You get invited to work at the offices due to a coincidence of events and luck. Having met Barney as a child when you were on holiday, you always told each other that you would meet again some day, that happens when you meet him at a IHOP. You share...
I lay awake in bed, staring at Ross as he stares back at me. We haven't managed to get to sleep due to Lauren blasting the TV as loud as humanly possible, it's 1am.
"Can I go now?" I whine to Ross. For the last hour I've been begging Ross to let me go talk to her.
"Fine, don't start any fights." He playfully warns as I slip out from the warm duvet.
I creep down the hall and go into the living room, where the source of sound and light is coming from. I stand in the doorway and see Lauren is stuffing her face with food while intently watching TV. I quickly turn the living room light on, revealing the mess she's made, "What the hell have you done?"
At first she's speechless as she wipes the whip cream from around her mouth, "I got hungry."
"You're not paying rent, you shouldn't even be allowed to stay and here you are, eating away at our food, wasting our electricity bill and taking away our sleep. If you want to stay I suggest you turn it all off and get your head down." I'm satisfied with her non existing answer and storm away and back into Ross' room. I slide under the duvet and into Ross' waiting arms.
"That was dramatic."
"Hush." I smirk as I fall asleep in peace.
That's until not even an hour later we hear the same loud noises coming from the living room. This time we try to ignore it, but we couldn't fall asleep until we only had ten minutes until we had to get up.
Max walks into our room, nudging us but it doesn't take much to wake us up.
"Please talk to her. We got to sleep for an hour." I plead, getting out of bed and walking to the kitchen with them.
"I'll see what I can do." Max pats my back but freezes as we see the living room.
It's in a right state. Whipped cream and fizzy drink splotches are scattered all over the settee along with crisp and cereal crumbs. Crisp packets, chocolate wrappers and 'soda' cans are thrown askew onto the floor and there, in the middle of it, lays a crooked Lauren who looks quite unusual without all her make up, guess I didn't see her face properly last night.
"She is really pushing me..." I mumble as Max strolls into the kitchen. I begin to pick up excess rubbish and chuck it into a bin liner, passing that to Ross who puts it out for the bin men.
I shake Lauren, waking her up. She sits up and looks around her at the mess, I ask "Are you going to clean it up?"
"Breakfast!" Max calls from the kitchen.
"Well, wouldn't want to miss breakfast, would I?" She skips into the kitchen, forcing me to clean up before the stains get any worse.
I walk into the kitchen and grab a dustpan and brush, a bowl of soapy water, and a sponge. Max, Ross and Lauren are sitting at the breakfast bar as I mix in some washing up liquid into the luke warm water.
"What are you doing?" Max nods to my cleaning supplies.
"Cleaning up because somepeople cannot be bothered." I raise my eyebrows as I glance at Lauren who pokes at her toast.
I wave my hands around like a maniac to get any access water off as I walk into the living room.
I kneel in front of the settee and use the dustpan and brush to get rid of any crumbs on it, the coffee table and floor. After cleaning most of the crumbs I swap to the sponge and scrub away at the dried whipped cream and sticky soda stains. After successfully cleaning the leather settee, floor and coffee table, along with arranging it, I walk back into the kitchen and empty the bowl into the sink while grabbing a tea towel. They've finished eating now and they're just chatting.
I walk back into the living room and dry off everything to make sure it's clean. I'm proud of myself, most of the time I'm pretty lazy.
I walk back into the kitchen for the third time, I hang up the tea towel then take a bite into my cold toast and jam as I lean on the countertop.
"So, Lauren..." Max starts, attracting my interest, "Don't do that again. That was a bit of a dick move, (Y/N) even told you to get to sleep and it hadn't even been an hour before you started again. Before we would let it slide, but now I'm being serious. We are the people providing for you, so don't take advantage of our hospitality by being loud, eating our food and ignoring our rules."
I down my glass of milk in one go, being very thirsty. I'm happy justice was served on this day, hopefully she will listen.
"Why doesn't (Y/N) pay rent?"
"You don't know if I pay rent or not." I rinse my plate and glass in the sink.
"Well... Max told me."
"Thanks for that."
"Well, why don't you?" Lauren 'sweetly' smiles.
"Well, I'm going to get changed." I ignore her question, quickly strolling down the hall as I close Ross' door behind me.
I get changed into a denim button up top, skinny jeans and the same mint green shoes from yesterday. (Pretend they are the same.)
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As I'm buttoning up my shirt Ross walks in and picks up the same jeans from yesterday and an Iron Man shirt, quickly getting changed into them.
"Ross, you're the only person I've been able to tell about my financial problems-"
"You told everyone you had financial problems when you snapped at me for being too nice."
"You know what I mean. I've explained it to you an' all. So don't go around telling Lauren before she begins to use it against me." I sort out my collar in the mirror and grab some socks from the cabinet beneath it.
"What has she said that makes you think that?" Ross stands behind me and checks his hair in the mirror, running his hand through his curls a few times before cleaning his glasses.
"When she asked me about not paying rent. I know you would only tell her I have money problems to get her off my back, but I know how women like that work. And that would only give her more reasons to pester me." I spin around and tuck away a stray curl behind his ear, grinning at his attempts to sort his hair out.
"I don't actually understand why she's being like this. She wasn't like this when it was just Max and I, although she did become interrogative of Alesa, she started asking how she knew me and if we were... going out." Ross' eyes meet with mine as ouf mouths slightly drop in relisation.
"She liked you?" I furrow my eyebrows and I feel so much more protective over Ross now, "So that's why she has been so clingy with you. I thought I was just being paranoid."
"I'm a damn pussy magnet." Ross makes a smug face and attempts to flex his muscles. I slap him lightly on the arm and laugh afterwards.
"From what I've heard she was a bully to you, don't let her get to you." I kiss his cheek and hug him tightly, letting out a deep breath as my head is filled with worries about Lauren.
