Despite their rocky start, a fast friendship formed between Lauren and Joey. When they weren't on stage they would be hanging out with each other, cracking jokes in competition to make each other laugh. Joey was Lauren's favourite person to spend time with, and it was hard to believe they'd ever once been at each other's throats.
At the end of their fifth rehearsal, after David told them he wanted them to be completely off book next week, Joey asked if Lauren wanted to come over and run lines with him. She agreed to it eagerly; spending time with Joey under the guise of rehearsing was exactly what she needed after a tiring two weeks of balancing rehearsals with her day job.
So that's how she ended up on the doorstep of his apartment on Saturday night, wondering why she was suddenly nervous to knock on the door.
But he answered almost immediately with a huge smile, and she instantly forgot her nerves.
"The drive was okay?" he asked as he pulled her into a brief hug.
"Yeah, fine. And there's actually good parking on this street."
He grinned at her, remembering their first encounter. "You'll have to thank my roommate for that. He's out of town for the weekend but this is his place. I'm just staying here for now."
"Are you getting your own place soon then?"
"Well," he hesitated. "I'm probably moving back to California at some point once the show's over." He gestured for her to come further into the hallway so he could shut the door behind her.
"Oh!" she said almost regretfully. "I didn't know you were from California."
"Yeah. The winters have been tough," he chuckled.
"I'll bet." She followed him through to the front room, where there was a coffee table laden with snacks. "Wow, you know how to impress a girl."
He ran a hand through his hair, smiling. "I do my best."
They both stood staring at the table, an unnameable atmosphere filling the air between them.
"Should we start then?" Lauren said eventually.
"Yeah," Joey replied, dropping onto the couch. Lauren took a seat beside him, pulling her script from her bag.
"Is there a specific scene you want to go through?"
"Uhh..." He rifled through the pages until he found one that was marked. "Page fourteen."
Lauren read for him, expecting to have to give him some lines after how concerned he'd sounded about learning them when he asked her to come over. But he barely even looked at his script, overacting every line in an effort to make her laugh - which she did, so hard she cried.
"You know this, you don't need me," she finally told him through her laughter.
He scrunched his nose up at her, but tapped her script to refocus her. "Practice won't hurt. Act four scene one?"
She brought her giggles under control and nodded at his suggestion, one of the main scenes they had together, and flipped through her script to the right page.
"Surely I do believe your fair cousin is wronged." Joey began.
"Ah, how much might the man deserve of me that would right her!"
"Is there any way to show such friendship?"
"A very even way, but no such friend."
"May a man do it?"
"It is a man's office, but not yours."
Joey's reply didn't come straight away, and Lauren tilted her head questioningly, but his eyes were focused somewhere in the distance.
