Page 8 of Loving Lauren
“Great. I’ll schedule ‘fire hazard’ between laundry and dishes.” Mom glared at him straight-faced.
“Didn’t we just call him mature?” Thalia looked at Sierra.
Tobias mumbled with a mouth full of chicken. “I am mature.”
Later, while everyone reached for seconds, Thalia leaned in. “Have you talked to them yet? About, you know...”
Sierra pushed her potatoes around. “There’s nothing to talk about. I’m not even seeing anyone.”
“You don’t have to be dating someone for it to matter.”
“I know. But right now, it feels easier to wait.”
Their mom glanced up, as if she’d caught a shadow of something unspoken, but didn’t press. The conversation drifted to safer waters.
Thalia was quick to rescue. “Sierra was telling me earlier, one of her students let out a fart so loud it echoed off the walls. She said the entire class almost died.”
Tobias perked up. “Legend.”
“We survived. Barely.”
They laughed, refilled drinks, fought over the last biscuit. As the conversation lulled, Mom turned to Sierra with that look—the one that meant she’d been storing up something to say.
“Speaking of your classes, honey, you know Mrs. Henderson from next door? Her son David just got promoted at the accounting firm. He’s single, very responsible, and she says he’s been asking about you.”
Sierra nearly choked on her sweet tea. “Mom...”
Dad looked up from his plate. “David’s a good kid. Steady job, bought his own house last year. The kind of man who’d treat you right.”
“I’m not looking to date anyone right now,” Sierra said carefully, her chest tightening.
“But sweetheart, you’re twenty-six. You can’t hide behind that camera forever.” Mom reached over and patted her hand. “I just want to see you settled. Happy.”
Thalia jumped in quickly. “Sierra’s doing just fine on her own, Mom.”
“Of course she is. I just think David would be perfect for her. He’s very traditional. Family-oriented.”
Sierra forced a smile and pushed her green beans around her plate. The word ‘traditional’ echoed in her head like a warning bell.
“Maybe we could all meet him sometime,” Tobias suggested with false innocence. “You know, make sure he’s worthy of our Sierra.”
“Don’t encourage them,” Sierra muttered, but she was grateful for his attempt to lighten the mood.
They stayed long after the plates were empty, the conversation eventually drifting back to safer territory. The night etched itself into memory unbidden. Even without saying it out loud, the love was there. It was messy, imperfect, but dependable. The kind that holds, even when you’re still figuring yourself out.
The following week blurred at the edges. Studio lights flicked on too early, and sketches piled up too fast. Sierra moved from one obligation to the next, her days dissolving into one long smear of charcoal, critiques, and tired eyes. Friday arrived like an afterthought, wrapped in soft exhaustion.
By four-thirty, she packed her camera and stepped into the thin, hushed light that comes before evening takes over. The park was muscle memory by now. She could walk it with her eyes closed. Same steps, same turns, same brief stops without thinking.
She stayed until the sun stretched long and low across the lawn, waiting for something she didn’t have the words to name. Any movement in the distance made her breath catch for a heartbeat too long. A flash of dark hair. A glimmer of sunlight on pale skin, but it never resolved into the face she had tucked away in memory.
There was no one feeding the birds. No girl with dark hair laughing like joy belonged to her. Just sunlight losing its grip and the silent ache of another almost.
Her apartment door creaked open, and the hinges sighed as if they shared her mood. Salem emerged from the bedroom with his usual air of dramatic timing, tail high and flicking.
Sierra crouched to meet him. “I’m finished looking for her.” Her voice was low. Tired.
Salem meowed, short and skeptical.
