Right Place, Wrong Time

24. Three Little Words

"I can't go," Lauren said, pulling her pillow over her head.

"Yes, you can," Julia said, sitting on the edge of her bed and trying to pull it away from her.

They'd been arguing for twenty minutes over whether or not Lauren was going to the end of year party, which was inconveniently being held at their house, and so far Lauren was winning. She hadn't even showered yet, and she intended to keep it that way until Julia went downstairs without her.

"Why not?" Julia demanded.

"Because," Lauren whined, having gone over this. "Joey will be there."

"So what? He won't be the only person here."

"It'll be awkward," Lauren said, her stomach churning just at the thought of seeing him.

"I thought you were still friends."

While that was technically true, they hadn't actually tested the friendship since parting after she turned him down, and she really didn't want to. "We are," she mumbled halfheartedly.

"Then you can stop being a baby and suck it up for a couple of hours." Lauren finally did sit up to stare indignantly at Julia. "Don't miss out on saying goodbye to the rest of your friends."

Then she left the room, but she knew she had her. Lauren dragged her feet all the way to the shower.

When people started arriving for the party, she was initially glad she showed her face. Some of these people she saw almost every day, and she would have regretted not celebrating the end of another school year with them, many of them with only one more to go. But while her brain relaxed, her body must have been on hyperalert, because she heard Joey's voice join the mix before she saw him. She turned to go up the stairs and hide out for a bit — or until everyone left, she hadn't decided yet — but Julia had materialised to block her way.

"Just go say hi," she hissed. "Then you don't have to speak to him for the rest of the night if you don't want to."

Lauren thought she would have rather walked straight into hell, but she gritted her teeth and turned to see if she could see Joey. Maybe he would ignore her completely, and she could go back to Julia and tell her what a terrible idea it had been. But a gap in the crowd formed, and there may as well have been a spotlight on Lauren with the way Joey's eyes found her. A smile transformed his face, and it was some deeper instinct than the last couple of days that made Lauren walk right towards him.

"Hey," he said, enveloping her in a hug without a trace of awkwardness, as if the day in the arboretum hadn't even happened.

"Hey," she said faintly into his chest.

"So you did show up to your own party after all." He smiled his easy smile, and the floor fell away beneath her. This all felt wrong.

"Yeah, I guess so," she said weakly.

He frowned. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah," she lied. "Still haven't caught up on sleep, I guess."

"Tell me about it."

Darren approached them, the boys hugging like childhood friends, and she thought she might slip away from that conversation unnoticed and avoid Joey until he inevitably sought her out to say goodbye. But it was Joey who spotted someone else he needed to talk to, patting Darren's shoulder and stroking Lauren's back with the promise he'd find them both again later, before leaving them standing alone.

"Looking forward to going home?" Lauren asked, as casually as she could.

"Sure," Darren said dismissively. "How are you feeling?"