“Thank you for being a friend. Travel down the road and back again. Your heart is true, you’re a pal and a confidant…” came blaring from the TV.

Yup, this has been my life for the past two days. Watching rerun after rerun of the Golden Girls on DVD eating pints and pints of Cookie Dough ice cream not even bothering to get dressed.

Justin went back to Tennessee with his parents and I went off to my Fashion Show in New York, which by the way, went horrible. The designer, which for contract reasons will remain nameless, didn’t have a freakin’ clue what she was doing. She had us wearing these ridiculously high heels and when I say ridiculously high I mean like five or six inches. It was insane. We were all pretty tall and the fact she had us wear those just made us all look like crazy giants with outrageously hideous outfits to boot.

The three models in front of me ended up tripping and falling. One fell into the front row seats, one hit the floor and one took out a few photographers at the end of the runway. I threw in the towel when she had me put on this hat that had a crazy yellow fuzzy theme going for it. That and the yellow pantsuit she had me in made me feel and look like big bird and I couldn’t do it. I lied and told her I was sick and ended up leaving, but not before I watched the rest of her show go up in flames.

I flew home that night and that was two nights ago. Justin is due back in a few days and I’m stuck here with Ryan and his over protectiveness. You’d think I was eight months along the way he barely lets me get up off the couch to get my own drink or even go to the bathroom. I guess he’s just worried, but god lord!

“Do you need anything?”

Speaking of the devil…

“No Ryan. Again, I’m fine.” I say with yet another roll of my eyes.

“Justin told me to take care of you and to make sure you don’t lift a finger until he gets back.” He says, plopping down next to me on the couch, snatching the spoon from my hand and scooping himself some ice cream.

“Until he gets back? Does that mean I’m in for it when he does?” I ask, shaking my head.

“No, that means he’ll be taking over for me when he gets back. I’m just a nice guy that’s standing in for the nicer guy.”

“See this whole time I thought you were an asshole… You were just being a stand in nice guy? Huh…”

“Ok smartass, I’m just trying to be helpful here.” He says with a mouthful of ice cream.

“That was very sexy Ry.” I say, laughing. “I hope you don’t do that with your slut of the night around.”

“Slut of the night? What’s that all about?”

“Oh come on Ryan. When was the last time you had a relationship that lasted more than a few hours?”

“I’m not that bad. I spend at least the day with the woman first.” He says and I just raise an eyebrow at him.

“What?”

“Ryan, seriously, when was the last relationship you’ve had?”

He puffed out his cheeks letting a gust of air out of his mouth while thinking, “Eight… maybe nine years?” He says, questionably.

“Eight or nine years? What the hell Ry?”

“There’s nothing wrong with that!” He say defensively.

I laugh, “There’s nothing wrong with that? There’s something wrong with you for thinking that. Ryan, what’s going on with you?”

“There’s nothing going on with me. I’m just not in a relationship kind of mood.”

“And apparently you haven’t been in one for the past nine years. Why is that Ryan?”

“No reason.” He says, taking the pint of ice cream from me and walking back towards the kitchen.

“No reason my ass. Come on Ryan, I’m your sister! Talk to me.” I yell, jumping up from the couch, chasing after him.

“Go sit down! Justin will kill me if he finds out you’ve been running around.”

I glare at him, “I’m old enough to decide whether or not I can get up off the couch without you or Justin telling me when I can. Knock off this whole over protective shit and sit your ass down in that chair and tell me what the hell is going on with you.”

He stares at me wide-eyed as he slowly takes a seat on one of the bar stools.

“Good boy… Now talk.” I say, crossing my arms across my chest and cocking my hip to the side.

“I have nothing to…”

“Oh, cut the bullshit.”

He sighs, “Lauren I don’t know what your trying to get out of me but…”

“Did you know about Tina and the kids?” I finally ask, letting the three hundred pound weights lift off my shoulders.

His face registers a state of shock, which I can’t figure out if it’s a good or bad sign. I don’t know what I’ll do if he did know. I don’t know if I’d rather flip out on him or cry. I honestly hope he would never hide something like this from me, but then again this is Ryan and he wouldn’t want me to worry about something I didn’t need to worry about.

“W-why would you think t-that?” He stutters, still not giving away whether or not he actually knew.

“Just answer the question. Please?” I beg, holding back tears.

He sighs, bowing his head, “Yes.” He mumbles.

My breath catches in my throat and the tears just flow down my face.

“Lauren, I was going to tell you I swear, I just…” He starts, but I put my hand up signaling him to stop.

“I don’t want to hear it Ryan.” I say wiping my face, “I don’t want to hear why you would keep such a huge secret from me, your sister!” I sigh, “God Ryan. We used to be so close. We used to tell each other everything. What happened? Why would you do this? I have more siblings out there that I had a right to know about and you kept that from me!”

“Lauren,”

“No! Just stop. I don’t want to hear your lame excuses. I’m sick to death of this shit.” I say, stomping out of the room.

“Lauren get back here!” Ryan yells after me.

“Fuck you Ryan.” I yell, grabbing my keys off the table by the door.

“Where the hell do you think your going? We’re not done talking.”

“Oh we are very done talking. We were done talking when you decided to keep something life altering from me. So fuck you Ryan. Have a nice day.” I say, slamming the front door shut behind me, racing towards my car.

I got all the way to Olivia’s before my phone started ringing.

“What?” I yell into the phone.

“Why aren’t you at home resting like I asked you to be?” Justin asks, calmly, into the phone.

“Am I not allowed to drive while pregnant daddy?” I ask, condescendingly.

“Don’t talk to me like that.”

“Oh so I’m not allowed to speak my mind anymore either. Wow this being pregnant thing is amazing.” I ground out, sarcastically. I hop out of the car, walking up the front walkway to Olivia and Derek’s house.

He sighs, “Why aren’t you at home?”

“I’m visiting with Olivia. Is that ok or am I not allowed to visit friends anymore either.”

“Jesus Lauren, What the hell is up your ass today?” He sighs heavily again, “I was calling to see how you were doing and I get Ryan screaming at me through the phone that you weren’t there and then I got hung up on. Now I call you and I get the wicked bitch of the west on the phone.”

I scoff, “Did you just call me a bitch?”

“If the shoe fits darlin’.” He says angrily.

“I can’t believe you just called me a bitch.” I whisper, a little shocked.

“Baby, what is going on?”

“Now your going to pull the baby line? Nu uh…” I say, taking a seat on the front steps of the Hasting’s house.

“Well you haven’t exactly been sweet as pie on the phone since you answered.” he says with another sigh.

“I’m having a shitty day…” I say groaning, “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have taken it out on you, but I have to tell you if these last two days are what my life is going to be like for the next few months, I have to say I’m not looking forward to it.”

“Why? Is everything ok? Is the baby ok?” He asks in a panic.

“Baby’s fine… But, my crazy ass brother has been driving me absolutely nuts for two full days and I finally got the answer to my question that’s been burning me for too long and I’m not handling it very well.”

“What question?” He asks, cautiously.

“He knew, Justin. He knew this whole time and never told me.” I say, letting the tears fall down my face again.

He quietly curses, “Lauren, where are you?”

“Olivia’s. I’m sitting on her front porch.”

“Is she home?”

“I don’t know. Her cars not in the driveway, but that doesn’t mean anything.” I say, wiping my face.

“Hold on a second, ok?”

“Mmmhmmm.” I say, leaning my head against the porch railing.

I still just don’t know how to react to this crazy bullshit in my life right now. My brother, the only actually family I have left, has been keeping this huge secret from me for god knows how long. Shit, I don’t even want to know how long he’s known. I think that will just piss me off even more.

What the hell was he thinking? Why in the hell would he think it would be ok to keep something like this from me. These people are my brothers and sisters. That’s kind of a huge deal. Whether I want to meet them or not should be my choice, but I think I have a right to know about them.

“Lauren?”

“Yeah, I’m still here.” I mumble.

“Stay where you are. Trace is going to come get you and I want you to stay with him until I get there. Do you understand me?” He orders more than asks.

“Yeah, I’m not going anywhere.” I give in. I’m too tired to fight and honestly hanging out with Trace isn’t sounding so bad right now.

“I love you Lauren. I’ll be home soon, ok?”

“Ok… I love you too.” I say before hanging up the phone to wait.

************************************************************************

“Hey there sleepy head.” Trace says, plopping down on to my feet at the end of the couch.

I groan in protest, pulling my feet from under his ass, “It’d be better if you had dinner cooking.” I say, silently praying he at least ordered food.

He laughs, “How far along are you again?”

“Who knows.” I say shrugging, “I’ll find out tomorrow at the doctors, but I could be anywhere from 9 months which obviously I’m not…” I say pointing towards my belly, “to about a couple of weeks I guess.” I say with a shrug.

“Do you have a bump?” He asks, lifting up my shirt. I smack his hand away, shaking my head. I stand up, lifting my shirt up to show him.

“Holy shit you do.” he says, his eyes bugging out of his head.

“I do?” I ask, looking down at myself.

“Look at it. It’s definitely a bump.”

“Shit, then I have to be at least what… four months along?”

“Four? Then that means you have…” He stops to figure out how much longer I have. I shake my head, laughing.

“Five months Trace. Four plus five equals nine… Did you skip the first grade?”

“Haha… That’s means your either getting married like tomorrow or Justin’s Grandmother is going to be one upset old woman.”

“Oh god. That’s all I need is another woman of his family that hates me.” I say sitting back down on the couch.

“Lynn doesn’t hate you.” Trace says, throwing his arm around my shoulders.

“Oh right, we’re best friends now I forgot…. It’s so weird. She calls me a lot. I’m not complaining, because I love that she wants a relationship with me, it’s just weird you know?”

He nods, “With all the shit she put you through, I understand. And I was joking about his grandmother. She’ll be fine. Bad joke, I’m sorry.”

“Getting married tomorrow wasn’t a bad idea though.” Justin says from behind us. “You may want to get your arm off my future wife.” He says grinning.

I jump up from the couch, hopping up into his arms.

“Miss me?” He asks before kissing me.

“Mmm, you have no idea.” I say, dropping my legs back down to the floor. “What are you doing home so early?”

“Gee, I feel the love right now.” He says, laughing.

I smack his arm, jokingly, “You were supposed to be in Tennessee for two more days.”

“I figured you needed me more than my mother did.” He says, running a finger along my jaw line.

“Thank you.” I say, my eyes beginning to water again. “It’s good to know you’ll be there when I need you.”

He grins, leaning forwards to kiss me again, “Always, baby girl, always.” He whispers against my lips.