Last night was crazy fun. From the drinks to the dancing to the… Sex. It was an all around good time. Justin ended up coming back to my house for another round of ‘getting to know me sex’. Ryan brought the ‘cute’ blonde back with him, so he really didn’t notice I wasn’t alone when he got home.

My head feels like it’s going to explode at the moment. If I could open my eyes without my head feeling worse I would find whatever that annoying beeping noise is, but I can’t.

That’s until I hear Justin laughing beside me. I turn my head towards him and stare up at him.

“Morning.” He says, leaning down to kiss my forehead before going back to reading something on my phone.

“Morning. Why do you have my phone?” I ask, sitting up beside him to see what he’s looking at.

“What the fuck is that?” I ask looking up at him as he starts typing in a response.

“JUSTIN!” I yell, grabbing the phone from him as he laughs.

“I didn’t send it.” He says laughing.

“What have you sent?” I ask reading previous messages.

“How long have you been talking to her?” I ask glaring up at him from over my phone.

“A couple minutes. I only said hi, I swear.”

“Why does she think you’re good then?” I ask, not believing him.

He shrugs, “I guess when someone’s silent it means whatever was said is true.”

I shake my head at him, “I’m going to tell her you were horrible now, asshole.”

“Now don’t go lying to the poor girl.” He says pulling me into his lap so I’m straddling him. “What are you telling her?”

“None of you business.” I say sending the text, placing the phone down on the table and looking back at him.

“C’mon what did you say? Did you out me?” He asks.

I shrug, climbing down off the bed, making my way over to the bathroom to brush my teeth.

“So you plan on having more amazing sex today?” He asks from the doorway.

“Did you read my message?” I ask turning towards him, acting upset.

“I did. You have a problem with that?” he asks grinning at me.

“I take it that’s the only message you read?” I ask grinning right back at him.

“There’s more than one?” He asks turning back to grab my phone off the bed.

I watch him read the other message and I laugh at his expression.

“That’s cold.” He says sitting down on the edge of the bed.

“That’s what you get for messing with my phone without permission.” I say straddling his lap.

“Well I guess I’ll take my small dick and motionless mouth elsewhere.” He says, acting hurt, and not very well either.

“Size doesn’t matter.” I say, holding back my grin.

“Bullshit. You can’t tell me you’d choose a 3 inch dick over a 9 inch dick.”

I laugh, “Is that what your packin‘?”

“You tell me. Does it look like a 3 or a 9?” he asks grinning at me.

“You’ve measured your dick?” I ask laughing.

He shakes his head, “No, but I’m positive I’m a hell of a lot bigger than 3 inches. Hell I‘m bigger than that soft.”

“Ok I’ll give you that one.”

“Then message her back and tell her I’m not little.” he says, narrowing his gaze at me.

“That would be pointless.”

“Why?”

“Because I never sent that message to her in the first place.” I whisper in his ear with a slight chuckle.

He whips me around, tossing me onto the bed with wide eyes and a crazy ass grin on his face.

“That was cruel.” He says, pulling my arms up over my head, holding them in place with his hands.

“I know… I should be punished.” I tease, grinning up at him.

“Lauren?” *KNOCK*KNOCK* “Lauren you up?” I hear Ryan from the other side of the door.

“Put your pants on Timberlake. Breakfast time.” I say nudging him off me.

I grab a tank top and a pair of shorts from my dresser, throwing them on quickly. I throw a quick glance over to Justin to make sure he was decent before opening the door to see Ryan leaning against the wall across from my room.

“You ok big guy?” I ask, laughing at him.

“Fuck you. Where’s the Advil? It wasn’t in the kitchen cabinet.” He says, barely opening his eyes.

“I have some in my bathroom, hold on.” I turn, walking back towards my bathroom.

“Justin?” I hear Ryan ask confusedly.

“Hey Decker.” I hear Justin say back.

Hold up. They know each other?

Great…

“Here’s the Advil Ryan. Where’s Blondie?” I ask, trying to move the focus to his guest.

“Sleeping… So you and my sister huh?”

That didn’t work well.

“You should probably go take that now before your headache gets worse.” I suggest, slightly pushing him out of the room.

He pushes me aside, glaring at Justin. Figures he would have to know the guy I happen to bring home with me.

Fuck.

“Ok so if you two are going to have this extremely uncomfortable conversation, can you at least tell me how you two know each other and… wait let me guess. Ryan wrote a song for you?” I ask glancing over to Justin.

“He helped with a few on my first solo album.” He answered nervously.

“Ok well, you two can talk. I’m going to go make breakfast. Have fun.” I say making my way out of my room.

“Not so fast.” Ryan says, pulling me back into the room.

“What Ryan? I’m hungry and believe me I know what happened last night, so I don’t need to be present during this conversation.”

“I think you do.” He says all to seriously.

“Why?” I ask looking back and forth between Justin and Ryan.

“I just think you should tell Justin about your past before you two get into this… thing together. I‘m sure you don‘t know everything about him either.”

“He already knows Ryan. And who said there was a ‘thing’ between us? What if this was a one time deal?” Not that I thought it was, but how does he know?

“You don’t do one time deals Lauren.” Ryan says. Know it all…

“God your acting worse than…” I start, but stop when my breath hitches and I start tearing up.

“Lauren?” Justin asks, moving towards me slowly.

I blink, sending tears streaming down my cheeks. Justin gently rubs my back as Ryan grabs my hand.

“Dad?” Ryan asks cautiously.

I just nod, sending more tears down my face.

“I’m sorry.” I apologize, walking out of my room, making my way to the back yard to get some air. I take a seat in one of the lawn chairs by the pool, overlooking a beautiful view of California’s finest scenery.

I quietly watch Justin and Ryan talking in the doorway, Justin obviously winning the coin toss to come out and talk to me. Or losing, what ever way you want to look at it I guess. He slowly walks out to were I am. Standing beside my chair, he pulls me up to stand beside him. He sits down in the chair, pulling me down to sit in between his legs. I lean back into his chest as he wraps his arms around my waist. Neither one of us said a word for what seemed like forever. Justin eventually broke the silence, quietly asking if I was ok.

“I will be.” I answer, placing my hands over his.

Question... Is it weird that I’ve know this guy for less than 24 hours and I feel like I’ve known him for 24 years?

It’s funny, he makes me feel so comfortable. I barely know anything about him, and yet I feel like I’ve known him forever. I know; it doesn’t make sense to me either. I’ve honestly never felt like this with anyone before. I feel like I can tell him anything and he’d actually listen and care about what I was saying. I’ve never had that before and honestly I didn’t think I ever would. Especially with someone I met, drunk at my best friends wedding, last night.

This is too weird.

“You want to talk about it?” he asks, rubbing his thumbs over my hands.

“You mean talk about the fact that I feel responsible for my father’s death and I can’t seem to get over it? Or do you mean talk about how sometimes I look at Ryan or listen to Ryan and all I can see or hear is my father and it makes me break down? Or how much I miss him? Or how I’ll never have my father walk me down the aisle at my wedding that I’ll never have? Which one should I start with?” I ask with tears streaming down my face.

“From the top.” He says rubbing his hands up and down my arms. “Why would you possibly think your father’s death was your fault?”

“It was my friend that was driving drunk that killed him. How is that not my fault?”

“Lauren, he was supposed to be your Driver. He wasn’t supposed to be drinking, but he did. How were you supposed to know? This wasn’t your fault. Don’t beat yourself up over something you had no control over.”

“How do you know that?” I ask confused.

“Your brother told me when we worked together.” He answered softly.

“He wasn’t there.” I state.

“He didn’t have to be. Lauren it was your friends fault. He shouldn’t have been drinking, he shouldn’t have drove and he shouldn’t have ran that light. None of that is in anyway your fault.”

“I should have made sure he was ok to drive.” I say closing my eyes.

“He told you he was going to be the DD of the night and you all trusted him to be that. He fucked up. It wasn’t your responsibility to watch him all night. He should have been a big enough person to be responsible, but he wasn’t. That’s not your fault.”

“I still feel a little responsible and I always will, but that’s my own guilt I guess. I shouldn’t have been at that party and I shouldn’t have been drinking anyways. We were 19. If we would all have been responsible this never would have happened. Troy and Reggie may still be alive and my father would still be here with me. But they’re not. And I can’t change that. I wish I could. God I wish I could.”

“Everyone makes mistakes. Every kid drinks when they aren’t supposed to. It’s part of growing up. You were all responsible enough to make sure you had a safe way home, it was his fault for fucking up. It was his fault he drank, it was his fault he killed your father and his best friend along with taking his own life. I’m sure if he could go back and not drink he would, but no one can go back in time. You just have to learn to live with peoples mistakes. You may never get over this and that’s ok. He was your father. No one said it was going to be easy and it wont. You can’t dwell on that night though. You need to remember all the good times y’all had together.” He stops to pull me face towards him.

“Your father wouldn’t want you thinking like this. He would want you to celebrate all the good times you had together. I know it’s hard, but this can’t be what he would want. I didn’t know your father, but it seems to me he would want you to go on with your life and be happy. This wasn’t your fault and everyone, but you knows that. It’s time you start believing it.”

“When’d you get so wise?” I ask wiping my face with my hands.

He laughs, “I’m not, I’m just good with words.”

“Thank you. I’m sure this wasn’t exactly what you signed up for last night, but I appreciate it.”

“This is exactly what I signed up for last night. I do regret one thing though.”

“Meeting me?” I ask laughing.

“Not a chance, smartass… I regret that our first time was in a public bathroom. That’s gotta be a first for me. I can’t say I regret sleeping with you, but I wish I would have waited to get you into a bed first. I‘m sorry.”

Well hell… I wasn’t expecting that one.

“Wow… Really?” Ok so I have no idea how to react to that. He actually cares enough to think about where we have sex?

He keeps surprising me.

“I feel kind of bad. That’s not exactly how I wanted things to go, but like I said before you can’t go back in time.”

“I wouldn’t want you to.” I say smiling.