Shortcake - A Richpez Story

Chapter 12

Lauren's POV

This is gonna be a concerning night. None of us really "party" as much as we sit in someone's living room and play games and drink a few things. Apparently not tonight!

"C'mon, Lo, you look hot!" Jaime urges me.

I roll my eyes. "So do you. You're beautiul. But looks is not the problem here."

This time she rolls her eyes. "Let's go, Lauren."

Even with my reluctance, I was still kind of excited to go. I mean, I get to hang out with my friends again. They always make my day. Especially certain people of the friend group.

We drove with the radio turned on, Jaime dancing and singing along.  Soon, we're in a small bar and laughing with each other about the time I couldn't get us busses to shit on. And when I accused Clarke of shitting himself while he was sleeping.

As we settle into another fit of laughter, Jeff, Joey, Kate, Corey, Jon, Rob, Angela, and Curt join us.

"We finally found the rest of the crew!" Curt exclaims.

"Is this everyone who's coming?" Jaime asks.

"Yeah, sucks Kendall couldn't come, though," Corey jokes, to which he gets lightly punched by Jeff.

"Yeah, sure she'd love coming here," Jon says, nodding his head.

While everyone chatters away, I look at Joey. He looks cute. He meets my eyes and smiles at me. I smile at him back.

"Let's get drinking, Lo!" Jaime exclaims, squeezing my arm excitedly.

A few drinks later, I am drunk. I don't know why, I didn't even drink that much, but all I know is that the music is really loud and it's pulsing through my brain. I slide off the tall stool and go to where people are dancing.

Someone grabs my hips and I spin around to face Joey. I can feel my heartbeat everywhere and offer the man in front of me a goofy grin. I laugh and hug him. He smiles down at me, finally deciding to laugh with me. I'm glad. But I frown in a second.

"What?" He mouths at me, since the music is too loud.

"Bored. Home." I answer him.

He pauses for a moment. "Last dance? With me?"

I smile widely at him again. He always makes me smile. Sometimes he makes me cry, but that's okay because I love him. I know that now. I love him.

Joey's POV

I watch this drunk Lauren, a Lauren I haven't seen for a long time. A smile is stretched wide across her face, which is flushes. There's an excited glimmer in her eyes that I haven't seen since the first day of rehearsals. And Although there were many highlights to this little expedition, her smiling at me is the best part of this night. I know she wants to go home, but I'd like to have at least one dance with her.

She stumbles around, obviously not sober enough to be walking. I offer for her to stand on my feet and she does. And then we dance. I'm lucky I haven't been drinking, otherwise I know I would've done something I regret. And I wouldn't be able to drive her and Jaime to their hotel. Part of me feels like when she said home, she really just wanted to end up at someone else's house to have fun with just us. She's like that. But as our dance ends, I decide she should get some water before she tries to have any more fun.

I guide Lauren over to the bartender and ask for some water. The bartender laughs and nods when they notice Lauren running her hands through my hair. This makes my heart flutter, and I can see a smile growing on Lauren's flushed face. Once we get water, I hand it over to her she frowns, but nods. Once we round up some of the rest of the cast I realize all of us would rather party with each other. So, we drive over to my apartment since it's the closest.