This was awkward. And Lauren knew from awkward.
Telling your boyfriend that you're Intersex, especially when that boyfriend was too dumb to understand that didn't mean you were a 'dude'? Awkward. Discovering that your step-sister really was a lesbian by listening in on her getting her heart crushed? Awkward. Finding out your new boyfriend was cool with you being Intersex but you were less cool with him being a cop? Awkward.
Sitting across the table from your step-sister's girlfriend who just caught you making out with her ex-fake-girlfriend-first-love in the front seat of your car?
That, Lauren thought, was somewhere past awkward. She wasn't sure there was a word for it, at least not one with more than four letters and, judging by the look on Karma's face, Lauren wasn't alone in that feeling. But then, neither of them looked half as… something… (angry? sad? confused? some weird emotional combo platter?) as Reagan did.
And that confused Lauren something fierce.
Reagan had done the same thing for most of the last five minutes. Glare at her. Glare at Karma. Back to Lauren. Back to Karma. It was glare ping pong and Lauren was getting whiplash. Reagan just sat there (glaring) and drumming her fingers on the Ashcroft's kitchen table. She'd followed them there when they all agreed the middle of the street was not the place for this discussion.
Karma had played hostess and gotten them all water. Lauren had thought about requesting a beer (she was pretty sure she'd need it) but Molly was there, bustling about, and so was Lucas, hanging on the periphery looking so confused. Lauren could sympathize. Molly had put out a plate of some… things… Lauren thought were supposed to be muffins (she wasn't going to be the one to find out for sure) and smiled politely, even managing to not say a word when she saw Karma's hand gently rubbing Lauren's back.
But then Lucas… oh, poor poor Lucas, had tried making small talk. "It's so nice," he said, "to see Karma making some new friends. Not that she doesn't have friends." Lauren felt Karma's hand tense on her back. "I mean… other friends. Nice ones. Not like that Booker boy." The redhead's hand fisted the fabric of Lauren's top. "I mean… um… so, do you all know Amy?"
Four sets of female eyes swung his direction and Lauren was sure (so sure) if Lucas hadn't stumbled backward out of the room, muttering something about needing to call Zen, their combined glares might have set him ablaze.
Molly had excused herself to go check on him and that had left the three of them alone in the kitchen, silently staring at each other over water and maybe-muffins and waiting for someone (anyone) to be the first to talk. The silence hung over them, getting heavier by the moment, and Reagan's ping-ponging wasn't helping. Lauren hadn't felt her heart race like that since 'Kama, can I kiss you?' (and pretty much every kiss since, but she was so not thinking about that right now). She wanted to say something (anything) but every thought that came to mind was too cliche (it's not what it looked like) or confrontational (what the fuck business is it of yours) or pathetic (you don't have to tell Amy, really you don't).
And Lauren still had her pride. At least for the moment.
It was Reagan who finally broke the silence. "How long?"
Karma started to reply but the first word out of her mouth was 'How', as in 'how long what?' and Lauren just couldn't take that. She reached out and covered Karma's hand with her own, cutting the other girl off with a silent (but firm) 'I've got this.'
"Not long," Lauren answered. "Not until after your little movie theater plan blew up in your face."
She hadn't planned on the second part, really she hadn't. But there was something… she couldn't put her finger on it. Something about the way Reagan's eyes had narrowed when she saw Lauren take Karma's hand or the way her hand (the one not drumming on the table) clutched her water glass a little tighter. Something about it wasn't… right… and it made Lauren want to poke the bear. Just a little.
Reagan was acting like the jilted lover, like she'd just caught her girlfriend cheating and now she was finding out how deep it ran. Was it just sex (or as close as they'd come, which wasn't that close, certainly not as close as Lauren would have liked and fuck all she was not thinking about that now). Or was it something more, something deeper?
Was it love?
Lauren wasn't entirely sure she'd ever been in love (Tommy was a no, a fuck no, and Theo.. that was too much pain for her to feel anything else). So she didn't have much to compare it to and it really hadn't been that long but there were definitely… possibilities there. Or there had been.
Reagan's voice snapped Lauren back to the table. "You told her about that?" She glared at Karma. "Fuck, Karma. Can you keep anything a secret?"
"Been doing alright with this, so far," Karma replied, clutching Lauren's hand tighter.
The blonde didn't say anything or react at all. She was too busy watching Reagan and there it was (even if she had no fucking idea what it was just yet) but it was there, on the older girl's face. When Karma made mention of keeping them a secret, something flashed across Reagan's face. It wasn't much, just a flicker of something. Half an eye roll. A twitch of an eyebrow. A tiny little bite of a lip.
It was something, Lauren was sure. And when it came to Reagan and Karma and, now, her, Lauren knew that 'something' was never a good thing. "What's the problem, Reagan?" she asked. "I'd think this would make you happy?"
Reagan's glare bounced back from Karma to Lauren and the blonde guessed she could consider the bear good and poked. "Happy?" Reagan spat. "Happy? You think finding you two dry humping by the side of the road makes me happy?"
Lauren bit her tongue and didn't take the 'dry humping' bait (even with a perfectly barbed comment about there not being a dry thing about it). She stayed calm and even keeled even as Karma was damn near squeezing her hand off. "Yes, Reagan, happy. Your main competition for Amy is off the market. I'd think that would be a load off your mind."
Reagan tried (oh how she tried) to hold Lauren's gaze, to not be the one to buckle. In her circles, Reagan was the Lauren, the tough one, the badass bitch. But right then?
Nobody out-Laurens Lauren.
The older girl dropped her eyes to the table and shook her head. "Karma's not my competition," she said and the way she said it (resigned, haltingly, with a hint of heartbreak around the edges) made it pretty clear to all them that even Reagan didn't really believe that.
"I'm not," Karma said and both of the other two girls turned to look at her. "Amy chose you," she said, "pretty definitively. And I've…" She paused to hunt for just the right word, the right phrasing. "I'm trying," she said, looking right at Lauren. There was a pleading in her voice but there was also a reassurance to it. A faint lilt of 'I'm staying' that made Lauren's stomach flip and if Reagan hadn't been sitting across the table, there'd have been much less talking and much more kissing and Lauren wasn't sure Reagan being there would be a deterrant all that much longer.
"Trying?" Reagan asked.
Karma nodded. "I'm trying to live with it and move on and it's all kinda new and different but... I promise. I'm not your competition for Amy. Not anymore."
Lauren didn't know who was more shocked, her or Reagan. Or maybe even Karma herself considering that she'd just basically thrown her lifelong friendship-slash-fake relationship-slash-finally realized I was in love with her just in time for her to pick the other girl thing with Amy over in favor of the couple weeks old… thing… she had with the other girl who had, less than half an hour ago, broken…
Oh. Oh fuck.
Oh fuckity fuck fuck.
In all the shock and the stammering Lucas and maybe muffins and angry Reagans, Lauren had forgotten. She broke up with Karma.
We can't Karma. As much as we both want to…
Yeah. That was a break up. And that was gonna sting for a bit but she'd have to deal with that later and hope that maybe all the seemingly logical reasons she'd had would seem somewhat less logical (and if Karma's lips were involved, Lauren had a feeling they would) because right then and there, they had some slightly more pressing matters to attend to.
"So what are we going to do here?" Lauren asked. "Obviously, you don't want to keep secrets from Amy, but…"
Reagan laughed and Karma and Lauren looked at each other in confusion. She laughed hard and she laughed long and she rested her head on her hand as she shook with it. Karma shrugged and Lauren glared and, finally, the laughter petered out and Reagan took a long drink of her water.
"Feel like letting us in on the joke?" Karma asked.
"No joke," Reagan said. "It's just that you mentioned keeping secrets from Amy."
"Right," Lauren said. "I mean, I get that you probably don't want to. Lying to your girlfriend isn't the best plan if you want to keep your relationship healthy, I know."
Karma shook her head next to Lauren. "Secrets never end well," she said. "But this one… you wouldn't have to keep it forever."
"No?" Reagan asked, a bemused little smirk crossing her face and Lauren realized that the tables had turned and she hadn't even seen it. She was now the bear and Reagan, it seemed, was pretty adept at the poking.
"No," Lauren said and she wondered if the other two could hear the sadness in her voice. She hoped Karma did, at least. "We've already -"
"We've already started talking about how we're going to tell Amy," Karma said. She stared at Reagan, flat out ignoring the 'what the fuck' expression on Lauren's face but there was no way she was going to let Lauren say the 'B' (broken) word. Not about them. Not yet.
"Well, that's good then," Reagan said. "Just one problem."
Lauren turned back to the older girl, wishing in her head that there was only one problem. "And what's that?"
"Amy," Reagan said with that same little smirk. "She already knows."