Crash into me

Carsh into me Part 4

Chapter 4

"Taylor, when will you and Brad and be moving home?" Clara asked.

"Brad starts his residency at the hospital next Monday, so we're hoping to be settled in before then. We brought as many boxes up with us today as we could. Is the barn ready for us?"

"Yes." Michael said. "I'm having some landscaping done around it, but other than that the inside is furnished and ready for you to move in."

By this point in time, Lauren had taken to mainly just pushing her food around on her plate as she thought about a million other places she'd rather be.

"Lauren? Is everything all right?" Brad asked in his thick British accent. "You're unusually quiet today."

"I'm fine." Lauren said as she absent-mindedly fingered the glass of water in front of her.

Lauren hoped her family time would end after brunch, but of course it didn't, she was then forced to spend the early afternoon mingling with her parents' friends, clients and business acquaintances. For the most part, Lauren just stood idly by without contributing much to the conversation as she listened to her parents brag about Taylor.

"Lauren, you must be so excited for your big sister to get married..." A woman, who had been talking to Clara, said. "Just think, pretty soon it'll be you walking down the aisle with an equally Handsome and successful man."

"Yeah...I don't know about that."

"Don't be so modest. A smart, pretty girl like you must have a boyfriend."

"Nope. No boyfriend."

"Playing hard to get are we?" The woman smiled.

"Sure. Let's go with that."

"You know, there is a lot of promising young men here, Lauren." Clara said. "It couldn't hurt to at least network."

"Yeah. I'll see what I can do, mom."

"Are you sure you're all right, honey?" Clara asked, sensing some tension in her daughter's voice.

"Yeah. I just need to get some air." Lauren said, excusing herself from the conversation and walking off in the opposite direction.

Lauren pulled her phone from the pocket of her cardigan and browsed her contacts for Camila's number. Once she found it, she pressed send and raised her phone to her ear. After a few rings Camila picked up.

"Camila Cabello here."

"Hi, Camila. This is Lauren Jauregui."

"Miss Jauregui. What can I do for you?"

"Well, I'm just calling to let you know that my dad loved your sketches. He was going to call you himself, but he's busy right now, so I thought I'd let you know."

"He really liked my sketches?"

"Yep. He says he wouldn't change a thing."

"Wow really?"

"Definitely. Don't sound so surprised, you're obviously talented."

"Thank you very much."

"Are you going to be working tomorrow?"

"Yeah. I'm planning on getting an early start tomorrow morning."

"Hey Laur." Lauren heard a voice say from behind her.

Lauren turned around to see Ally standing behind her.

"Hey, I gotta go." Lauren said, into the phone.