He looked down, pulling his brow together, and Lauren watched his shoulders rise before he lifted his eyes back to hers. “I would never allow someone into this house unless I knew they were worthy of her.”
Lauren’s breath caught in her throat. There was no mistaking the meaning behind his words, behind the look in his eyes. There was no ignoring the fact that she was in his home right now, caring for his daughter. Lauren stared at him, unmoving, and as her breathing finally picked back up, so did her heart rate.
She knew at that moment that coming to Michael’s house was a bad idea. Between Erin’s earlier comment, the photo album, and now this, she could feel emotions brewing inside her that were supposed to be long gone.
It suddenly felt like there was a magnet in her chest, like some unseen force was pulling her toward him. Lauren pressed her hands into the carpet, trying to stop the imperceptible forward motion of her body.
What did her body even want her to do? Hug him? Kiss him? Rest her head on his shoulder in comfortable silence, the way she had so many times before?
His gaze was implacable, and as much as she tried, as much as she knew she needed to, she couldn’t look away from him.
Her heart leapt into her throat when finally, he moved toward her. It was the tiniest movement, but she noticed it nonetheless.
“Lauren,” he said, his voice gentle, and suddenly it was like someone dumped a bucket of water over her head. She jerked back slightly, her eyes widening.
“I think she’s asleep,” she said, looking everywhere but him as she fumbled to stand up. “I…I, um…should probably go.”
She stood quickly, her movements uncoordinated, and he moved back to his original position, his eyes on the floor.
“Yeah, you should go,” he said, running a hand through his hair and nodding, like he had just convinced himself that what he was saying was true.
Lauren hurried into the kitchen and grabbed her purse, concentrating on slowing her breath. She needed to get the hell out of there. Quickly.
No sooner than she had her purse in her hands, she heard the soft cry. “I don’t feel good. I need the bucket!”
Lauren rushed back to the living room just in time to see Michael jump up and grab the bucket. He held it in front of Erin as she retched over it, missing the bucket slightly and getting some on Michael’s hands and the floor.
She put her purse down and turned toward the kitchen, gathering some paper towels and wetting some. By the time she came back into the living room, it was over, and Michael was speaking in soft, reassuring tones to Erin as she laid back down on the couch.
Lauren knelt beside him, using the wet paper towels to wipe his hands, and he glanced over at her. “Thank you,” he said softly, and she nodded, looking away from him to start wiping the floor.
Once everything was cleaned, Lauren went into the kitchen to dispose of the dirtied towels while Michael went to the bathroom to wash out the pail. When they both returned, Erin was sitting up on the couch. She looked exhausted, but marginally better. “I’m thirsty,” she said, her tiny voice raspy, and Michael looked over at Lauren.
“Pedialyte?” he asked, and Lauren nodded.
She walked with him into the kitchen, grabbing a cup while he took the bottle out of the bag and read the directions on the back.
“Put that in the fridge after you open it,” Lauren said. “And only a little at a time, or it will just come right back up.”
He nodded, screwing the cap off and pouring about an inch into the cup that Lauren held out. As she brought it out to Erin, she heard the sounds of him putting the bottle in the fridge.
“Here you go sweetheart,” Lauren said, sitting on the couch beside her. “Little sips, okay?”
Erin nodded, holding the cup in two shaky hands as she brought it to her lips, taking bird-like sips, and Lauren ran her hand soothingly over Erin’s hair.
Michael entered the living room, kneeling on the floor in front of his daughter. “How’s that?” he asked gently.he corner of his mouth lifted in a smile. , le
“Good,” she said, resting the cup on her thigh. “Daddy?”
“Hmm?” he hummed, tucking her hair behind her ear.
“Can we watch the pony movie?”
He smiled. “Sure,” he said, standing from his spot and turning toward the television, and just as Lauren went to stand, Erin reached over and clasped her hand.
“You can be the pink pony, and I’ll be the purple one,” she said.
Lauren smiled softly at her before she glanced over at the front door, at her salvation. With a resigned sigh, she sat back against the couch, rubbing the back of Erin’s hand with her thumb.
After hitting play, Michael returned to the couch, sitting on the other side of Erin, and she laid down across them, putting her head in her father’s lap and her legs across the top of Lauren’s thighs. Michael glanced down at her and smiled before he looked over at Lauren.
“I’m sorry,” he mouthed.
She had no idea if he was referring to the fact that she was forced to stay and watch the movie, or what had just transpired between them, but she nodded.
“It’s okay,” she mouthed back, and he smiled softly before turning his attention back to the movie.
For the next hour, they watched the pony movie, and eventually Lauren found herself starting to nod. The first few times, her eyes would snap open, and she’d shift on the couch, trying to refocus on the cartoon movie about magical flying horses. But at some point, that method must have stopped working, because the next thing she knew, she felt something softly brushing against her cheek.
She opened her eyes slowly, blinking against her blurred vision. The television was off, and the room was almost completely dark now.
“Hey,” Michael whispered, brushing his hand against her cheek.
“Michael?” she rasped, sitting up slightly. She could just make out his features in the darkness as her eyes finally adjusted; he was leaning over her, his face mere inches from hers. “What time is it?”
“Midnight,” he said, his hand resting on her cheek. “We all fell asleep.”
“Erin?” she asked.
“She’s in her bed. I think it’s over,” he said softly, his thumb brushing the side of her face as he spoke.
Lauren nodded, her eyes falling closed for a second before she opened them again.
She felt his breath against her face as he spoke. “Take my bed tonight. I’ll sleep in Erin’s room with her.”
Lauren shook her head gently. “I’ll be awake in a second.”
“Please,” he said softly. “I don’t want you driving like this. It’s the least I could do.”
Lauren knew she should protest. She knew she had no business staying in this house. But she was so tired, and the idea of driving home right now seemed so daunting, and his bed was so close, just a few feet away…
With a sigh, she felt herself nod, and she could just make out the smile on Michael’s lips.
“Thank you again. For everything.”
Before she could even register what he was doing, Michael leaned toward her, pressing his lips against her cheek. The corner of his mouth touched the corner of hers, and Lauren closed her eyes, her body feeling heavy as he pressed his lips to hers.
His lips left her skin slowly, but he made no move to pull away from her; their faces were so close now that Lauren could no longer decipher his features in the dimness.
And then, against her will, she turned slightly, closing her eyes and pressing her cheek against his.
His hand was still on her face, and she felt his fingers twitch ever so slightly as he exhaled a slow, shaky breath, the heat of it dancing over her ear and down her neck.
With one last stroke of his thumb against her cheek, he pulled back suddenly. “Good night, Lauren,” he said, his voice somewhat strained, and he turned and walked down the hall toward Erin’s room.
Lauren sat on the couch for a minute after he’d left her, her eyes closed and
her breathing slow, but this time, it had nothing to do with being tired. When she finally regained her composure, she stood and walked down the hall to Michael’s bedroom.
By the time she climbed into his bed, she was wide awake, and she lay there in the darkness, blinking up at his ceiling. There was a strange twinge low in her chest, and she wondered briefly if perhaps she’d caught Erin’s virus.
With a sigh, she rolled onto her side and buried her face into his pillow.
It smelled like his bed in high school.
Lauren closed her eyes, remembering all the afternoons she’d spent lying in his bed, doing homework, talking, watching movies, the time he spent the entire afternoon trying to teach her how to play video games, to no avail. She remembered the night she had too much to drink at a party, and Michael had taken her home with him so she wouldn’t get in trouble, tucking her into his bed and sleeping next to her above the covers.
The twinge in her chest surfaced again, and she knew it had nothing to do with Erin’s virus. It was her body telling her what she had known on some level all along, despite the weeks of insistence otherwise.
She still had feelings for Michael. After all these years, after everything he’d done, she still had feelings for him.
Admitting that to herself instantly filled her with equal parts pain and relief, and she turned her face further into his pillow, inhaling deeply.
And then she forced herself to remember the night she wouldn’t allow herself to think about for a long time afterward, and almost immediately, she felt the pillow grow damp beneath her cheek.
She pressed her lips together as all the emotions she expected to feel when she first saw him came crashing down on her with a vengeance: the humiliation, the betrayal, the confusion, the mind-numbing pain.
And yet all she wanted at that moment was for Michael to be in that bed with her, comforting her, reassuring her, wiping the memory of what had happened out of her mind.
She pulled one of his pillows into her body and stifled a sob, wishing more than anything that it was him she was holding. The need pushed against her chest so forcefully that it bordered on painful.
She needed the anger to come soon, the bitterness that briefly surged in her earlier that evening. She wanted to feel it again; it was the only thing that could prevent her from doing something stupid.
But the resentment never came. Or if it did, it didn’t have a chance of winning out over the other things she was feeling for him at that moment.
And so she laid there, completely wrapped in the memories and the scent of him, in the intimacy of being in his bed, until finally by some miracle, she fell into the merciful refuge of sleep.
The next morning Lauren awoke with a strange feeling. It was some combination of foreboding and acceptance, like she knew something bad had just happened, but she also knew getting upset over it wouldn’t change anything.
She walked out to the living room to see Erin sitting on the couch, watching some show about a talking blue dog. She smiled and waved at Lauren before she said, “Shh, Daddy’s sleeping.”
Lauren smiled and mouthed okay to her as she made a big production of tiptoeing into the living room, and Erin giggled.
“You hungry yet?” she asked, and Erin nodded.
“Okay, be right back,” she said.
She went back into Michael’s kitchen and made Erin some toast with a thin layer of jelly, and she brought it out to her with another small cup of Pedialyte.
“Little bites and little sips, okay? Just until your belly is back to normal.”
Erin nodded and thanked her, turning her eyes back to the television show as she took a small bite of the toast.
“I’m gonna get my stuff and head back home now. But Daddy’s here, and I’ll see you on Monday.”
“Okay,” she said around her mouthful of toast, her eyes still on the TV, and Lauren leaned over and kissed the top of her head before she turned back toward Michael’s room.
After grabbing her things, she stopped in the doorway to Erin’s bedroom. Michael was sprawled out across the floor, lying on a pink comforter half the size of his body and covered with another that left the majority of his legs exposed. She pressed her lips together when she recognized the ponies on his blanket as the ones from the movie last night.
Her eyes moved to his face, his expression completely serene in slumber. His dark lashes fanned out beneath his eyes, and there was a shadow of stubble on his jaw, contrasting the full, pink lips that were slightly parted with his soft breathing.
Lauren walked carefully into the room, pulling the blanket off of Erin’s bed and covering his legs. And then she closed her eyes and took a long, steadying breath before she turned to walk out of the room.
She said good-bye to Erin and got in her car, not even bothering to turn the radio on as she made her way back home.
Crossing lines. It had been what started their friendship in the first place all those years ago, and then what propelled it into something substantial. What built it up and made it strong.
And finally, what ended up destroying it.
Lauren knew she had just done it again. Her original plan had been to remain strictly professional with him, at least until they could talk about everything that had happened. But yesterday, when she had offered to go to his house and care for his sick child, that plan had gone out the window.
It shouldn’t have been that big of a deal, crossing back into a friendship with him. But Jenn, damn her, had been right. She wasn’t starting on square one with Michael. Lauren had let herself go an inch last night, and suddenly she was right back where she knew she couldn’t be.
She needed to get back.
The “keeping it professional” ship had sailed; she recognized that. Instead, she needed to focus all her efforts on holding the line now, on keeping it strictly friendship. She couldn’t allow herself to slip beyond that again, the way she had last night.
“You can do this. You can totally do this. Just…get back on the other side of the line and stay there,” she told herself as she turned onto the interstate.
But Lauren had been crossing lines with Michael for as long as she could remember.
And she knew from experience that once she did, it was virtually impossible to go back.
August 2002
“I feel like we’re in that movie Dazed and Confused,” Jenn said. “Party at the Moon Tower,” she added in her best attempt at a Southern drawl, and Lauren laughed and shook her head.
“First of all, that’s the worst impression of Matthew McConaughey I’ve ever heard.” She dodged Jenn’s slap as she continued, “Second of all, there’s no Moon Tower to be seen. Or water tower. Or even a lonely power line. We are just standing around in the middle of the woods, drinking like a bunch of idiots.”
Jenn shrugged, taking a sip from her blue plastic cup. “Well, this is what happens when nobody’s parents will let them throw an ‘End of the Summer’ party at their house. They force us into the wilderness to do our celebrating. Kinda stupid if you ask me. At least if we were in someone’s house, they could supervise us.”
Lauren looked around before taking a sip from her own cup. “There’s got to be like eighty drunk teenagers here, Jenn. Nobody was gonna be able to supervise this, house or not.”
“Oh well,” Jenn said, plopping down on an old tree trunk as she finished her drink. “At least the cops won’t be breaking it up out here. It’s a perfect night to be outside anyway.” She tilted her head back and sighed. “I love summer nights.”
“Aaand, now we’re in the movie Grease,” Lauren said as she sat down next to her, and Jenn laughed, nudging her with her shoulder.
“Ah, there’s my two favorite girls!”
Lauren and Jenn both turned to see Michael hopping over the fallen tree they were sitting on, reaching over to muss Jenn’s hair in the process, and she pulled away from him, casting an irritated look in his direction.
“Idiot,” she muttered, bringing her han
d up to straighten her hair, and Michael smirked, his eyes on her as he took a sip from his cup.
“So, Jenn,” he said once he had swallowed, sitting on the other side of Lauren. “You think you might ever get over your deal with me?”
“That depends,” she said. “You think you might ever stop being a complete asshole?”
“Guys,” Lauren scolded firmly, rolling her eyes. Few things entertained Michael more than getting a rise out of Jenn, and no matter how many times Lauren asked her to ignore him, she would always take the bait. Every time. Lauren had grown extremely tired of their little routine after two years.
“You know what your problem is?” Michael said, ignoring Lauren’s reprimand and leaning toward Jenn. “You need to loosen up. Learn how to have a little fun.”
“Please,” Jenn said, her expression disinterested as she looked away from him. “Like I need lessons from you how to have a good time.”
Lauren watched the smirk lift Michael’s mouth, and she knew this conversation was going nowhere good.
“Okay then,” Michael said, motioning with his head toward a group of boys standing around just a few feet away. “In that case, I think you should go up to Dennis Kinley and make out with him.”
“Michael,” Lauren said reproachfully just as Jenn shook her head.
“You’re such a child,” she sighed, and Michael laughed.
“Hey, you said you didn’t need lessons on how to have fun, right? It’s a party. Dennis seems like a cool kid. It’s just a kiss after all. No big deal.”
Jenn turned toward Michael, her brow quirked. “Yeah? Well then in that case, I think you should kiss Lauren.”
Instantly Lauren whipped her head toward her friend, her expression incredulous.
She could have killed her.
Despite the fact that Michael and Lauren had been friends for almost two years, and he had never even come close to making a move on her, Jenn was insistent there was more to their friendship than what the two of them were acknowledging.
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