Page 7 of Home to Me

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Thirty minutes, on the dot, later, Lauren pushed open the familiar front door of Sue Ann's Café on Main Street, but that was the point where the familiarity ended. The cozy café was utterly taken over by cameras, lights, cords, and intense people with clipboards and headset mics scurrying to and fro. One of those serious individuals, a young woman in her early twenties, walked purposefully up to Lauren before she could even scan the room and get her bearings.

“Are you Lauren Harrison?” she asked briskly. At Lauren's nod, the woman took her arm and said authoritatively, “Come with me please.” As she led her across the room, stepping over bundles of cables as they went, the woman pressed a button on her belt and spoke into her mic. “I've got her, I'm bringing her over.”

Lauren felt vaguely as if she were being placed under arrest.

Through the forest of cameras and light stands, Lauren saw a large table with all her friends sitting around it emerge. The production crew had taken several of the smaller rectangle-shaped tables from the middle of the room and pushed them together to create a large, family-style gathering.

Lauren was directed to sit in one of the two unoccupied chairs. She did as she was told, trying to take in the scene and process all of the chaotic energy.

“Hey, Laur! Isn’t this fun?” her friend Amanda beamed from the end of the table. Amanda leaned forward to be able to make eye contact with Lauren, her blonde, wavy hair bouncing as she did so, the china-doll skin of her cheeks flushed rosy with excitement.

Lauren smiled and nodded her head pleasantly. She didn't share in her friend's enthusiasm, but she certainly didn't want to be a party pooper.

“I just like being on camera without it being all about me,” piped up Sam, the fourth member of the Fabulous Four. “Not to mention, no one's trying to make me dress skimpy, so that's a double bonus!”

Sam, the petite, red-haired, and freckled athletic one of the bunch, recently retired from a career in professional snowboarding. While the competition aspect of her career had been very satisfying, she’d never been entirely comfortable with doing press photo shoots and ad campaigns—particularly when they tried to dress her in a bikini.

Lauren smiled at Sam, who turned back to her fiancé, Luke, and continued chatting. Lauren glanced around the table. Yes, they were all here, and all coupled up. Amanda with Justin, her first love, who’d come back into her life a few months ago after a ten-year absence. Karina with Ryan, the man she’d fallen in love with as much for his poet's soul and musical artistry as for his sexy, good looks. And Sam with Luke, the guy she’d been crushing on since she was a teenager and who, a couple of months ago, had actually become Sam's first ever boyfriend, breaking Sam's long streak of being married to her sport.

Lauren sighed. Happy couples. She was surrounded by nothing but happy couples.

“We meet again,” she heard a voice behind her and felt the tiny hairs on the back of her neck rise before she even consciously recognized the voice as Ben's.

Lauren steeled herself and turned to face him, meeting his gaze just as he finished lowering himself into the seat next to hers. She saw that he’d changed clothes and was now wearing a dark-grey button-up shirt with fitted, dark-blue jeans.

Before she could stop herself, Lauren caught her breath. He looked good, and despite Lauren's best efforts not to notice...she did.

Ben gave her a megawatt smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. Hmmm, his eyes, she thought. His deep, coffee-colored eyes...

She shook herself a little. She’d gotten carried away by thinking about all those happy couples, she told herself. Yep. That's why thinking about the color of his eyes started to send her off into a little daydream trance. Right? Right.

All that aside, however, she couldn't help but notice something else about his eyes besides their intoxicating coffee coloring; there were dark circles beneath them that, up close, the stage makeup didn't entirely hide.

“Ben,” Lauren said stiffly in acknowledgment.

Once Ben was seated, it was like the room came to life and everything started to happen very quickly. The director came over and instructed them to just speak normally. He wanted to create a natural atmosphere of friends getting together for dinner, to which Lauren's immediate thought was, Then why is Ben here? This caused her to smile a little to herself.

Lauren heard someone yell, “Roll sound.”

“Rolling,” came a voice from the corner.

“Background action.”

“And...action.”

All of her friends started animatedly talking at once. This didn't seem very 'natural' to Lauren, but who was she to judge the mysterious world of reality television?

She felt Ben's attention turn to her, and he asked, “So, Lauren. How long have you and Karina known each other?”

It was an innocent enough question, but for some reason, it caused Lauren to bristle in irritation. She remembered, though, that she was being filmed and hid this reaction as she politely turned towards him and said, “Since we were in elementary school.”

“And what about Sam and Amanda? The same?”

“Yes.”

“And I seem to remember hearing something about a nickname. The Fabulous Four, I think it was?”

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