Home Sweet Home

by Melanie Shawn

  Lauren did feel, however, that she could get past these growing pangs in her business – both her real estate business and the television business – and learn to manage them both equally successfully, if she could only focus. Focus was the key.

  However, focus was the one thing she couldn't seem to maintain. Focus on her work, that is. The issue was that she was highly focused on something besides work – namely, Ben.

  If she was honest with herself, the truth was she had been distracted by Ben from pretty much the moment she had met him. That distraction had taken the form of annoyance, but now she saw that the irritation she had felt had merely been her brain's way of directing her attention toward Ben.

  Now, the distraction was taking a new and more painful turn. All she could think about was the ball last night, how handsome he had looked, how dashing, how she wished that she had been there with him – and how he completely ignored her the entire night.

  Questions plagued her.

  Where had he gone when he left the night before?

  Did he leave with Kelly?

  Why didn't he talk to her?

  Was he angry with her?

  Was he hurt?

  Was he trying to prove a point?

  Was she being dramatic to think that he was intentionally ignoring her, and in fact it was as simple as – he just didn't care if she was there or not?

  And the shallowest of all the questions – how was it possible that he looked THAT amazing in his suit?

  Lauren felt as if everything in her life was spinning out of control. She was letting her business fall to the wayside while she pursued a television opportunity that may or may not pan out, she was giving her heart and soul to a man who may or may not view her as just a weekend conquest – a glorified groupie – and she couldn't seem to stop herself, and now she was sacrificing her one uninterrupted work day to obsess over him.

  Who was she? Who was this person she was becoming? Because it certainly wasn't Lauren Harrison.

  She was certainly not a person who would count the hours down until she was going to see a man again, and yet that's precisely what she was doing with Ben. She glanced at the clock. Nineteen more to go.

  She was certainly not a person who would ever second-guess her decisions and her actions, and yet here she was, sitting at her desk when she should be working, wondering if she was doing the right thing in backing off from Ben or if she was passing up the opportunity of a lifetime.

  She was certainly not a person who would ever waste time sitting around analyzing over and over again any little sentence or phrase that a man had said to her. And yet, that is exactly what she found herself doing now. Picking little sentences, little responses, that Ben had said to her, and trying to pick them apart piece by piece.

  What was the tone of his voice when he said it? What had the expression on his face been at the time? Had he been touching her arm? Were there two ways to take that phrase? Was he joking? Was it sarcastic?

  And she wasn't doing this merely for things he had said to her this weekend. Oh, no. That would be too sane. Nope, she was mentally rehashing all the things he'd ever said to her over the course of their entire relationship. She snorted. Their entire relationship? Yes, the entire THREE WEEKS they had known each other. Quite a relationship.

  GET A GRIP, LAUREN!!

  She was doing everything in her power to stop the movie that was playing on a loop in her brain, the movie starring Ben Stevens, but it was apparently a marathon and she had at some point bought a ticket that she could not refund.

  The Ben Stevens movie marathon did not only contain scenes of uncertainty and angst, however. There were moments – many moments – of pure happiness. There were moments which were replaying in her brain with ever-increasing frequency which showed her just how sweet it might be to make a life with Ben Stevens.

  For instance, she thought about how incredibly helpful he'd been with the television show. He had completely and totally rescued her at the screen test, which was actually the one thing that was giving her the opportunity to live this new life that she would have if the show got picked up.

  She didn't discount her own role in that, Lauren was never one to downplay her own gifts and talents, but there was absolutely no arguing that if Ben had not stepped in when he did, her stage fright would have ruined it all. In that sense, this entire adventure was all because of him.

  After they had been on set together, as well, he had taken the lead in showing her the ropes. He could have been condescending, or he could've ignored her. There were times on the set that she felt like everyone was speaking in code and she had absolutely no idea how to decipher it.

  If Ben wanted to let her sink, it would be as simple as just letting those instances go, knowing she wasn't clear on what was needed from her, and not helping her. Letting her flounder. But he never had, not even once.

  Most people she knew in real estate were completely out for themselves. It wasn't that they were back stabbers by any means. They didn't go out of their way to steal things that weren't theirs, or to sabotage anyone else's success. It wasn't like that. But, just as in any other highly competitive profession where large amounts of money were at stake, everyone looked out for number one. You weren't going to see someone helping out a less experienced professional when it was highly possible that that person would be gunning for your job one day, or trying to make a good impression on your clients.

  She could only imagine that it was worse in show business. You have bigger egos involved and the stakes were even higher. Multimillion dollar paydays and lucrative jobs which could potentially stretch years into the future were at stake. You didn't just give a leg up to someone who might one day replace you. It just wasn't done.

  And yet... Ben did.

  Every time she needed help? There he was.

  Every time she didn't understand something? There he was.

  Every time she was stressed out about the workload? There he was.

  In fact, in just about every instance that she could think of in the short time that she and Ben had known each other where she had needed him, he had been there.

  Could the same be said in reverse?

  With regret, she realized that it certainly could not.

  She had never given Ben Stevens one iota of a reason to be nice to her, and yet he was.

  Lauren wasn't entirely sure what was happening between her and Ben, but she was pretty sure that she was beginning to like him.

  A lot.

  --- ~ ---

  Ben knew he was a few minutes late to getting to the production meeting and he really didn’t care.

  He had been dreading this meeting since he had seen Lauren kiss that policeman on the dance floor on Saturday night.

  He had no idea if she had spent the entire night lip locked to the guy, he had avoided her, and the first chance he got, he had split.

  Logically, he knew he had no say in who Lauren dated or kissed but, dammit, that didn’t mean he had to like it!

  At the very least, he had thought that they were building a friendship. Sure it might be a new one. But, hell, she could have at least said Hi to him at the dance!

  God, he was making himself sick. He sounded like a lovesick girl. And not just any kind of a girl. A junior high school girl! Next thing he knew, he was going to start picking flowers and plucking their petals, trying to find out if Lauren loved him or loved him not.

  Hey, he thought to himself, maybe I should buy a Pee Chee folder just so I can scrawl “Mrs. Lauren Stevens” all over it! That would be about on par with the level of maturity he was exhibiting.

  He shook his head. This was not him. He didn’t moon over girls, or worry about who they were kissing. He didn’t get his feelings hurt because the girl he liked was ignoring him.

  He quickly needed to remove his head from his ass, he knew. He had a job to do. And bills to pay. He had people in his life that depended on him, people who had real problems, not like the ridiculous things he had
been worried about with Lauren.

  And his bills had been getting bigger lately. He needed the very large paycheck that would come if this second show was picked up. It would help take the strain off. He didn't have control over a whole lot of things in his life, but he had a small margin of control in whether or not the pickup would happen. He could give the show the best possible shot by doing his best work.

  So, trying to shake off the melancholy that had been plaguing him since he had seen Lauren in that other man’s arms, he pushed open the door to the cabin where the production meeting was already under way.

  The A.D. looked up as Ben entered. “Ben! Thanks for joining us!” he ribbed, and the rest of the meeting attendees joined in good-natured laughter at the joke.

  Ben smiled at the teasing and took the sole empty seat in the room, which was – of course, because that's the kind of day he was having – right next to Lauren.

  He felt her looking at him but didn’t trust himself to look in her direction without giving away a hint of what he was feeling. So (again opting for the mature route here) he just didn’t look at her at all.

  Paul stood and began the meeting. “I think we can agree that last week was a success,” he began, and everyone in the room began to clap and cheer. Ben's spirits also lifted a bit. It could never be a completely bad day when your boss starts out a meeting with those words, right?

  “But we can't rest on our laurels,” he continued, “We have a jam-packed schedule over these next two weeks if we're going to turn in a kick-ass pilot. I really think we've got something here, folks. But that doesn't mean we're not going to have to work for it.

  “That said, your new itineraries, call times, and info packets are being passed around to you. Any questions?”

  Ben felt Lauren shift in her chair beside him before he heard her ask, “It says that we need to do an ADR session?”

  The AD was picking up his papers and just said, “Yeah, we can’t use production sound for anything we’ve shot outside.”

  He knew she had no idea still what ADR, which stood for Dialogue Replacement, would entail. And last week, hell three days ago, he would have told her exactly what it was and what she could expect in a session.

  But today he started a conversation with the script supervisor and walked out with her.

  He also made sure that Lauren was out of wardrobe before he was “available” to go in.

  But as he stepped into the cabin, he realized he could not truly escape her. He smelled her scent, it permeated the air with the aromas of wildflowers and vanilla. He saw Polaroids of her all over the walls. Were these more Polaroids than usual? Were Marlene and Barbara messing with him? Hell, an obsessive stalker would have been impressed with the amount of Polaroids plastering every damn surface.

  Ben shook his head. Good God, man, get a hold of yourself!

  His resolve was short-lived, however. As it turned out, Lauren was the hot topic of conversation between Barbara and Marlene the entire fitting. All the wardrobe ladies could talk about was how insanely amazing Lauren’s body was, how much fun she was to dress. How sweet she had been with them - that it was like she had this hard image but underneath it she was just a big softie.

  Ben was silent. He didn’t want to talk about Lauren’s body or the fact that underneath her outer shell, she was really a soft, sweet girl.

  This was exactly why he had never let himself get involved with anyone he worked with before. It was just too complicated.

  Chapter Twelve

  Lauren was fed up. Yep. Maybe she had felt bad before, but now she had out and out had enough. She had no idea what had crawled up Ben’s butt and died, and honestly at this point she really didn’t care.

  He had been giving her the cold shoulder for three days now! Sure, he was being professional, but it was a bare-minimum professionalism. No warmth, no small talk - hell, no talk, period!

  He had not even looked at her in the weekly production meeting.

  He had skipped out on their wardrobe fitting, rescheduling (Barb and Marlene had informed her conspiratorially) for a time when she wouldn't be there.

  And then yesterday at the ADR session - at which she had learned on her own (take THAT Mr. Television Production Tourguide!) that all they did was dub over their lines - he had not made eye contact with her at all, even though they were in a small sound booth and sharing the same mic, for God's sake!

  She should have learned her lesson. You would certainly think she would have! Getting involved with people you work with is a bad idea. Yep. Bad with a capital B. Maybe even through the A and the D, as well. B-A-D. BAD.

  She hadn’t even thought about that before she and Ben had hooked up because, honestly, this didn’t feel like work to her. At least not the kind of work she was used to.

  But even on short term projects in the future, she would need to remember that “dipping your pen in the company ink” (as Karina so brashly phrased it) was not a good idea.

  Now they were about to head out of town again, this time to Palm Springs. She wondered if he would be able to pull off ignoring her for the length of a car ride, a flight, and then another car ride. She bet he could.

  Not wanting to risk a repeat of last week's scrambling fiasco, Lauren stood outside waiting for the town car despite the freezing temperatures. This time was different all around. She had composed a detailed packing list and executed it the day before. Most importantly, she had set three separate alarms just to make sure that she did not oversleep.

  She sighed contentedly, though, thinking about the fact that today they were headed to shoot a property in Palm Springs. She loved Palm Springs. The air, the light, the scorching dry heat. She had stayed on the outskirts several times at Ranchos Las Palmas and had never failed to feel utterly rejuvenated after a weekend there.

  But, she reminded herself, this was work and she needed to keep that in the forefront of her mind. She needed to focus on the job at hand so that she wouldn't fall victim to the temptation to start obsessing about Ben again, which could taint her performance.

  The town car pulled up to the curb and Lauren climbed in, relieved to be out of the cold. Sure, she knew that she could have waited in the house, but she was still stinging from last week's humiliation. She was not a half-way kind of a girl. Go big or go home. She didn’t want them to have to wait on her for a single instant, thus – she waited at the curb.

  The driver, the same gentleman as the week before, quickly got out and opened the door for her while she got in, circling around after she was safely inside to load her luggage into the trunk.

  She thanked him warmly and settled into the backseat of the town car.

  Ben was typing away on his laptop and, for all outward appearances, was so involved in his work that he hadn't even noticed her getting into the car.

  Heh.

  Two could play at that game.

  She got her laptop out and powered it up. She was behind on so much real estate paperwork that it certainly wasn't like she needed to fake a need to work, she told herself. Not like Mr. I Have Two Assistants I'd Trust With My Life That Run The Day To Day At My Office over there, clicking away officiously on the keys. Hmph.

  If I were to sneak a glance, she thought, he'd probably just be updating his Facebook.

  As it had so many other times in her life that she'd needed it to, though, work provided a welcome oblivion. She got involved in going over several contracts that needed her attention and, before she knew it, the ride to the Reno-Tahoe airport seemed to have gone by in a flash.

  Hey, maybe Ben’s cold shoulder was a good thing, she thought.

  But then why did she just really miss his smile?

  --- ~ ---

  Oh, for the love of God, why did she have to smell so good?

  Ben was trying everything in his power to block out any effect that Lauren had on him. It wasn't easy. Sure, not looking at her helped. It was slightly more difficult when she spoke...man, he loved her voice. When she spoke, it almost soun
ded musical.

  And it wasn't just her voice he loved. It was also her words. She was careful, thoughtful, and articulate. Some people he knew used big words to try and make themselves seem more important, but it read false on them. Not Lauren. Her vocabulary was larger than the average person's and she knew how to use it. He found that sexy as hell.

  But, even that, he could somewhat block out of his mind.

  But her smell. Damn, her smell! It was intoxicating. It made it difficult for him to think. It infiltrated his brain with its feathery tendrils and wove her magic spell over him. He had never even noticed another woman’s scent before, beyond the passing thought that he liked the perfume they were wearing that day. But with Lauren, he couldn’t un-notice it. It was wrapped around him like a warm blanket, always. He couldn't shake it, and that pissed him off.

  He had been able to avoid her in make-up and even completely ignore her during their flight and car rides, but now he would have to face the music. They had to shoot, and, as welcome a relief as it had been to allow himself the immature concession of pretending she did not exist, that would all have to stop now. He had a job to do, one that he was absolutely NOT going to allow to suffer due to his ego...or whatever part of him it was that she had damaged.

  To his utter frustration, though, he found himself unable to be completely at ease with her, even when the cameras started rolling. Their dynamic was stiff and wooden, there was none of the comfort and chemistry which made them, as a team, so compelling to watch.

  Even if it hadn't been obvious to him based solely on their performances, which it was, he could have seen by the worried crinkling of Paul's eyes as he watched the monitor that this day of shooting was circling the drain.

  OK, he thought, maybe this tension between us only exists because we haven't addressed it. Maybe if we just had a quick conversation and agreed to be more civil, that would work.