"WOMAN" said Lance.
"HOW DARE YOU." Nicole only cocked an eyebrow at him.
"You realize you locked us in here for three hours, right?" Austin piped up, sinking in comfortably to the bean bag chair in the corner. Kathryn poked her head into the door of the practice room to see him chewing on something, white and pink stains on the sides of his lips while he held a doughnut near his mouth in his hands.
"But you didn't starve to death," said Kathryn, looking at the donut and the donut boxes at her feet. "So there's that."
"Oh hardy har har." said Austin, pulling a face at her. "You're such a joy."
Kathryn put her hand over her chest. "You flatter me." the she turned around to look at Lance, who had the same donut stains on his face. "Did you two work your boy issues out yet?"
"They are not called boy issues, Mikaela." said Lance. "They are called manly issues."
"WE ARE MEN"
"AND MEN DO NOT DEAL WITH BOY ISSUES"
Kathryn put her hands up in defense. "Well damn."
Nicole, on the other hand, looked at Austin and Lance back and forth skeptically. "But did you?" she asked. "Did you work your ego issues and dude disputes out? Are they settled now?"
Austin and Lance only looked at each other and shared a look. They tried not to smile though they almost were, and they looked like they were about to laugh, So instead Lance raised his eyebrows at Austin and Austin did the same, and they both came to a silent agreement which Nicole and Kathryn got suspicious about.
So Lance looked back to his girlfriend and his little sister, smiling as he put his hands into his pockets. "Something like that."
Kathryn finally walked into the room, crossing her arms over her chest as she leaned onto the wall beside the door. She shot a suspicious look at her brother and her boyfriend. "Are you two the best of buddies now?'
"Are you two going to go outside hand in hand and build a snowman whilst simultaneously skipping happily into the sunset?" Nicole asked, looking at them the same way. Austin shook his head at her. "No," he said. "We will not be doing that for mainly three reasons. One," Austin started to say, counting off at his fingers. "Is because it is only almost three in the afternoon. Therefore there is still no sunset present. Second, is because it is the middle of July. So there is no snow yet."
Kathryn raised an eyebrow at him, which she tended to do alot. "And three?"
"Is because we will not be holding hands."
"WE ARE MEN"
"AND MEN DO NOT HOLD HANDS"
Kathryn only pressed her thumb and her index finger to her forehead, closing her eyes and trying to fight a headache. "Yeah, I think they're good," said Nicole, putting her hands up as a sign of giving up and walking out of the room. Kathryn looked up, the first thing she saw was Lance and Austin still gnawing on donuts. "We locked you in here. How did you get donuts in?"
Lance tilted his head to the side. "I told the delivery guy to get a ladder and get up into that window." Kathryn looked to her side to see the window infront of the Foosball table, open, curtains flying. "Except he didn't exactly have a ladder. So I got charged extra for a ladder."
"But the donuts were so worth it," Austin piped up. Kathryn stayed quiet, and he shot her a look. "What? You didn't think we'd let ourselves starve to death here, right?"
"No," surprisingly it was Lance who answered, beating Kathryn to it. "I would've eaten you. Seriously. I was willing to,"
Austin only stayed quiet, while Kathryn laughed. "Don't worry about it," she said. "I'm pretty sure you'd make a great pancake."
Austin looked like something between the lines of terrified and hurt."I am a seventeen year-old teenage popstar," he said. "And you dare compare me to a pancake?"
"Would you rather be compared to eggs?" asked Lance. "Because honestly I don't think that is a very pretty picture."
"Brad is downstairs, by the way." said Kathryn, coming into the conversation and taking both of their attention. Lance almost laughed. "Already?"
"He was eager to take someone out on a date," she answered. "Plus, they'll be filming a music video by the beach. The rest of The Vamps will be coming in a month- three weeks tops."
Lance gave her a look. "But won't you be gone by then?"
"Maybe," she answered, shrugging. "I don't exactly know when. Monique will pull me out anytime soon after the big concert. After that, I don't really know what comes next."
"We'll make the most of it."Austin piped up. Kathryn and Lance looked to him; they were surprised he was handling his girlfriend's leaving quite well. "It's not much, but it'll be enough."
They stayed silent, looking at each other. Surprisingly, Austin and Lance were shooting each other looks against the room, which Kathryn quickly noticed and caught. She got even more curious at the both of them. They were shooting each other looks as if they were signals while narrowing their eyebrows and nodding their heads at each other, as if they were having a silent conversation. Are they seriously the best of buddies now?
Austin widened his eyes at Lance, nodding his head to the door. At first Lance only scrunched his eyebrows at him, until Austin narrowed his look a bit more, and he jumped up, his mouth forming a small 'O'. "Ohhh," said Lance. He stood up straight and walked out the door. Kathryn turned to look at Austin, raising an eyebrow.
"What was that about?"
"Nothing," Austin folded his lips into a smile, trying not to laugh. His girlfriend shot him a skeptical look, so he put out his arms. "Come here,"
"Why?"
"Just come here," he repeated more gently. Kathryn pushed herself off of the doorway and walked over, Austin taking her in his arms and pulling her down to his lap gently. "What for?" she asked, throwing an arm around him and leaving it there, dangling over his neck lazily.
"Nothing, really." he said again, his eyes fixing on her. A small smile spread on his lips, his look on her getting more gentle and softer and loving. "What did you two talk about?"
"Besides deciding what color your coffin would be after we murder the both of you for locking us in and starving us to death," Austin started to say, and Kathryn put her palm up, motioning him to stop. "Please tell me you both agreed on purple," she said.
"And why do you refuse to have a pink coffin instead?" Austin asked.
"I refuse to be delivered into the Underworld incased in a shinny bejeweled bed of death," said Kathryn, and her boyfriend started to laugh. "Choose a different color, punk. I refuse to be resurrected that way."
"Would you settle for purple then?"
"Go for something edgier, like maybe, fushcia."
"Absolutely not."
"And why not?"
"Because it will be difficult to spell that color on the receipt when they ask what you decide on," said Austin. "So no, you will settle for purple, young lady."
"Hey," the door flew open, and Lance poked his head in, looking around the practice room until he saw Austin and Kathryn, sat together on the bean bag chair. "Don't get to touchy, mate." He warned. Kathryn looked up to him, though normally she'd be annoyed, there was something in her brother's voice this time that had suddenly changed. It was as if she could actually hear trust and comfort in his voice.
"Mark her as your territory one more time," said Lance, and he widened his eyes, putting his palm up and bending his fingers as if they were claws. "I will break you."
"If that's what'll make you happy, ma'am." said Austin, trying not to laugh as he bent his head down, acting as if he had an invisible cowboy had and tipping it to Lance.
"Go on, tiny grasshopper," said Lance, turning to Kathryn and looking on her softly, pretending to hold back any tears. "Fly. Be free, be happy."
Kathryn raised a finger. "Lance, grasshoppers don't actually fly-"
"SHUSH SHUSH SHUSH!" her brother exclaimed. He let his hands fall to his sides and he folded his lips in, still pretending to hold back any actual tears. "I've taught you well, my tiny grasshopper." and he backed away slowly, trying to make it look like a drama scene. Silence fell on the room for quite sometime.
Kathryn turned to look at Austin. "You saw that too, right?"