A/N: Mehehehe we're going to start my fave part soon :3

Reviews are appreciated!

Chapter 3: Improvise this

For a motorbikes amateur, a repair shop is different than for any other people. What a regular person sees as a nasty, horrid work; is more as a secret garden to relax for a while. So it was no surprise that Darren had showed up at Richard's with a few beers to be some company that Sunday. It was more as a starter's pack than an official workplace. Darren could see now why he was so interested to be in the gang. Of course, if he had an interest to make a temporary job out of it, he should be in the circles where motorcycles are almost an accessory. He wasn't a Pimp my Ride professional, but he was learning to modify the sound of the bikes (Rule #1 The loudest the better), and making wheels look fancy; but (and that's what Darren was trying to assure him) what was going to bring him clients and a reputation was that he could make them go so much faster.

The repair shop was placed momentarily at Richard's garage, twenty minutes away from the campus, where he lived with his mother.

"But you'll make nothing out of this if the circuit is closed." Darren complained, kind of bitter, then drinking his beer.

He remembered all of those nights spent on racings, and beers, and weed. It was great. They even named it Michigan's Hole as an inside joke; but the word spread and everyone started to call it like that. There were gangs that came from Minnesota and New York to compete with them. His favorite competition were the brats of upper class of NYU, mainly because they thought their position gave them power and it was freaking great to see them lose. And he was one of the fastest. Joe sort of was, too, but Darren was better. And now that he didn't have a bike? He'd fight for one so hard, and, oh God, how could they close it? It'd have been the best.

Rick (As Darren started to call him) was working on something as Darren talked. He didn't get to know that place, but he commented casually.

"If you liked it so much, why don't you try to reopen it?"

That suggestion caught him instantly. He had to remain silence for a moment. Rick got up and walked to the other side of the garage to grab a tool, and Darren observed him.

"You know what? That's a fucking brilliant idea. I could open it." Darren had gotten a certain reputation and popularity, especially since he made a music video. It'd be a matter of moving some contacts, and to arrange the gambling industry, and that'd be it. It would actually be very helpful, having in mind the relationship with his parents wasn't currently the best and he could use some money. "I like you, Rick. You're smart." He added, now content.

The guy smirked, going back to work on the bike. He felt intimidated when he heard that this guy Darren was coming back. As if it hasn't been hard enough to be accepted in the group! Now he had to deal with getting along with the old (now) jealous hardass attempt. But they became friends very quickly, that Darren felt he was even closer to him than with his old buds.

Although it was awful when Darren tried to bring some obviously still hurtful subject. "When did Joe exactly started dating Devin?" followed by Rick's awkward "Um…" pretending he didn't know the answer.

Performance training class was the first one in Thursday. And it was one of the few Lauren and Caroline's group shared with Darren. Caroline made sure Lauren knew that, even after Lauren stated that she didn't like him at all after their unpleasant encounters. Caroline tried to excuse what she classified as a rude attitude by assuring that Lauren had never had sense of humor and he was probably just trying to make her like him.

But despite sharing that class with someone that in Caroline's world counted as a mid-celebrity, this didn't stop her from arriving late.

Mr. Cameron, the professor of foresaid class was an anarchist 30-something man that always wore an Iron Maiden t-shirt and even though he never seemed to brush his hair and was to Lauren's eyes unprofessional and disorganized, he always came up with some clever activity that made them question whether he knew there was a curriculum to follow. He also insisted into they called him just Cameron but the Mr. always ended up naturally placing first in her mind.

When he said everyone look for a partner, Lauren looked instinctively at the door, waiting for Caroline to enter, but nothing yet.

It's not as if Lauren didn't have any friends besides her. She was very close to Julia and Dylan, who were on their senior year, and were probably the greatest people she had ever met and the students she looked up to (Dylan was finishing his second career before turning 24 and Julia had been directing a dozen of plays by herself in the auditorium). She also kept in touch with her high school friends, those who Caroline liked to call The Plastics as in the Mean Girls movie, because (despite Lauren tried to make the eye blind to it) they liked elitist parties in which they could drink wine and judge people; which is not as bad as it sounds, Lauren thought. It's just that she particularly found troubling to make friends in her classroom.

It took her a while to realize that Darren was across the room, sitting down, and as her, not looking for a partner. If she didn't find one, she'd have to do the activity with him. It wasn't something she was craving for, having in mind they got along terribly. Her feet started to move in an anxious tick; and she turned to watch the door again, but Caroline was apparently skipping this class. She tried to make eye contact with someone in the same situation, but everyone seemed to have it all planed.

Maybe she could just ignore the whole thing and Mr. Cameron would assign her a trio.

"Lauren, are you waiting for an invitation or do you plan to pair up?" Another thing that characterized Mr. Cameron was that he called them all by their names. She'd have liked that he forgot hers just that time, though.

"I owe you the invitation for the next time." Darren muttered, smiling slightly. He had walked to the seat she didn't seem disposed to abandon in the near future.

She'd kill Caroline the second she had the chance.

Existent words couldn't describe how uncomfortable she felt. She wasn't terrible at improv, and she wasn't great neither; but it was just the fact that she had treated him badly and now she didn't know how she was supposed to act. Should she just ignore what happened and do the stupid exercise? It sounded the most professional thing to do, but easier said than done.

As Mr. Cameron explained the exercise, Lauren put her hands in the back pockets of her jeans and looked down, hearing carefully his words. Meanwhile Darren took off that leather jacket he wore every time one single cold wind toured the city, and hung it on the auditorium's rack.

The activity was a common game based on genre switching. They are given a location/situation and they start performing a "normal" scene, but after a certain period of time the dialogue and acting has to be adjusted to fit the genre or normativity the professor chooses in that moment. She has done it before, it wasn't very hard.

"It's 1981, and you're walking out of a concert. The relationship between your characters is free choice." Mr. Cameron ordered, and the class started right away.

Lauren shared a one-second glance with Darren, with the intention to decide which direction they were going to take, but her mind went blank. Darren was quicker though. He hit her on the arm with his fist, as if they were friends, but when he talked, he didn't say anything about the hypothetical concert.

"You could've at least had a sip of the coffee the other day, you know. They're not free." The expression of his face and his gestures had nothing to do with the words coming out of his mouth.

"What are you doing?" Lauren spat, too confused to follow him.

Then Darren let out a cackle as if she just said the funniest thing he ever heard.

"Just fucking follow the game." He said, smiling through the words that didn't match his face, and walking to the other side of the room, which was more desolated, but Lauren stayed still. He pointed at Cameron with his eyebrows, and Lauren realized she had no option but to do it so.

"I told you I had no interest in talking to you. I already know what I need to know about you." Lauren pretended they were having a nice friendly chat, which made the sarcasm on her voice twice stronger.

"You got me all figured out already, do you?" Darren kept walking slowly, as if they were heading somewhere. She was supposed to walk next to him.

"Pretty much."

Cameron started walking through the students, as if he had gotten into some kind of trance. He'd yell "Dystopia!" to a pair that'd have to start to either fight or cry hysterically, and murmur "watch out, she's a murderer!" if he felt like spicing things. He pictured himself as some artist painting a canvas, directing them in a harmony only he understood, although it always got to the point where the class was a mess of loud voices and disorganized scenes.

"So, who am I, exactly?" Darren asked, curious. He wasn't upset, he was instead entertained.

"You've graduated from high school mediocrely, by doing just what it was enough to pass and probably copying in most tests, thinking it was no big deal, because it's high school. Then you got into college, and it was terrible because doing what you think it's enough is never enough." Her tone was regular because they had to keep pretending to do the exercise. "You kept pretending it was all good, you know, wearing a leather jacket and riding that big bike and going to parties like it's all chill. But it wasn't, and you had to switch universities, and something happened and you're back again. So you keep trying to act like it's all chill and you're cool, to cover up the fact that you're a criminal and probably a psychopath or something."

Darren laughed, but this time it wasn't because of his character. "A criminal? You think I deserve to be in jail? With all the bad guys?"

Lauren stopped walking. She was pretty serious. "Everything points that you are one of them. I don't wanna be that person that makes you go to prison, I really don't. But I can't ignore what I know."

"What you think you know." Darren was serious too, staring back into her eyes, defiantly.

They couldn't tell whether it was fortunate or not that Cameron walked next to them in that moment, pointing at them with his index finger as if his muse struck him.

"Give me some romance, you two!" He shouted.

When Darren moved his face towards her, Lauren thought during one millisecond that there was a chance he was going to kiss her, and her blood froze. But he directed his lips to her ear instead, pretending he was saying something else. They had luck that the professor didn't walk close enough to realize that their conversation was absolutely inaccurate.

"It is really more complicated than what you think." His voice sounded different. Weird. Good weird, though. The intimacy was unexpected, so she couldn't help but to give one step back.

They were supposedly in love now.

She gave that step forward again, placing a hand on his shoulder. Delicate enough to be romantic, and it didn't involve a lot of physical contact.

"It's not an excuse. A thief is a thief."

It was the first time she saw such a judgmental look on his eyes. He shook it off quickly, though.

"You have no idea what you're talking about." His breath was warm, and she could feel it down her neck.

"I know the law."

Darren convinced himself that she didn't believe that. She couldn't. She was smart, he could tell by the little he knew her, that she wouldn't allow herself such simplistic thought.

"The world is so much more than a book saying what you're not supposed to do. And if you believed that, Lauren, we wouldn't be discussing this in the first place." And saying this he softly put a hand on her waist.

Lauren couldn't tell the moment when they moved so close as they were now, but she knew he could easily smell the essence of her hair from there and she didn't know why she was allowing it.

She didn't know what to reply to him, so she didn't say anything. She looked down to her fingers, still placed on his shoulder, near his neck bones, while his words echoed several times in her head.

Darren whispered again.

"Cameron is looking at us as if we were porn. If you wanna watch him lose his mind, we should kiss."

"What?" Lauren stepped back as if she was being suddenly electrocuted.

Darren raised his eyebrows, surprised by her reaction. He was kidding, it was obvious. "I was just saying-"

"Is that what this is all about?" She said loudly, scandalized, forgetting the exercise, and the class, and Cameron.

"I didn't-" Darren couldn't even try to explain himself.

"Get it into you head. It's not going to happen!" She burst out, upset, as she turned around, and grabbing her bag with a furious swap left the classroom. The nearest pairings stopped their improv to watch the scene.

Cameron went from being fantasized with one of his prodigy students to look at him, scandalized, in a matter of seconds. As some of his class mates were, too, judging him. As if… he had tried to do something…

"It was a joke…" He whispered, astonished, more to himself than to anyone else. Cameron started giving him a lecture about the limits of improvisation and respect to your mates, but Darren wasn't listening.

What just happened?

"It seems that I've missed an intense class." Caroline commented, still in her pajamas while she was making coffee; her red hair still messy and her eyelids barely up.

"That Darren Criss guy is going to make me go insane!" Lauren spat, still upset, as she threw her bag on the table. She sat down, annoyed, and let out a sigh.

Caroline stared at her with her eyebrows up, extremely surprised.

"What'd he do now?"

Lauren went on details about the incident at the performance training class, and by the end of her explanation, Caroline was even more confused.

"So… Did he try to kiss you?"

"Not exactly, but-"

"Did he touch you or did something inappropriate?"

"I didn't give him the time to do anything so..."

"And was he joking?"

Lauren was finding explaining the situation harder with every second.

"You had to be there to understand." Lauren sentenced.

Caroline rolled her eyes. "…Okay, miss I've-spent-two-of-my-lives-overreacting." And then she continued to drink her coffee.

It wasn't after fifteen minutes that the rage started to be replaced with embarrassment. At first she tried to shoo it away, listing in her mind the reasons why she had the right to act the way she did. But it didn't take long before she had rebutted herself her entire list. And swiftly, the shame was so powerful that it started to freak her out.

She had stolen half of Caroline's coffee, grabbed her books and went to her next class, and by midday; when she realized that she hadn't listened to a word from the professor, it hit her.

She acted like a freak. Point and new paragraph.

Darren had said a joke, and if she were as any other person, she'd have laughed and they would've continued with their lives. There was no reason to cause a scene.

"I've made a fool of myself." Lauren cried, later, on the buffet.

"It wouldn't be the first time." Caroline replied calmly, as they sat down at Julia and Dylan's table.

"I need to apologize." Lauren continued like if her friend had never said anything. "It's like, if I don't, everything I claim on him to lack of as a person, would be something I lack too. I morally need to apologize."

"So, after trying to avoid him since the first day of classes, now you want to find Darren Criss." Caroline gave a big bite to her sandwich. "I love plot twists." She added with her mouth full.

"You know, if you're interested in talking to him," Julia said, lifting her gaze from the notebook next to her plate for a little while. "Jim is throwing a Halloween party tomorrow, and I'm sure he'll be there. It's not so far from the campus, I can drive you guys."

Lauren tried to ignore Caroline's sad begging eyes. She had avoided those infamous Halloween parties for two years, why would she find them interesting now?

"We can improvise a costume." Caroline shrugged, whilst she got no answer from her friend. "Pick us up at 22."

"I'm not sure I want to do this." Lauren muttered.

"You're an actress, Lauren." Her friend said, upset. "You love dressing up and pretending to be someone else. This should be your paradise. Now, finish your sandwich." She hurried, grabbing her arm. "We got work to do!"