DESTINED AFFECTION

NINETEEN

Lauren turned her head at the sound of tapping on the driver's side window. Ally stood there in the dark peering into the car, making a winding motion with her fingers. Hesitating, uncertain whether she wanted to talk, Lauren eventually opened the window.

"Hi," she said distractedly.

Ally leaned her forearms on the car door and said conversationally, "You've been out here with the engine running for fifteen minutes." She held up a sweating bottle of Budweiser. "Want a drink?"

"Yes," Lauren replied as she reached through the window for the beer. She took a swallow and sighed gratefully. "Want to come in and sit down?"

"Sure."

As Ally walked around the front of the car, Lauren turned off the engine and leaned her head back, then closed her eyes and pressed the cold bottle to her forehead. She heard the passenger door open and felt the vehicle sway slightly as Ally slid in, followed by the thud of the door closing. She turned her head and opened her eyes. "Thanks for the beer."

"I had a feeling you might need one, since you're sitting in the dark at eleven thirty at night." Ally took a swallow from her own bottle and worked the lever by her side to slide the seat back far enough to stretch her legs out beneath the dashboard. "When Perrie brought Kyle over this evening, she told me that you were going out with Mila. Kyle's asleep upstairs with Kim, by the way."

"Thanks. I would have called when it started getting late, but I knew you'd keep her here if Phyllis was tied up."

Ally shrugged. "Of course. Phyl called to check in with us about seven. She had an impromptu dinner with, and I quote—the studly new art teacher—unquote."

"Good for her," Lauren murmured. "She's spent the last six years taking care of Kyle and me. It's about time she started getting on with her own life."

"I can't imagine that anything Phyllis might do with her life would change the way she loves you two." Ally cocked her head and stared at her friend. She'd seen Lauren devastated after Terry's death, and she'd seen her climb out of that agony of loss and depression to carry on. She'd never heard her sound quite this way—a mixture of angry, frustrated, and sad. "What's going on, Laur? Did something happen with Camila?"

Lauren laughed, a short hard sound entirely devoid of humor. "You could say that."

"What?"

"That's what I've been driving around for the last hour trying to figure out."

"Did you two have a fight?"

"No." Lauren sipped her beer and curled the fingers of her left hand around the steering wheel, slowly turning it as she contemplated what she still couldn't quite comprehend. Finally, she looked at her best friend, her expression one of uncertainty and confusion. "I kissed her."

"A little kiss or an honest-to-God-for-real kiss?"

Lauren's voice was pitched low, her throat still tight with the memory of Camila's touch. "I wanted to go to bed with her...and I wanted her to make love to me until I forgot everything except her hands on me."

Ally's lips parted in surprise, and she exhaled sharply. "Well. That about does it for me. I need a cold shower now."

Lauren leaned her head back against the seat again and laughed, blindly reaching out her right hand and feeling the comfort of Ally's fingers grasping hers. "I don't know what I'd do without you,"

"No use wasting brain power thinking about it, because it's not going to happen." Ally squeezed Lauren's hand. "So what happened? What's got you in such a spin?"