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Also, Merry Christmas! x
Chapter 15: When he met her
"Let it count as a first date." Darren stated, a week later after their reconciliation at the Hard Rock Café, handing her the cinema billboard program. He pointed at The Dark Knight schedule, which was conveniently close, and she wondered if he had schemed that on purpose when he settled up the timing to meet up.
"First?" Lauren snapped, frowning, thinking about the plenty of times they had been together before and querying why they didn't count.
"Yeah, you never really, um –allowed me, to take you on a date before." Darren explained.
"Oh," Lauren pretended to examine the options in the schedule, but she wasn't truly thinking about them, "Right."
"But I've passed all the obstacles by now, didn't it?" He said with a smirk, proudly raising an eyebrow and Lauren wished that analogy wasn't so accurate. They gave a few steps forward in the waiting line.
"You certainly did." Her eyes stopped for a second in the ad for 27 dresses, the movie that Caroline had suggested her to watch. "Still don't know how."
Darren leaned into her ear to confess lowly, "I cheated."
Lauren's giggle was mildly covered by a sudden buzz of voices behind them. Darren turned his head without not too much discretion. "Looks like we have audience," he observed.
Lauren didn't need to check on the origin of those whispers to confirm her suspicions, "It's been like this since last week's Saturday." Darren could easily detect the disturbance in her voice. "It seems like your little fan club has targeted me, and they do that every time one of us does something."
But Darren's complaint came from another place, "Little fan club?" He snapped his tongue once and purposely added, "My website would prove differently."
Even within the joke, it was clear that having people commenting about his life was more of a compliment than an annoyance, and that he enjoyed the voyeurism of the group spying their date. It was completely the opposite for her, but maybe she'd make out with him just to make them lose their minds, completely out of selfish reasons, of course.
"So, what should we watch?"
Lauren handed the program back to him, "You should pick the movie. I've forced you through like eight movies you hated. It's your turn."
Darren looked genuinely surprised as they gave a few more steps closer to the ticket office. "Lauren Lopez. Are you actually considering me your equal?"
"Oh, shut up." She said, not deciding to laugh but doing it anyway.
"But you know what I like the most about us now?" Darren said, his hands sliding from her hipbones to her waist and pulling her just a bit closer, "That you do that a lot."
"I do what?" Lauren asked, smiling curiously.
"Laugh." He explained. His index finger placed gently under her jaw, at the side of her chin, and his thumb crossed the corner of her lip as he said that, "You do that much more now. I think I can get used to it."
Darren gave her a soft kiss on the lips, and the supposedly fan club began another session of whispers.
"Not everyone can get out this side of me. You're permitted to feel special." Lauren confessed, playing with the zip of his jacket, without letting that momentary intimacy be crumbled by the people watching them.
"I have more than enough reasons to."
"Excuse me," a voice intruded. "I'm so sorry to bother you guys, but can you please take a picture with us?"
It was a young, black-haired girl with two friends, and Lauren was sure they were part of the spying group. Despite she said she was sorry like five times through the whole process, it didn't make her feel less inadequate and out of place.
Their turn to buy the tickets arrived in that much less adequate moment, so Lauren bought two tickets for The Dark Knight and waited for Darren at the side of the waiting line.
"Sorry about that," he said once he approached her, though he really didn't seem to be.
"It's alright." Lauren replied, while they walked to the line for the actual show. "Sometimes I forget you're not –um, normal people."
Darren frowned and looked at her, "I am, except for a very restricted little group of persons."
"I thought it wasn't little." Lauren added cheekily.
Darren laughed and grabbed her hand, "Okay, you got me there in my false modesty." He shook his head, "How much did the tickets cost?"
"It's okay, it's on me." Lauren casually explained, shaking her head.
"No, really. I pay." Darren's insistence wasn't casual. "Lauren." He called again, after getting no response for a few seconds.
"Why is it so important?"
"Because it's our first date, and I want to." It sounded like a serious matter to him. Even more, after he had dropped her hand and gotten suddenly tense.
Lauren assumed it was some stupid man pride reason, so she rolled her eyes and let him pay before the night got ruined.
It should've been her first clue.
"Okay," Lauren couldn't keep ignoring Caroline, so she closed her Macbeth copy and placed it on her lap. "That's the third time you giggle like a freak in the last ten minutes. Who are you talking to?"
Caroline was studying (or at least pretending to) on the table, and while her notes and books did were spread all over the surface, she was paying more attention at the constant ringtone of her cellphone. Lauren couldn't hold the intrigue anymore.
"Why should I tell you?" Caroline defiantly said, "I'm the last one you tell absolutely everything. Do you know how much dignity I lost having to hear things about you and Darren from Brian Holden?" she dramatically snapped, and Lauren snorted in response.
"That's not fair. You love to talk about these things, come on."
Caroline's grin escaped in the corner of her lips. "You wouldn't believe me if I told you the truth either way."
Lauren raised her eyebrows. "Who is it?"
"Guess." Caroline challenged.
Lauren bit her lip. She was terribly at this, she knew it. "Nick?"
The redheaded rolled her eyes, annoyed at her friend's ineptness. "No."
"That guy from improv class? Jake?"
"No. He talked to me the other day, though. He needed help with some exam and I recommended him your mentorship. He's cute, actually, just not my type."
"Who's your type, then?" Lauren was genuinely curious now.
"You'll never guess who it is." Caroline's tone even sounded kind of disappointed to not have the chance of talking about this.
"Rick Glennan?" Lauren threw a name haphazardly now.
Caroline made a pause. "Warm… but no."
Lauren had never felt so clueless and anxious before. She felt she had it at the tip of her tongue but didn't actually know it yet.
"Brian Holden?"
"You know, I don't think he plays for my team…"
Lauren looked around like if she could find a hint around her. Unfortunately, her phone started ringing and she had to interrupt the conversation.
"Hey."
"Baby." Darren's voice sounded disappointed. "I'm sorry, we're gonna have to cancel tonight. I just went to get a grade from Introduction to Dramaturgy, and I fucked up. They're giving me a last chance tomorrow, but I got to pass this. So I'm staying up all night studying."
They were supposed to have dinner that night, since there were a lot of exams coming up for the next weeks and they knew they'd have to straiten their time together, but this would mean an early beginning of that period they didn't want to reach.
"Don't worry," Lauren assured, "How did it happen you failed Introduction when you're doing so well at Dramaturgy?"
"I didn't study these authors in Los Angeles. I didn't give the subject the sufficient time. Enough explanations for you, miss?" He snapped.
Everyone in the class were highly impressed of him since Mrs. Wood asked him while she thought he was daydreaming staring to the window (and he was) something about Molière's absurdism, and he blinked a few times saying what? above the giggles of the classroom, then Mrs. Wood expressed the question again, and he gave a perfect 2 minute long answer that leaved everyone, including the professor, speechless, before she reacted with a grin of approval. Every once in a while ever since, she'd ask his opinion just for pure curiosity and to spice the class' environment; and he never failed her showing his substantiated, though sometimes controversial responses.
Lauren laughed, "Honesty first. Which authors do you have there?"
"A bunch. But Freytag and Lessing, basically."
"Huh." Lauren analyzed thoughtfully before adding, "You know, I passed Introduction last year."
"Huh." Darren let out, surprised, but his hesitation was longer than Lauren's. "Are you offering to…?"
Lauren sighed, faking commitment, "You know, as a tutor, it's my duty to help my fellow students."
But Darren ignored this, "Oh god, if you could help me, I'd love you so much. This is a total mess for me."
"I'll buy food in the way."
"You're the best." Darren sounded vividly happy now.
Lauren grinned, standing up, "I know. See you in a moment."
Caroline was doing some actual studying when Lauren walked by her.
"So, giving up?" Caroline asked.
"Mm?!" Lauren inquired from inside of her room.
Caroline rolled her eyes, "Oh, forget it."
Lauren left the pizza on Darren's table and he planted a hard, excessively affectionate, grateful kiss on her cheek.
"You're my savior."
Lauren pushed him by the stomach, playfully, "Get off me. Where are your notes?"
They gave one first fast reading of the material while eating the pizza, at the table. Then Darren sat alone, by the couch, reading his handwritten notes while Lauren checked at hers from last year and tried to understand the old doodles and decoding what they were exactly about.
Darren talked only after five minutes, "Okay, I got nothing. You?"
"How can you have nothing?"
"Do you really wanna know? I wrote like… fifteen unfinished songs, and made like ten obscene drawings. There's probably one of you if you let me inquire."
Lauren put her feet on the chair next to her to be more comfortable. "I don't want to know that. Also, you're gross."
He threw his head back as a laugh vibrated in his vocal chords, "I'm kidding," He added, entertained, "Those are in my other notepad."
Two and a half hours later, they were doing the second reading, sifting out the most important points. Both in the couch, lying against opposite sides of the armrest, legs slightly intertwined every now and then. Now that Lauren had made memory of the material, teaching Darren didn't mean a big effort. He was quick to catch most of the basic items, intelligently entailing all together in the bigger picture, and sometimes even making her see things she hadn't noticed during the entire semester she attended the class.
"So, if you had to epitomize the denouement in one line, which one would be?" Lauren asked, after reading her old exam in which they made that same question.
"Um, in Oedipus it's the last line, obviously." He skimmed through his book for a few seconds, until he landed the tip of his index finger on a page, "Let every man in mankind's frailty consider his last day; and let none presume on his good fortune until he find life, at his death, a memory without pain." He looked at Lauren and rolled his eyes, "Drama queen."
"Literally," Lauren conceded. She turned the page of her old exam, "Good." She stated. "Same assignment. Anagnorisis."
"Um," Darren said again, like he had to switch a control inside of his brain. "Follows the messenger's revelation –I mean, peripety… It's an internal one… when the dude goes…" Lauren kicked his knee at the exceeding informality of his response. "Ouch, okay, the dude doesn't go anything." He flipped back the pages until he found the line, "I stand a wretch, in birth, in wedlock cursed. A parricide, incestuously, triply cursed. Although we all knew it since the beginning because literally everyone said it, Oedipus believed it just now and it changed him. His, um –fate, changes. He realizes his true identity in like, five minutes, and he goes from an arrogant dick to a miserable, incestuous, literal mother-fucker."
"I'd avoid the curses, but it's correct." Lauren sentenced with a smile.
Darren grinned, "It's kinda like your movie. This."
Lauren raised her eyebrows, "Which movie?"
"When Harry met Sally." Darren continued, "When she realizes she's in love with the guy. She's been in love with him, you know, for like a goddamn long time because –how much does that movie lasts anyway?"
Lauren held a laugh, carefully listening, "Go to you point."
"Well, he's given her this long, dramatic speech confessing his love, and she genuinely tries to say she hates him because she thinks she does, because it'd be tragically horrible if she loved him, but then…"
"They kiss." Lauren finished. She could easily replay the scene in her head.
"Exactly. Fate changes."
"And it's not a tragedy."
"No." Darren stood up and stretched his spine and shoulders, which seemed to have contracted after that long time still. He yawned and added with a thin voice, "But it's a movie."
Lauren pressed her lips together. Despite the last statement seemed to dismiss the whole relevancy of her point about the movie sessions, that evidenced he truly paid attention to the films.
"I'm gonna make coffee," Darren said, walking to the stove dragging his feet.
It was late, and tiredness and excessive talking started to break havoc in them.
"You're brilliant." Lauren let out with admiration. She stood up and followed him, resting her elbows against the kitchen's counter, and looking at him. "You know, if you weren't so fucking lazy you'd be one of the best students in the university."
It was true. The professors of the performance related subjects were fascinated with him, he always not only filled their expectances, but he surprised them by exploring more than what he was asked for. Creativity and nerve are qualities very admired in the theatre industry, and they let him know he was meant for big every time they had the chance. The teachers were always offering him to take a part in their plays (which he'd mostly politely decline), and Lauren never really understood how all of this seemed to be so indifferent for him.
Darren looked at her with the same curiosity, after lighting the burner, "I'm not lazy, actually. I'm just… apathetic to most of this. I grew up in intimate contact with the spectacle world. By this time… I don't rely on academic success for gratification, or my future, or any interest, actually."
Lauren felt suddenly at the defensive. She stood up straight like if this'd make her seem bigger, a hand on her waist and the other one tapping the counter.
"What are you trying to say?"
"Honey…" He said sweetly, giving a step towards her so they were really close, and he paced a hand on her hip, "Look, you're doing amazingly at this career, and you'll finish it and someone from this same institution or by recommendation will offer you a position in the Academia right away, and you'll fit perfectly, which it's great. For you. But that could never make me happy."
Lauren could see where he was coming from, but she couldn't help but to snap at the comment. So she added firmly, "You're wrong about me."
For her world, the only decision of choosing that career was rebellious. She didn't follow the institutions she had been meant to follow since the day she was born, and that was liberating enough for her.
"Maybe." Darren shrugged, calmed, like if it wasn't really that big deal. "We haven't known for that long, I'm just making a biased hypothesis."
"Besides, if you're so unsatisfied with convenialities, you should do something about it. Is not studying for your exams going to change the world as you know it?" Lauren's words came out with such determination they seemed rehearsed.
Darren laughed, seeming highly entertained with the conversation, "I just think institutions are inherently trapping by themselves, you know? They're always gonna get the change last. And that's why they're boring to me."
"The revolution comes from the outside, not from the inside, then?" Lauren rested her head on the palm of her hand, and she didn't bother to hide the irony and defiance on her words.
Darren got even closer, so she'd feel his body casually (and at the same time completely on purpose) grazing hers, suddenly intimate. And his voice came out quieter, clearly audible in the deep silence of the room.
"I'd never word it like that, but if that's your perspective on it, I'll take it." His hand ran through her waist, playing carelessly with the shape of her spine peeping out under her shirt. "Are you secretly a rebel?"
Lauren closed her eyes when she felt Darren's warm breath on her ear. She put an arm around his waist as well, and pulled him closer, almost instinctively. Darren took this as a hint to gently press his forehead against the side of her head, his nose against her cheek.
"You'd be surprised."
Darren bit his lip. His hand was slowly, temptingly going up, like if he was joining invisible dots traced on her pores, until he reached the bra under her shirt. She thought he'd unzip it and felt like not breathing for a moment. But he just ran it down again, this time strongly, his hand spreading to touch more skin. Darren's skin was warm, and his grip was soft but determined, like if he had touched her like that before and he knew all the right places to make her lose her mind.
Lauren arched her back out of an unnamed anxiety, when she fell into the count that her chest would be against his if she did it so, but it was too late. She felt Darren gulping heavily.
"Where?" It was a whisper and she wished she couldn't notice the subtle and dirty hidden meaning of that conversation, but she did and it was making her all loose and weird.
Darren's lips closed on his jaw, sucking it for a short moment. She heard her own breathing as the loudest noise in the room, yet she couldn't do anything to stop it. For what it was only the fraction of a second, she imagined that Darren sucked and touched every single part of her body.
Worse: she wanted him to.
And she didn't need to open her eyes to know Darren was looking at her when he repeated, "Where are you a rebel?"
It took all of her strength and willpower to open her eyes. She fixed her gaze on his and hoped this would tell enough.
"Lo," he called sweetly. Lauren realized he really knew how to use that tone when he intended to. He was still so fucking close, but he stopped his caresses. His voice was serious now, "Are you a virgin?"
She wet her lips slowly, and Darren assumed the sudden apathy in her eyes to be caused by shyness.
"No," She answered lowly, and added after a pause, "Is that okay?"
Darren half-smiled, "It's perfect." He assured.
"Although," Lauren continued before Darren kept on breathing in her ear, because this closeness made already hard enough to maintain her conviction, "I want to keep it slow for now. You know, until I can be more –sure, about us. What do you think?"
Darren nodded instantly, even though the hand on her lower back seemed to disagree. He tried to fix his mind in anything else that wasn't her lips, or the brown in his eyes, or her boobs pressing against his chest, but it was so bloody difficult because everything in her was calling him. And he wanted to touch, and kiss, and discover what made her lose her head.
"Yeah," He finally said, realizing they were probably too close to keep anything slow. So he instead held Lauren's hand that was placed on his waist, and intertwined his fingers with hers, "Of course." The kettle whistled behind him while he was thinking what was he supposed to say now. Thank God, he thought. The increasing tension was about to become uncomfortable. "Coffee?"
Two hours more of re-reading, and explaining, and asking took place after the coffee, this time with no distractions. Both were sitting on the floor, resting against the couch's lower part, with the notes spread all over the floor in a mess Lauren wouldn't have put up with Caroline, but Darren was in a desperate situation and she was too exhausted to worry about anything else. Her throat hurt from speaking too much and too loud, and Darren's eyes were so tiny they could disappear at any minute.
"I give up." He finally said, throwing the last paper to the pile and pushing it with his feet, like if he needed them to be very far away, "I can't read a word more. I can't learn anything else. My brain doesn't have room for it."
Lauren threw a yawn and then added, "You'll be okay. You know everything they can possibly ask you. Let's take a break."
"Okay." Darren hadn't agreed to anything quicker before.
He laid his back on the cold floor, while Lauren climbed the couch as if she didn't have the strength to do anything else.
"Give me a pillow." Darren asked. "I'm not gonna sleep, I'm just gonna… rest my eyes for a moment."
Something hinted Lauren that he wasn't being honest, but she was so fucking tired she truly didn't care. Anything would seem better after a five minutes nap; maybe ten. So she handed him a pillow and closed her eyes, only for a second…
"Darren! Fuck! What time do you have the exam?"
"What?" He ran his hand through his face, wondering a) why the fuck did Lauren have to yell so loud if he was sleeping so peacefully and b) what exam whatsoever?
"Your exam, Darren! We slept through! It's eight a.m.!"
"I –fuck, in fifteen minutes."
"Shit, go wash your face or something, I'll get your books. Hurry up!"
His heart raced in a moment as he tried to find balance while standing up. Lauren was searching through the mess of notes in the floor, her hair made a total mess to fit in; when he closed the bathroom door with a slam.
"Two minutes early, that was magic, I swear." Lauren stated, both standing up at the door of the classroom.
"You're magic. Thank you so much. I couldn't have done this without you."
Darren held her jaw while he gave her a kiss.
"You're welcome. Beacoup de merde." Lauren said with a smile.
Darren opened the door of the classroom, and gave her a quick wink before disappearing behind it. Lauren couldn't wipe that smile off as easily as she did with everything else.
She hoped her change of fate wasn't that soon. Things were going quite great just as they were.