Perfect Preparation

Chapter 33: Open Road

The rest of the way home, Kaila could feel the tension in the car rising. Lain was still sat besides her, glancing over her way every now and then during her conversation with Mallix.

She hardly paid any attention to it after they started talking about finances and something regarding the production team from the station.

Their conversation would start up, and they seemed to be discussing something rather important, but as either Lain would take a glance over her shoulder or Mallix looked through the mirror, Kaila could sense the tension as they began stuttering and fumbling with their words before finding composure again.

It was tempting for the small girl to ask what was going on but right now she simply didn't care enough. All that did were the pretty fields of flowers that they were passing. An open field with tens of hundreds of different colored flowers decorating the land.

Doing her best, she made a little game out of it to help the time go by faster. In her head she tried to keep count of how many of every color she'd seen. And when that proved to be nearly impossible for her to keep track of all the different colors, she settled with counting the pink flowers only.

It was going smoothly, and in her head she was winning from successfully keeping track. Until she turned for a brief moment to look at Lain, outside the other side of the car was a replicate landscape.

She groaned to herself not realizing there were two sides the entire time, and forgot to count them. Not to mention her little pause made her forget the number she was on anyways.

Giving up on the game, she resorted to babbling about the flowers to Mr. Tuffy as they admired the pretty flowers that passed them by.

Lain and Mallix were still trying to continue with business matters but their minds were still consumed by the incident earlier. Every time either of them even dared to sneak a peak at her, their heads filled with curiosity.

But they both internally decided it would be of everyone's best interest if they addressed the matter at home. Where all of them could properly talk without any distractions.

With only an hour left of the drive Mallix felt his phone vibrating in his pants pocket. He pulled it out saw James was calling him. But whatever nonsense he was going to yell at them for, could wait. Mallix hung up putting his phone down between his chair and the passengers seat.

Him and Lain kept talking for another minute or so, when he called again. Mallix instinctively hung up just needing a break from James at the moment. After all he had been the one who got them into this mess in the first place.

"Who keeps calling?"

"James" Lain could hear the hint of annoyance in his voice.

"Shouldn't you answer it, what if it's something about the edited version of the podcast. Or some news he has about the viewer who decided to snap that picture of us!" Lain defended him for once.

And just on cue, the phone began ringing again. However, Mallix was too caught up in his own pride he couldn't bring himself to answer it. James would be the one to yell at Mallix for doing a wrong move or not acting right.

So instead he passed it back for Lain to answer. She rolled her eyes playfully accepting it and answering the call.

L: Hello?

J: Lain? Where's Mallix?

L: He's driving right now, what do you want?

J: (he grunted loudly) Just, ugh, just tell him to call me when you get home.

L: What is it James? Why can't you just tell me?

J: Because it's more of his expertise than yours, no offense.

L: Just cause you say that doesn't mean I'm not offended by that, but still non taken. Is there something he needs to write a paper over?

J: More like three...

L: What! Three! Why so many?

J: Well you can thank the stage hand that decided to take a picture of his favorite celebs without thinking and sending it to the station to use.

L: A stage hand is the one who took our picture?

J: Yeah, something like that. I don't remember what he does. But there needs to be a proper statement regarding that incident, a statement for why you guys were being private during what would've been the fourth segment, and someone commented on the live podcast saying you two looked like you had some bad blood with Rodney.

L: And we need statements for each of these?!

J: Yes you do, that way the public can get your end of the story and we're not left with rumors going around that could hurt your careers.

L: Fine, ok got it. I'll tell Mallix about that when we get home.

J: Good, tell him he has two days to get them done we need these public as fast as we can so no one else has time to come up with their own conclusions.

L: Sure. Two days, three statements.

J: Good now I'm about to head into a meeting, tell him to email me the statements when he's done.

L: I know James. Goodbye.

She ended the call. Mallix curiously looked at her allowing Lain to explain what James had requested of him.

Meanwhile Kaila was busy entertaining herself with Mr. Tuffy in her lap. She was dancing, and doing a terrible impression of a waltz with the bear to the melody on the radio.

Lain broke her conversation with Mallix to allow herself to laugh at the silly sight. The tiny girl was kicking her legs in rhythm with her bears, and they swayed side to side at a rapid pace.

Instead of worrying about work, the family instead enjoyed a playful rest of the ride home all dancing around aimlessly to anything that played. The couple pulled up into the garage all tired out from the excitement, while Kaila was still bouncing around even when the car shut off.

"Let's go bouncy pants, into the house" Mallix grabbed Kaila from her seat and in through the house door before he went to help Lain grab all the items in the car.

Once everything was cleaned, almost as if they could read each other's minds, the couple nervously walked over to Kaila needing to have a serious discussion.
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Let me know how you think the conversation is going to go. Thanks Lexx signing off