Back to You(61)

She walked out to the living room to see Erin sitting on the couch, watching some show about a talking blue dog. She smiled and waved at Lauren before she said, “Shh, Daddy’s sleeping.”
Lauren smiled and mouthed okay to her as she made a big production of tiptoeing into the living room, and Erin giggled.
“You hungry yet?” she asked, and Erin nodded.
“Okay, be right back,” she said.
She went back into Michael’s kitchen and made Erin some toast with a thin layer of jelly, and she brought it out to her with another small cup of Pedialyte.
“Little bites and little sips, okay? Just until your belly is back to normal.”
Erin nodded and thanked her, turning her eyes back to the television show as she took a small bite of the toast.
“I’m gonna get my stuff and head back home now. But Daddy’s here, and I’ll see you on Monday.”
“Okay,” she said around her mouthful of toast, her eyes still on the TV, and Lauren leaned over and kissed the top of her head before she turned back toward Michael’s room.
After grabbing her things, she stopped in the doorway to Erin’s bedroom. Michael was sprawled out across the floor, lying on a pink comforter half the size of his body and covered with another that left the majority of his legs exposed. She pressed her lips together when she recognized the ponies on his blanket as the ones from the movie last night.
Her eyes moved to his face, his expression completely serene in slumber. His dark lashes fanned out beneath his eyes, and there was a shadow of stubble on his jaw, contrasting the full, pink lips that were slightly parted with his soft breathing.
Lauren walked carefully into the room, pulling the blanket off of Erin’s bed and covering his legs. And then she closed her eyes and took a long, steadying breath before she turned to walk out of the room.
She said good-bye to Erin and got in her car, not even bothering to turn the radio on as she made her way back home.
Crossing lines. It had been what started their friendship in the first place all those years ago, and then what propelled it into something substantial. What built it up and made it strong.
And finally, what ended up destroying it.
Lauren knew she had just done it again. Her original plan had been to remain strictly professional with him, at least until they could talk about everything that had happened. But yesterday, when she had offered to go to his house and care for his sick child, that plan had gone out the window.
It shouldn’t have been that big of a deal, crossing back into a friendship with him. But Jenn, damn her, had been right. She wasn’t starting on square one with Michael. Lauren had let herself go an inch last night, and suddenly she was right back where she knew she couldn’t be.
She needed to get back.
The “keeping it professional” ship had sailed; she recognized that. Instead, she needed to focus all her efforts on holding the line now, on keeping it strictly friendship. She couldn’t allow herself to slip beyond that again, the way she had last night. and turned to look at her.ck you to
“You can do this. You can totally do this. Just…get back on the other side of the line and stay there,” she told herself as she turned onto the interstate.
But Lauren had been crossing lines with Michael for as long as she could remember.
And she knew from experience that once she did, it was virtually impossible to go back.

August 2002
“I feel like we’re in that movie Dazed and Confused,” Jenn said. “Party at the Moon Tower,” she added in her best attempt at a Southern drawl, and Lauren laughed and shook her head.
“First of all, that’s the worst impression of Matthew McConaughey I’ve ever heard.” She dodged Jenn’s slap as she continued, “Second of all, there’s no Moon Tower to be seen. Or water tower. Or even a lonely power line. We are just standing around in the middle of the woods, drinking like a bunch of idiots.”
Jenn shrugged, taking a sip from her blue plastic cup. “Well, this is what happens when nobody’s parents will let them throw an ‘End of the Summer’ party at their house. They force us into the wilderness to do our celebrating. Kinda stupid if you ask me. At least if we were in someone’s house, they could supervise us.”
Lauren looked around before taking a sip from her own cup. “There’s got to be like eighty drunk teenagers here, Jenn. Nobody was gonna be able to supervise this, house or not.”
“Oh well,” Jenn said, plopping down on an old tree trunk as she finished her drink. “At least the cops won’t be breaking it up out here. It’s a perfect night to be outside anyway.” She tilted her head back and sighed. “I love summer nights.”