormie jokes in a cheery voice and ruffles Laura's hair. "Don't worry, Laura, you'll get the hang of how things are run around here soon enough."
Somehow, Laura seriously doubts that.
"I don't usually get up so late," she replies noticing the clock on the stove reads '11:43', "I didn't get very much sleep last night."
Stormie simply nods and heads outside when Mark calls for her help with something.
Ryland waits until his mom is out of the house before he drapes an arm around Laura shoulder. "You know, if you were having trouble sleeping, you could have come over to my bed." He winks cheekily at his suggestive comment.
"I thought your mom said no flirting with me. Remember? You're to treat me like a sister," she says, her tone is dripping with annoyance.
Suddenly, Ross comes down the stairs and the room fills with an awkward tension as he notices Laura.
Everyone kind of freezes in place and watches what happens between the two.
Last night is still fresh in both of their minds. A look of hurt flashes through Ross's eyes before he finally speaks up, his gaze shifting from Laura to Rocky and Riker and he's the first one to move in the past thirty seconds.
"Are we ready to go yet?" Ross jumps over the couch, landing a seat right next to Ratliff.
"Not yet," Riker answers. He's still confused by what just happened.
"I swear, mom and dad are slow about everything," Ross replies and his siblings nod their heads in agreement.
"Where are we going?" Laura asks once she gets over their little "moment". She walks away from her original spot in the kitchen, causing Ryland to stumble and fall. She had forgotten he had his arm around her, using her as a support.
"The beach," Ross says. He doesn't even look up from his phone screen.
Laura inwardly groans. She hates the beach. She always has since she was little which was odd considering she'd grown up in place that consisted of so many.
In all honesty, she wasn't much for the outdoors. She'd gone camping once with her family and the Lynches and considered it the worst experience of her life. Nature just wasn't her thing.
"You might want to get dressed before we leave, by the way," Rocky informs her, seeing as how she's still dressed in sleep wear.
She shakes her head and crosses her arms. "It's okay. I'm not going."
"What do you mean you're not going?" Stormie asks when she enters the house, only hearing a fragment of the conversation.
Laura turns her attention to the older women. "I just mean that I'm not much of a beach person, besides I'm not ready to go anywhere and I haven't even had breakfast."
"We'll wait on you," Stormie says. Laura hears a groan escape Ross's lips. He's clearly not happy with the thought of waiting around any longer. Especially not for Laura.
"It's okay. Really it is."
"Laura," Stormie's tone turns serious, "we're a family, we do things together, and for the time being you're part of our family."
Laura squirms under Stormie's gaze, she's a not a huge fan of being looked at intently likes she's being right now.
"I don't even have a bathing suit," Laura mumbles her pathetic excuse.
"You can borrow one of Rydel's," Mark offers, gesturing to his daughter.
"Yeah, if she has something that's not Hello Kitty," Rocky teases.
Rydel slaps him hard in the chest for that remark. She grabs Laura's arm gently and pulls her upstairs to her room.
…
"Rydel," Laura whines as she glances down at herself in Rydel's bikini, "I look ridiculous."
"You look hot," she responds. Rydel throws a yellow cover-up in her direction that Laura hastily covers herself with, feeling very self conscious.
"Come on, lets go," Rydel says over her shoulder, but Laura doesn't move. She bites her lip and looks herself over once more in the mirror.
Her brunette hair is done up in a tight bun, leaving just a few strands to frame her face. Her pale skin already feeling uncomfortable being so exposed.
"Come on," she urges once more.
They walk downstairs finding two more people have shown up while they had been upstairs.
A tall red-head whose talking to Riker gives Laura a confused look. "Whose the girl?"
"That's Laura," Riker answers, "she's staying with our family for a couple months."
"Um... hi," Laura says quite awkwardly.
Great, more people she had to feel uncomfortable.
"Laura, this is Calum and his step-sister Lauren," Riker gestures to the red-head and then jabs his thumb in the direction of a blond girl behind him.
The girl is shorter than Calum and has medium-length blonde hair that she's wearing in pigtails. She's got on light pink swim shorts and a very revealing tank top. Her make-up in done quite over-dramatically. She seems to be throwing herself at Ross, but he looks bored and a bit uncomfortable with her close proximity.
"They're gonna be going to the beach with us," Rydel speaks up next to Laura. The distaste is evident in her voice.
Lauren studies Laura for a while with a dirty look on her face. She finally looks her in the eyes and glares at her.
Laura only rolls her eyes and finishes the rest of the stairs with Rydel, hoping this day blows over soon.
Calum, the Lynches, and Lauren exit the house as well. Lauren's still glaring daggers at Laura.
What Laura doesn't know is a certain Lynch boy happens to be roaming his eyes over the brunette too.
A certain Lynch boy by the name of Ross Shor.
…
The beach is crowded with people, as it usually seems to be.
Everyone strips off their cover-ups, but Laura tries to stay as modest as possible. Lauren on the other hand flew out of the car with barely any clothes on at all. Her tight-fitting, skimpy two piece seems to attract attention from all the beach goers, especially those of the male gender. They undress her with their eyes, even though there's not much left to undress, and she seems to get a boost of confidence out of that.
Until she goes over to Ross and he doesn't even give her the time of day. This makes her pout uncontrollably.
Laura spends most of her time huddled under the umbrella with her book. She's not sure how her pale skin will react with the rays of the sun that they are so unfamiliar with, but she doesn't plan on finding out. Instead, she sits back, slaps on at least twelve pounds of sunscreen, and reads the brilliant words of her Elizabeth Chandler novel.
"Guys, lets play volleyball," she hears Ross yell. Laura glances up from her book in time to see Lauren gripping Ross's waist as her tries to shake her off. An idea must enter his mind because he quickly adds, "Boys versus girls. That means Lauren, you go over there," he finally pushes her away and she pouts.
"We don't have enough people to do that," Lauren complains with her arms crossed over her chest.
"Laura can play," Laura looks from her book once again at the sound of her name.
"That's still only three."
"Fine, then Calum can play on the girls team, since he's pretty much a girl anyway."
"I heard that, Lynch! Don't think I won't get you back for that later," Calum responds back, half joking and half serious.
"Come on, Laura, get your ass over here and quit being a killjoy!"
She ignores the blond boy and continues reading.
He doesn't like that she's doing this, so he throws the ball in her direction and it lands right in front of her. She angrily throws the ball back with all her force and picks her book up again.
This time he throws it, it goes over her head.
Ross snickers challengingly as he sees an angered blush tint her cheeks.
"I hope you know I'm just gonna keep throwing this at you," he smirks.
Laura gets up, brushing the sand off herself. She stalks over to the group with the volleyball in her hands. She throws it at Ross's head, but he catches just it in time to keep it from hitting him.
Laura turns around, ready to walk away from the beach and possibly back to the Lynches house if necessary, but her action is cut short when he throws the ball at her again and it hits her butt.
She turns around instantly, her face beat red. Ross is trying really hard to contain his laughter.
"Oh, look guys, Laura's here to join us in a friendly game of volleyball," Ross says, deeply smirking.
Laura glares at him, joining Calum, Lauren, and Rydel on the left side of the volleyball court. Riker, Ross, Rocky, and Ratliff are the other side. Everyone waits for Ross to serve the ball.
He serves it and it hits the net, falling flatly back to the ground.
"Seriously dude?" Rocky yells over his shoulder at his brother behind him.
"That was just a practice hit, this is the real deal," he insists as Rydel rolls the volleyball back to the boys.
"Yeah, whatever," Rocky mutters, rolling his eyes.
Ross serves the ball a second time and it makes it over the net. Calum hits it expertly back over.
Ratliff hits it, but his position makes it go too far to the left, out of bounds.
"Girls: one, boys: zero!" Rydel declares as she retrieves the ball. "Calum, it's your turn to serve."
Everyone rotates positions and Calum serves the ball. It goes over the net on the first try.
Riker hits it back over to Lauren. Her hit is a little too weak and doesn't quite make it to the net. Instead, Rydel sets it up for Laura to spike it , but she can't because she's knocked to the ground by Lauren who spikes the ball herself.
Rocky tries to hit it back over to them, but the ball hits the net and stays on their side.
"Girls: two, boys: zero. You guys better catch up," Lauren grins smugly and goes back to her spot at the back of the court.
Rydel gives her a dirty look as Calum offers a helping hand to Laura. She takes it, grumbling a "thank you."
The rest of the game pretty much goes the same way. When it's Lauren's turn to serve, she "accidentally" hits it off her wrist and spirals in Laura's direction, hitting her in the back of the head.
Laura stalks off in the middle of the game when she's finally had enough.
She's departed her precious book because she just wants to get the hell out of there.
Laura finds Mark and Stormie and goes up to them, making an excuse that she's got a headache and wants to go home. That's not necessarily a lie, the combination of being hit in the back of the head and knocked to the ground has caused a migraine to be brought on.
"Do you feel sick? Are you gonna puke?" Stormie asks, her motherly nature kicking in.
"Yeah, I'm fine," she reassures, "I just need some rest and I think I'll be better."
She nods. "We'll round up the gang and get out of here."
They head back to the beach and inform the kids they're ready to leave.
Everyone piles into the van and, to Laura's dismay, the only seat available for her is the one by Ross.
On the way back home, Lauren keeps turning around to glare at Laura and Ross, but mostly Laura.
Mark drops Calum and Lauren off before they go back home.
Laura collapses onto the bed upon their return. She's exhausted and her eyes can barely stay open long enough to text her mom.
Rydel walks into the guest bedroom currently being occupied by Laura. "Don't forget to give me back my swimsuit."
"Oh, yeah," Laura replies in realization, "I forgot I had been wearing it."
Laura gets up and trudges over to the dresser. She picks out some comfier clothes to sleep in.
"I'm sorry about Lauren. I didn't realize she was gonna be such a bitch to you."
Laura shrugs. "It's no big deal. I mean I don't know what her problem is exactly, but, whatever."
"She feels threatened by you. I don't know if you noticed this or not, but she kind of has a humongous crush on Ross."
"Yeah, I noticed," Laura answers, then gives her attention to the blond. "Wait, what does that have to do with me threatening her? Why would she feel threatened by me?"
"No reason," Rydel says slowly and before Laura can question her on it, she runs out of the room, leaving a confused Laura behind.
Laura thinks on this for a moment, piecing it all together.
Did Lauren seriously think there was something going on between her and Ross?
Laura rolls her eyes. If anyone was gonna keep Lauren and Ross from having a relationship, it was definitely not gonna be Laura.
A/N
Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry.
I know it took me like, forever and five days to update, but for a while I just didn't know what to make chapter two about. So for those of you who had been waiting anxiously (if any at all) for me to update, I really am sorry and you may jut have to accept the fact that I am lazy.
Also, I realized that in the last chapter I wrote "Aaron" instead of "Rocky". I apologize as I am still adjusting to using their real names instead of referring to them as the Moons.
Also, I know the whole "Lauren" and "Laura" thing might be kinda hard/confusing to read and keep straight, but trust me, her name will be very important in later chapters. And just a tidbit of information, Lauren looks like Audrey Whitby who played Tilly Thompson in the "Bloggers and Butterflies" episode.
Thanks to mono5709, kristinabenoit1, ausllylover2345, MayLuvzuGomez, Love The R5Family, applekaatt, and the guests who reviewed.
So, it has been brought to my attention that someone very special has passed on from this world.
Cory Monteith ( I really, really hope I got that right) who played Finn Hudson on the television series "Glee" passed away on Saturday July 13, 2013. I have never seen the show, so I did not know Cory as an actor, but my heart goes out to all the people of that wonderful fandom who went through this tragic loss.
This chapter is dedicated to the Gleeks. Just remember guys, don't stop believing! Hold on to that feeling!
Follow me on Twitter 'at' NeonShoeStrings
Kthanxbai!