thē ງirl ຖēxt ໓໐໐r ✰ jenzie

-chapter twelve-

kenzie's pov

"Mads, whaddaya think?" I twirl around in my flowery romper in front of her mirror.

"Uhh...." Maddie, my overly-obsessed-with-her-boyfriend sister, reluctantly drags her eyes from her phone screen, where she's probably having a super sappy and cringy conversation with her boyfriend, Jack.

"'Uhh' what?" I roll my eyes.

Maddie takes one quick look and then goes back to her phone. "Looks good. Duh. You look good in anything."

"Aww, thanks." I scrunch up my nose. "Really. You're just saying that so I leave you alone."

"Who do you need to impress, Kenz? JOHNNY?"

My eyes widen. "Huh?"

"Mhmm." Maddie smirks at me, and I can't help but giggle. Even though Maddie annoys me to no end, I still love her.

After I'm finally convinced the romper looks good on me, I skip downstairs. Mom looks up as I come down and smiles.

"16 years old, and you still skip around. You look cute. C'mon and help me wash these strawberries."

I oblige. "What time are they coming?"

Looking at the clock on the stove, she says, "Any minute now. Is Maddie up?"

"Nnnnnope." I giggle, and wait for Maddie to start yelling. She does.

"I AM UP, FOR YOUR INFORMATION, MS. MACKENZIE ZIEGLER." She storms out of her room and glares at me. I laugh again.

Pulling out a bowl for me to put the strawberries in, Mom shakes her head at Maddie teasingly. "You don't look very up to me. Get dressed, honey."

A couple minutes later, the door rings. Finally. I feel like I've been waiting all day. I open the door and throw myself on Lauren...except I find myself hugging...Johnny.

"...hiii. Sorry, that was meant for Lauren."

Mr. and Mrs. Orlando laugh, and so do Johnny and Lauren.

"I thought so."

Awkwardly, I give the hug to it's rightful recipient, Lauren. Then we run upstairs to talk. As we're going upstairs, I hear Johnny say, "You would think they hadn't seen each other in years...but they literally saw each other 2 hours ago."

°°°°°°°

"Pass the cheese please, Johnny." I'm still embarrassed about the very excited hug I gave him earlier, but he didn't seem to mind, so I think it's okay.

Mr. Orlando takes a sip of water and then says, "Thanks for inviting us, Melissa. This spaghetti is amazing."

"Of course! I just wanted to even it out, because Kenzie is always over at your house." Mom laughs.

"We love having her over, Ms. Ziegler," says Lauren, squeezing my hand under the table. We made sure to sit right next to each other, so we can still gossip about the new kid who was on set today, cuz adult conversations can be SUUPER boring.

"We should just build an extension between our houses," I say, "Then it would be one giant house and we wouldn't have to keep jumping fences."

"We'd probably get tired of each other really quickly." Johnny raises his eyebrows at me.

I shake my head and counter, "Hey, I practically live with Lauren, and I'm not tired of her yet."

"I was about to say that!" Lauren giggles as I fist bump her.

"But thanks for letting me come over. Whenever Lauren says with us, Maddie always bothers us." Maddie makes a face at me. "Orrrr, she's smooching with Jack, and we don't want to be around that."

"Hey!" Maddie's mouth drops open and the rest of us laugh.

"Buuuuuuut, I still have to deal with sappy stuff when I'm around Johnny and Kenzie." Lauren says, making my mouth drop open.

"What??" Johnny and I say in unison.

"They're ALWAYS flirting. Like that time Johnny took of his shirt and-"

"LAUREN!" Johnny's cheeks are bright red, and I'm pretty sure mine are too. "This is NOT the time to talk about this.

Mom raises her eyebrows at me, and I try to control my blushing. Then I feel a kick against my leg. I look up, startled, to see Johnny's eyes widen.

"Ohmygosh, sorry, that was meant for Lauren."

I have to laugh, and everyone finally joins in with me.

°°°°°°°

"GEEZ, Laur, what was that all about?" Johnny asks, glaring at Lauren as we sit in the living room after dinner. The parents are still in the dining room, talking politics or something.

"What?" She asks innocently.

I throw a pillow at her. "Do NOT do that again, or I'll tell Hayden you like him."

"Who's Hayden?" Johnny asks, his curiosity piqued, and Lauren throws the pillow back at me.

"NO ONE."

"This adorable dude on set. He's new." I say for Lauren, and she glares at me. "See? Now we're even. Hey, at least I didn't say it in front of our PARENTS."

"Okay, okay, I'm sorry."

Loudly, Maddie makes her entrance and plops down on the couch next to me. "Let's play a game."

"Like what?"

"Ummm...."

"No, let's just talk. John, tell us what the email was that you got yesterday." Lauren says, kicking her feet up onto the ottoman.

"Oh. Um, it was from Lauren's manager. He wants to know if I want to start acting again."

"Again?" asks Maddie.

"Yeah, he used to do some smaller acting jobs before he joined the military." I say.

Raising her eyebrows suspiciously at me, Lauren says, "How did you know that?"

"Because you told me!" I respond indignantly.

"Oh." She replies disappointed. I laugh.

Maddie gets up. "Hey, Lauren would you help me in the kitchen real quick?" She winks at her and I give her a weird look.

"Sure." They leave together, chattering about something I don't know.

Yay. Awkward silence ensues between Johnny and me.

"Ssssoooo...." I start, "Uhh, what's keeping you from accepting Lauren's manager's offer?"

Johnny hesitates for a second before answering. "Well...it sounds lame. I'm such a loser."

"You're not. You're an 18 year old colonel in the freaking US Army, John."

He smiles slightly. "Okay, well, I'm not sure if I'm want to start acting again because I know how frustrating it is to be in the spotlight all the time, and I'm not sure how good I still am at acting. And, I'm going to be compared to Lauren all the time."

I pause to think about what he said. "I see. That makes sense." Then I repeat again, "You're not a loser. Those are pretty legitimate concerns."

Johnny shrugs.

"But this would be the opportunity to get you to know what to do with your life. You were talking about how that's one of your biggest fears." I say pointedly, and he chuckles.

"You know me too well, Mackensis. You're right though." Nodding, he scoots closer to me on the couch. Maybe on purpose, maybe not. I don't mind, in fact I'm...glad.

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a/n: re-reading this is so painful this is such an awkward book asdlfkjsdkl