an: thanks. this one is filler, but it's a bit essential for a future chapter, so I guess it'll do. not my best work, but whatevs.
but... it is a good(ish) one for today. Happy Valentine's Day. :P

disclaimer: the lads are not owned by me, sadly, but by themselves.

SIXTEEN - LAUREN'S LOVE LIFE

Promises break and lovers will lie
You hold up your hands and let out a sigh
So smile right before you fall
And lay beside this mess and call it consequence

It had been about a month since I had run into Tom and we went to the old theatre only to end up with a bruised ankle and hopped up on extra-strength painkillers, I had found out my now ex-boyfriend Robert had been cheating on me and had broken it off with him, and Lauren had taken me out to get our nails done – her treat – just because. I had finished writing up the interview the following week, having had so much information I couldn't use it all. The magazine went out at the end of the month, my ankle healed quickly enough – I was only hobbling around a little more than a week – most of my nails had chipped by the following weekend, I was fine with what had happened between Robert and me, and I was able to think about him without freaking out – after a few days of wallowing while watching movies and eating ice cream with Lauren.

Tom and I had got together a few times, what with our busy schedules, and talked every day, it seemed. We didn't actually talk every day, but, as we did talk a lot, it was almost like we did.

Lauren had been spending a lot of extra time with Josh, so, whenever she wasn't at the studio or with me, I could assume that she was with him. I didn't know why they were spending so much extra time together, but I got suspicious one afternoon when she walked in, cheeks rosy, her hands in her pockets – something she rarely did.

I didn't say anything, figuring if she was hiding something from me, she'd tell me soon enough.

She flopped down on the sofa next to where I was sat. "I have something to tell you," she announced, smiling brightly.

I turned off the television and put my laptop on the coffee table in front of the sofa, giving her my full attention. "Okay, what?" I asked.

"Well," she began, pausing for emphasis, still smiling at me brightly, "Josh asked me to marry him. And I said yes!"

My jaw dropped. "Wow!" I threw my arms around her, holding her so tightly that we could barely breathe – in other words, I was giving her a Dougie, as I had decided to call them. "Congratulations! We have to celebrate!"

"When? Right now?"

I thought about it for a split second, and then said, "Ooh! We'll call in sick tomorrow and have a girls' day!"

"Ooh! Okay!"

"So, do you have any ideas as to when you want to get married?" I asked her then, standing and heading for the kitchen to find something to drink.

"Oh, yes! Josh and I talked all night after he proposed, and we decided we want to have it next-next Saturday."

"Oh, really? So soon? Is there any reason for it then?"

"Nope, none, nadda," she replied, looking at me over the back of the sofa. "I don't want a big wedding – you know that."

I did know that. That was the main area where we differed: she wanted a small wedding with only close family and friends, and I wanted a big wedding with almost everyone I knew. Technically, we wanted what our parents didn't have. Her parents had a big, white wedding, and my mum didn't have a wedding; but if she did, she would have eloped, as neither her parents nor my father's agreed with their relationship.

Since Lauren was in love, and she wanted to have her parents at her wedding, she decided it'd be best for a small wedding, rather than eloping.

And I knew that, even if she wasn't planning on having anything big, it would still be an amazing party.

"There's really no reason for the rush? I mean, just last month you were telling me how you didn't know if you were ready to get married."

"I know. I—I'm just ready. And I know I'm ready. And I love Josh, and I want to marry him—now, not next year."

Her eyes got a little watery as she told me this. I pulled her in for a hug.

"Oh, Lauren, I love you. And I'm going to miss you when you get married."

"I love you, too, Adara. And I, too, will miss you."

"Okay, so, when did he propose?"

"Last night. You know how we went out to dinner?"

I nodded having just taken a sip of the juice I had poured myself.

"Well, after, he took me back to his place, like we usually do, and he asked if I would like some fruit. And you know me and fruit! So, as we ate the fruit, just talking and looking at each other, I found this ring," she said, pausing to show me the ring she now wore on her left hand, "at the bottom. I said yes so fast he didn't even have time to finish asking the question."

"That's my girl!" I put down my juice cup and replaced it with Lo's hand, getting an even better look at the ring. "And that ring is absolutely gorgeous!" I dropped her hand back down, taking my cup back up, sipping from it as I went back into the kitchen, finding out the time.

It was five on a Sunday evening, too late to go out to look at dresses or any other wedding stuff, like my first thought was, so I moved onto the second.

"Say, let's go through our wedding books from when we were younger!" I suggested, popping out of the kitchen once again.

"Ooh, okay! Oh, you know, I should call my parents."

While I went in search of our books that we worked on until just a few years earlier, Lauren went and called her parents, letting them know that she was getting married.

I found them in a box at the back of the linen closet, having had nowhere else to put them when we first moved in months ago. When I returned to the lounge, she was still on the phone, though it sounded as though she wasn't talking to her parents anymore.

As soon as she saw me, she told the person on the other end she had to go, and hung up, smiling.

"Who was that?"

"My brother," she answered, shrugging.

I thought he still lived with their parents, but I could never be sure, as it didn't really matter. "Oh, cool. Look what I found!"

"Yay!" she squealed, taking hers from my hand. We spread them on the coffee table, going through them together, slowly.

For the rest of the evening, we started working on details of the wedding, writing down things that would need to be done this week, things that could wait until the following week. Most of the things we had decided that we would do the following day while we were out, including looking for her dress.

Just before we went to bed, she told me that I was going to be her maid of honour and that I had no choice on the matter. Not like I wouldn't have been if she had asked me.

"Lo, what am I going to do with you?"

"Love me forever?"

Laughing, I said, as my way of goodnight, while wrapping my arms around her and pulling her in for a hug, "You're going to make a beautiful bride and a wonderful wife, Dixie."

song: bigger than love by my favorite highway.