Scarlet was like a hostile lioness at the moment as she roamed the house aimlessly, destroying her health with tons of Cola. Turns out that this was her way of coping with hurt. While on the other side of her, Lauren was doing her best in leaving Scarlet alone. She was even thoughtful in not even showing the dark-haired, her face. This was Lauren’s way of coping.

And on the sidelines, Juliet and Blake were confused as to what occurred between the two that brought this much distance in-between them. Before last night, they were finding it hard to even stay a few inches apart from each other, and now here they were, trying hard to maintain distance.

According to Blake, the bachelor party was wonderful and everyone had fun. And according to Juliet and the rest of the Payne women, the bachelorette party only consisted of board games and empowering women songs.

“So, you guys just listened to Beyoncé and Spice girls?” Blake asked as he arched an eyebrow for special effect. “Yes.” Juliet sipped her coffee as she stared at Lauren from across the dining room table, who was swirling a fork around her fried eggs.

“All night long?” Blake asked in disbelief as he took a bite of his toast. “Mmhm. A whole night of Beyoncé and Spice Girls, who runs the world?”

“Sweet.” Juliet rolled her eyes at her simple-minded cousin.

“And so, what happened in lover’s paradise?” Blake brought his voice to a low volume as he spoke in Juliet’s ear.

The red head shrugged as she kept staring at the blonde woman play with her breakfast.

The Payne family members were all asleep and the only ones awake in the whole house were Blake, Juliet, Lauren and Scarlet, and one of them was busy wandering around the house while drowning herself in a certain dark brown liquid.

“I have no idea.” Juliet muttered as she took another sip of her coffee. Lauren, who had a certain dark-haired woman on her mind, had lost her appetite after frying the eggs.

And now, she was just playing around with them, hoping for them to disappear themselves from her line of sight.

“Are you gonna eat that?” Lauren was brought out of her thoughts as she looked up at Blake, who was glancing from the fried eggs to the blonde woman. For a moment, she was confused as to what he had implied, but then her brain began to work properly.

“Yeah, sure.” She pushed the plate towards Blake, who smiled gratefully at the blonde. “Hog.” Juliet muttered as she rolled her eyes.  

Blake had chosen to ignore Juliet’s remarks as he began to eat Lauren’s breakfast. “I need some air.” Lauren spoke abruptly as she stood up from the chair and turned to walk out the kitchen door frame.

At the door, she halted her steps as she watched the person on her mind descending from the stairs. Scarlet saw the way Lauren’s face left all color and she quickly turned 180 degrees and walked the other way.

“I’ll just walk in the backyard then.” The blonde muttered under her breath as she changed her route and went over to the glass door separating the kitchen from the backyard.

When she had completely left the kitchen, Scarlet entered with two empty Cola bottles and a sour expression. “Morning.” She grunted as she noticed her two favorite cousins sitting at the dinner table.

“Uh, morning.” Blake grunted back with a sly smile while Juliet giggled. Scarlet could only manage to roll her eyes as she went over to the fridge to get some more Cola. Her eyes trailed to the backyard door through which she could see the blonde woman pacing around but she quickly averted her eyes as to not seem like a creep.

Scarlet was sure to stock her fridge with the beverage just after she had told Lauren to ‘piss off’ in nicer words. What mostly made Scarlet regret ever saying that was the fact that Lauren was sure to obey her demand.

Even Katie wasn’t this nice to just give Scarlet some space. She would’ve called or texted her until Scarlet caved in. One of the reasons why Scarlet had to change her number before coming back to her hometown.

Katie had texted her and left her millions of messages consisting of the same word repeated over and over with different sentence construction: Sorry.

It had pissed Scarlet off on a completely different level how Katie had believed that she could just make everything better with one word. One stupid overused, word.

“Good morning.” Vanessa entered into the kitchen with her hair falling all over the place, causing Scarlet to snap out of her thoughts.

“Morning.” Scarlet grunted again and Vanessa looked at her sister for a minute while Juliet and Blake observed from the table, like bystanders.

Juliet had told Blake what Vanessa had asked and she had even warned her older cousin that if Vanessa ever came to him with questions relating Scarlet or Lauren, he was to lie and deny anything that was true.

“You seem to be in a bad mood.” Vanessa spoke as she went to get some coffee, that Juliet had prepared. “I could say the same to you.” Scarlet gave Vanessa a once over and smirked with her eyes showing nothing but hollowness. Grabbing a bottle of her favorite liquid, she shut the fridge’s door and leaned against it.

“Feeling sick?” For a second, Vanessa, had widened her eyes but then she nodded her head reluctantly. “Yeah, just morning sickness. You know.”

“Yeah.” Scarlet nodded. Blake and Juliet glanced at each other before they stood up from their seats.

“Well, we better go. It’s a long day ahead of us.” Blake smiled at his two cousins while Juliet just tried to not meet their eyes and leave the kitchen without getting called out by them.

Vanessa squinted her eyes at the red head before she turned back to her sister, who was gulping down the brown liquid without any remorse.

“You look pitiful.” Scarlet glared at her sister as she brought the bottle away from her mouth. “You look annoying as ever, am I complaining?”

Vanessa managed to roll her eyes before her eyes strayed to Lauren, who could be visibly seen from the glass backyard door. “What’s up between you and Lauren?” Scarlet just smiled sarcastically, “Nothing.”

With squinted eyes, Vanessa shook her head, “I know there’s something more to your relationship with her than you lead on.”

“What if there is? What are you gonna do, go tell on me to mom and dad, since that’s what you’ve always done before?” Vanessa’s mouth dropped open as she watched the way Scarlet opened the fridge again and grabbed two more bottles of cola, before leaving the kitchen without anything else said.

Vanessa couldn’t help but to bring her eyes back to the blonde that was pacing around in the backyard aimlessly. She knew that something was going on between the two and she couldn’t help but to find out what. Since, she had always thought that Scarlet having unexplained crushes on women was just a phase.

Unbeknownst to her, it wasn’t.

.....

No one had known how this had happened to be as Vanessa drove the car while Lauren sat awkwardly on the passenger’s seat. There was no music, no noise and definitely no talking. Even the car’s own noises were not enough to cut through this thick awkward silence as Lauren stole subtle glances at the woman beside her.

The two women had come to this, when Vanessa asked her mother if she could go to the flower shop instead of her, and decide on the flowers for the flower arrangements herself. Laura had happily agreed on it.

Lauren had just been minding her own business, and by that, I mean, she was just trying extremely hard to not let Scarlet even get a glance of her face, when Vanessa had told her to come with.

Completely confused, Lauren tried to get out of it but then Laura made her go with the almost bride-to-be.

“I’m sure, we’ll find some great flowers.” Vanessa had said to Lauren as they had just stepped out of the house with the essential things; money, car keys and pepper spray.

Lauren had just managed to nod her head slowly as she followed the other woman quickly towards her car.

And now, that they were sitting in thick silence and Vanessa was being extra-ordinarily picky with choosing which flower shop she wanted her flower arrangements from, Lauren realized that this was going to take a whole lot of time.

A part of her was happy that she would be able to not run into Scarlet if she wasn’t even in the house, but another part of her was already missing Scarlet. Even though, they had only been affectionate for a small amount of time, she was already addicted to the small kisses and cuddles.

“So, what do you do?” Vanessa broke Lauren away from her thoughts, as she glanced at her while driving. Lauren, at first, didn’t know why she was even been asked that question but then she realized that the older woman was trying to make small talk.

“Oh, I’m a model.” Vanessa’s eyebrow raised as she had to glance at Lauren another time, while Lauren only gave her a small smile. “What work do you do?” Lauren asked back as she tried to loosen up her body. She was being extremely stiff.

“I’m a lawyer.” It was hard for Lauren to not feel intimidated by Vanessa when she found out that the woman was a lawyer. As compared to Vanessa’s profession, Lauren’s profession was nothing.

“Scarlet also wanted to pursue a career in law.” Lauren turned her head to look at Vanessa with surprise. “Then how come she became a magazine editor instead?”

Vanessa glanced at the blonde woman before she sighed, “She’s really stubborn, you know.” Lauren’s expression only showed confusion as Vanessa didn’t exactly answer her question. “She likes to have power over her decisions. Over the things that concern her and that’s the only reason why she didn’t pursue law.”

Lauren only nodded as she was still quite confused. “How about that shop over there?” The blonde immediately looked at the way that the other woman was pointing where a moderately sized flower shop stood with a sign above it saying ‘Have A Flower’ in italics.

Vanessa parked the car just in front of the small shop as she turned to Lauren, who was busy giving a once over to the shop which was literally overflowing with flowers.

“Scarlet loves flowers.” It was a random piece of information about the girl but it was information nonetheless, and when Lauren turned to look back at Vanessa with her eyes twinkling, Vanessa could only manage to smile a wide fake smile.

The blonde younger woman was the first one to get out of the car while Vanessa took her time as she locked the car and then joined Lauren on the curb.

“Are we going to enter or not?” Vanessa asked when the blonde didn’t proceed to take a step towards the shop.

Lauren, as if broken out of thought, nodded her head and began to walk towards the glass door of the shop. Opening it, the bell rang above it, notifying the owner that they had customers.

Looking around the space of the flower shop which was filled up to the brim with fresh smelling flowers, Lauren couldn’t help but wonder which flower Scarlet loved the most. Maybe she could gift her one, for an apology or for something that Lauren wasn’t even sure of.

“Ah, girls with lovers, I presume.” Lauren and Vanessa jumped as they turned their heads to look at the grey-haired woman that had appeared out of nowhere. Well, not out of nowhere, but just out of someplace that the two women didn’t know or notice. Lauren blushed deeply while Vanessa smiled widely – this time genuinely – as she nodded her head happily. “I’m going to get married next week.”

The blonde felt a little bitter as she looked at the wide smile and the sparkling eyes of the almost bride. She wondered how it would feel to be this happy, to be marrying the one person that she really loved. But with wondering about happiness, all she could get reminded of was a certain brown-haired unemployed woman.

“Congratulations, dear,” the old woman smiled back at Vanessa before her eyes went to the blonde, “and what about you, pretty girl?” For a minute, Lauren stood unmoving before she smiled nervously, “I don’t have a lover.”

“Nonsense, I can see it in your eyes that you have someone that you love deeply.” As Lauren looked at the old woman incredulously, she thought to herself, ‘Are my eyes that obvious?’

She was only a moment away from touching her eyes but controlled herself as she shook her head, lying, “I don’t have anyone.” Besides, all she could do was lie. Vanessa was there and she would find out if she told the old woman about Scarlet.

The slight raised eyebrow of the woman told Lauren that she did not believe her as she moved on away from her and to the soon-to-be-bride. “So, what can I help you with, dear?”

Vanessa, clearing away her thoughts, spoke excitedly, “I need flower arrangements for my wedding.”

“Forget-me-nots and Red Roses would suit your wonderful day best,” The old woman spoke as she plucked a rose and a forget-me-not from somewhere behind her, “Forget-me-nots symbolize the bond between two people lasting for eternity to come. While, the rose is a great sign of love, as you already might know.”

Vanessa’s eyes were wide with wonder and awe as she looked at the forget-me-not. “They’re beautiful.”

“And for you, dear,” The grey-haired woman turned around again to fumble with the flowers before finding what she needed, “A Hydrangea and Gardenia.”

Lauren glanced at Vanessa, who shrugged her shoulders while the old woman held out the two flowers out to the blonde. “What do these two mean?” Vanessa asked as her curiosity got the best of her.

The old woman looked at Lauren for a moment too long before she turned completely to the brown-haired woman. “Shall we, instead, talk about the arrangements of the flowers at your wedding, my dear?”

The way that Vanessa’s eyes lit up, was proof enough at how she had completely forgotten about the two flowers that Lauren now held in her hands.

“I want the roses at the gates and the walls while…” Vanessa began to talk animatedly as she smiled widely at every word while Lauren was left to wonder what the two flowers meant and why did the old lady give them to her.

......