Deranged Delusions

17. A Girl Worth Fighting For

Awkward is my middle name.

No, really, it is. I mean sure Mama thought ‘Randall’ was cute but in the truth of it all, my middle name is Awkward. Justin Awkward Timberlake. Why I agreed to go with Trace to take Lauren home is beyond me and I really, really don’t want to talk to her, but I know I do.

I have to figure this out because I am so god damn fucking confused.

Clive pretty much demoted Lauren back to her old job, which I’m sure, must be a huge insult to her, but really I couldn’t be happier. Well okay, I could be happier. Happier would exclude Trace from this journey to Lauren’s apartment and would include just the two of us getting it on in her room or finding some hotel, or shit, right here in the car would be fine.

I will stop thinking with my dick in three, two, one…

“You weren’t really choking were you? I mean Lauren could have been choking on something…” Trace pipes up from the passenger seat. Wrong statement to be making right now because I know Lauren is going to…

“Shut the hell up, Trace. You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about,” Lauren snaps and Trace lets out a yelp as Lauren reaches from the darkness of the backseat and swaps Trace hard on the back of the head. I try my best to cover my laughter and it comes out as a huge snort. That was attractive. But apparently Lauren isn’t done with her physical and emotional attack on Trace. “You are the biggest douche bag on the planet…”

“Really? That must be saying something because just the other night you were saying that Justin is a huge asshole who deserves to have his dick chopped off…”

“I never said that,” Lauren counters.

“But you were so thinking it. And you definitely weren’t thinking tonight because from what I saw you two weren’t going to chop anything off…more like blow…”

“TRACE!” both Lauren and I yell at once and I almost turn into a gas station to let the little twerp off so I can at least think straight and not have Trace talk about everything that Lauren and I probably would have gotten around to doing had he not come barging in.

I blame him.

“What? Can’t I be the purveyor of truth, justice, and the ways of dressing room hookups?” Trace questions and I manage to shake my head and lean it against the cool window. How the hell do I get into these situations? “I mean the way you were going at it, you’d think it was going out of fashion.”

“Trace, I would appreciate it if you would just shut the hell up so Lauren and I can talk about this, okay?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Lauren speaks up and I pull to a stop at an intersection before I turn around to look at her. She looks so small in the enormous backseat of my Escalade that I just want to crawl back there and keep her company. The weird thing is, she’s letting me drive her home, which is something she never let me do when she worked for me a few months ago. I guess when you cross that line from ex-friends and ex-boss/employee to…wait, what are we exactly?

“What do you mean you don’t want to talk about it?” I ask shrilly, “We have to talk about this. What this is going to do to us…”

“Us? There never was an ‘us,’ Justin. There’s just you and then there’s me. We never have and never will have ‘us.’ Because everyone and their mother knows that it’s always been about you,” she explains quietly. I can’t face her any longer because the light has turned green and I have to keep driving.

“No it hasn’t! You are so full of shit, Lauren!”

“I’m full of shit? Jesus Christ, Justin! Would you just shut up and leave me alone?”

“No. Not until we talk about this!” I counter and she groans loudly and I can hear something make contact with a hard object. Trace surges forward and reaches out to the dashboard for support. Apparently Lauren has kicked the seat in front of her out of rage.

“Dammit, Lauren! I’m fragile don’t do that!” Trace blurts out and Lauren kicks yet again. “Do it again and I’m coming back there, and I won’t be making out with you!”

Trace moves forward again.

“That’s it,” Trace growls and he fumbles with his seatbelt, still muttering under his breath. Before I know what’s happening, Trace is crawling towards the back of my car, grumbling obscenities and reaching out for Lauren. Shit, not good.

“What the fuck are you doing? Trace!” Lauren squeals and I can’t take it anymore. I pull into the nearest parking lot I can find while Trace and Lauren are screaming incoherently at one another. I know Lauren can fend for herself, but when Trace gets into one of his moods, it’s dangerous for all parties involved.

I throw the car in park and jump out of the vehicle, Trace and Lauren still squabbling inside. Tearing open the car door, I see Trace and Lauren on the opposite side of the car, Trace sitting on top of Lauren and pinning her upper body on the car door. He’s inches from her face and yet they’re both screaming at each other. Reaching in, I grab Trace by the collar of his shirt and yank him out of the car. He stumbles and falls to the ground and I turn around to face him, but Lauren is already out of the car and rushing towards him, picking him up off the ground and smacking him hard across the face.

“Holy…” I wince, but Lauren and Trace are completely oblivious to me.

“No one ever speaks to me like that! Ever!”

“Funny, you let Justin talk to you like that all the time!”

“I do not, Trace, you don’t understand anything! You have no right to touch me or speak to me like that!”

“I do when it involves fucking around with my best friend!”

“I am not fucking around with Justin! Do I have to spell that out to you?” she hollers and it looks like she’s about to rip out her hair from frustration.

“No, you don’t. But from where I’m standing you are completely and totally fucking him over left, right, and center! You are totally oblivious and I’m sick and tired of this bull shit!”

“You’re tired of this bullshit? Please, I didn’t ask for this! All I want is to go to my apartment, watch Lifetime, and stay out of your lives! I never asked to be thrown back into it, and now I have to follow him around the entire country when I have no idea what the fuck is going on in my head and I’m confused and I don’t know what to do! So I would appreciate it if you could shut the fuck up and just stop!”

“Stop?” Trace starts, his voice low but it’s threatening all the same, “Stop! Oh honey, I’m just getting started…” And he moves closer to her, ready to start another round of high intensity screaming. If they don’t shut up they’re going to draw some attention and I don’t really want that right now.

“Trace, leave it alone,” I say quietly, but they’re totally oblivious to me once more. They can really go at it, I must remind myself to never have them both pissed off at me at the same time.

“Do you have any idea how many times I had to sit there and listen to him and take his shit? You have it easy, Lauren! So shut the hell up and don’t even try to judge me for who I am and what I do and say…”

“But you make it so easy, Trace! So fucking easy…”

“Enough!” I yelp but apparently I’m still too quiet. They go right on with their argument and now people are slowing their cars down to look out their windows at the two quarreling strangers who are stopping short of knifing one another. Although if one of them had said weapon, I’m sure one of them would be on the ground.

“You are a sorry excuse for a human being! You ungrateful sack of horse shit!”

“I’m taken for granted twentyfour-seven! You’re just Justin’s bitch, Trace, and that’s a huge difference from what I do!”

“Whatever! You’re more Justin’s bitch than I’ll ever be! You always keep coming back for more, you can’t fucking quit!”

“BOTH OF YOU SHUT THE HELL UP!” I find myself screaming at the top of my lungs. I’ve had it. My hands are at my sides, balled up into fists and I know my patience with the two of them is wearing thin. They’ve both stopped their arguing long enough to look over at me, Trace looking a bit shocked that I’ve found my voice, and Lauren looking at me with a look of disdain. They’ve seen me pissed before, but this time, I’m done.

“I am sick and tired of you two bitching and moaning at one another about me when I’m fucking standing right here! Right now you guys don’t deserve to be my bitch! Or bitches…whatever. The two of you are acting like conceited assholes…”

“Takes one to know one,” Lauren mutters under her breath and now I’m starting to question why I even started to like her, maybe even love her.

“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that from you, Walters,” and just like that I’m back to last name basis with her. Weren’t we practically down each other’s pants a couple hours ago? Can we please go back there instead of in a random parking lot in the middle of the night? “Trace you are seriously overreacting and Lauren you’re only encouraging him…”

“So you’re blaming this whole thing on me? She started it, she kicked my seat!” Trace whines and I roll my eyes. I can’t believe he’s going to stand there and argue with me and act like a mother fucking two year old.

“Trace go sit in the car and cool off. You’re being ridiculous.”

“Sure,” Trace mutters before he throws a menacing glare in Lauren’s direction, “Blame it on me because I don’t have a pussy…”

“I’m not going to listen to you right now,” I begin and I turn towards Lauren but I find that she’s walking towards the busy street, her hands balled up into fists while she pounds her way towards the sidewalk, “Where the fuck are you going?”

“Away from you!” she calls and her voice is almost thrown away due to the wind that’s starting to pick up. This isn’t the greatest place in town and with her walking around like it’s broad daylight, fresh from an emotional fight, she’s bound to get into some trouble.

“Lauren, come back here, it isn’t safe!” I run after her, leaving the car in the empty parking lot. Trace will watch it, either that or he’ll drive away and leave us stranded just to get back at me for pretty much taking Lauren’s side.

“I don’t care!” her voice is a mixture of anger, frustration, and tears and I want nothing more than to take her in my arms and to tell her that everything will be okay. But that’s not such a good idea seeing as she’d probably clobber me within an inch of my life and I don’t think people will like that at the venue tomorrow night.

“Lor, come…”

“Don’t you call me that!” Lauren screeches as she whirls around, her face contorted with rage and a trace of something I can’t quite place. “Don’t you ever call me that. I swear to God, Justin you are so infuriating some times! I don’t know why I can still stand it because really it’s enough to drive any sane person crazy!”

“Then maybe you’re nuts?” I offer and she glares at me, “Come on Lauren, we need to talk…”

“I don’t want to talk. I just want to go home and go to sleep and forget that this night ever happened! Hell, I want to forget that you ever happened!” I recoil and look at her with questioning eyes. What the hell is she talking about? I mean her words hurt a bit, they sting, and it makes me realize that my feelings are one sided. I don’t think she could ever care for me the way I do. Or did…or, fuck this is so confusing.

“Lauren, please…I think you’re just as confused as I am.”

“The only thing that confuses me is why I’m still talking to you at quarter to three in the morning!” she makes a disgusted noise and looks at me again with those eyes that drew me in hours ago. They’re like a magnetic field and I can’t turn away. Intoxicating, that’s what they are.

“Lauren…” my voice is losing it’s demanding edge and I’m turning into a helpless pile of goo because, quite frankly, she’s just sucking all the energy out of me. The way she’s pacing, throwing her hands up in the air and having an internal argument with herself. I just want her to stop so she can take a fucking breath!

“…and now I have to work for you again when everything was going so well and I don’t want to! Oh Jesus I don’t want to, because you’re going to do exactly what you do every time and make me feel like shit and make me do stuff that I hate and I have to go all around the country when all I want to do is stay put and get my fucking life back together…”

She continues her rambling and her pacing and I’m getting a huge headache so I do the only thing I can do, I reach out and grab her arm to stop her from moving around all over the place.

Lauren is thrown off balance and steps back, but I’m there to catch her and now she’s standing super close and I can feel her breath rising and falling quickly seeing as she hasn’t slowed down for at least twenty minutes now. She opens her mouth and takes a deep breath to start yelling at me again but before I can ask myself what I’m doing, I’m grabbing onto her chin with my free hand and forcing her to look at me.

And that’s when I kiss her again.

It isn’t really a kiss. I mean, it is in no way, shape, or form like the ones we shared back in my dressing room, and my tongue isn’t down her mouth or vice versa so I don’t count it. Really, I just did it so she would shut the fuck up. It was either that or throw my hand over her mouth, which could have been bitten or spat on, or something of equal discomfort.

She squirms for a moment and I hold onto her for as long as I can, and before she pushes me away, I let her go. I know I’m in for a talking to and I pray to God that Trace wasn’t watching although I’m sure I’ll get an earful from him once we drop Lauren off…that is if we ever get around to doing that.

Lauren’s eyes are huge, as if she can’t really believe that I just did what I did. Truth be told, I can’t really believe that I did that either. We look at each other in silence for a while before she furrows her brow and gets right up in my face.

Here we go…

“Don’t you ever do that again. If you lay one hand on me during this next month, I will cry harassment and reveal some very incriminating photos that could very well end your career. Don’t think I’m yanking your chain, because I’m not. This ends here.” And without another word she stalks towards the car, leaving me in the middle of the parking lot.

This month is going to blow ass.

***