𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐚𝐲 𝐡𝐚𝐭𝐭𝐚𝐲 - 𝐫𝐢𝐜𝐡𝐩𝐞𝐳 𝐨𝐧𝐞𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐭𝐬

𝐭𝐡𝐚𝐭'𝐬 𝐫𝐨𝐦𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐢𝐜

It was Valentine's Day, and Joey and Lauren's friends had set them up on a double date - on a beautifully romantic train - with Brian and Meredith (an actual couple) and it hadn't gone quite to plan.

The entire night Joey was quiet and nervous, barely talking and only answering questions with one word responses. Brian and Mere had been all lovey dovey, feeding each other, holding hands, doing that linking arm thing where you drink wine. And all of that combined had royally pissed Lauren off.

She thought she was gonna get a boyfriend out of that night from hell, so far she hadn't, so it seemed like she was going to have to take matters into her own hands.

"Joey can I talk to you in private?" Lauren asked, speaking for the first time in five minutes and shooting the couple opposite them a death stare.

Brian looked between the two girls for a second before catching on, taking Mere's hand and standing up. "Oh well there's a cart with a glass roof, we could go look at the stars?"

Meredith held a hand to her heart. "Bri that's so ro-"

"Oh give it a rest!" Lauren snapped, then downed what was left of her wine.

"Let's go..." Brian whispered simply, leading his girlfriend away from the awkward situation.

Lauren stood up, pacing up and down next to their table as Joey tried to process how they were both feeling.

"What is your problem?" He started, standing up opposite her. "You've been nothing but snippy all night. You know what, it was a bad idea for us to do this. We've never been this awkward around each other, Jaime and Dyl only recommended we do this so we'd 'talk to each other' and 'be honest'. What a fucking failure this has been."

"I'm sorry, Joey," she sighed, avoiding eye contact. "I just wanted a night of romance, I wanted to be swept off my feet by the guy I like."

"Well you're in luck because I like you back. But romance? I can be romantic," he skimmed over the confession quickly, moving on to his little rant. "Look, red wine, how romantic?"

He reached for his glass, the one he hadn't touched all night, as Lauren folded her arms across her chest.

"Joey you hate red wine," she rolled her eyes at him as his face pinched together and he forced himself to swallow.

"I know. Oh gazing into each other's eyes?" He stooped down a little to do so. "You blinked, I win."

"Joey stop-" she tried.

"How bout kissing? Kissing's super romantic," he exaggerated, before bending his knees a little and pushing his lips to hers.

At first she was taken aback, but it didn't take her long to melt into the kiss. He took a few steps forward to wrap his arms around her waist as she pushed up onto her tiptoes to hold his face.

As they pulled away, she let her hands fall to rest on his chest, his hands retracting a little to rest on her hips.

"That was nice..." she whispered, looking up at him shyly, her cheeks painted a rosy pink.

"Good." He smiled down at her, his eyes twinkling. "Would it be ok with you if I did it again? Possibly?"

"Absolutely..." she trailed off, her eyes fluttering shut as he pulled her closer.

Some Time Later

"Hey boys, I'm back!" Joey announced as he burst through the door of his, Brian and Corey's apartment.

"Joey, how'd your trip go?" Brian greeted him, turning off his laptop and spinning in his desk chair to face the tall brunette.

"Oh it was amazing," he smiled, walking over to the kitchen counter. "There was this cart with a glass roof so we looked at the stars, I kissed Lauren on the lips and now she's my girlfriend, and we had this really good brownie for dessert, it was to die for."

"Wait wait wait, we're gonna need some more detail," Corey prompted him, standing up from the couch and gesturing at Brian to do the same.

Joey frowned for a second, confused, but continued nonetheless. "Um the stars were really pretty but the cart was kinda cold, Lauren's lips tasted like brownie, and speaking of, I think the brownie had dark chocolate in it and that's why it was so goo-"

"Joey forget about the brownie!" Brian snapped, rolling his eyes. "You kissed Lauren?"

"Oh yeah, how cool is that?" He blushed a little as he ran a hand through his hair.

"Uh very cool, you've had a crush on her forever," Corey smiled.

"I know. She got mad at me for not being romantic, so I told her I liked her, drank some red wine and looked into her eyes, then I kissed her. And then I kissed her again. And just a couple more times," he shrugged, carelessly, although he cared very deeply and could think of nothing but her.

"Fuck yeah you did, you dog!"