The wind whipping into the car from the open drivers window cast a cool breeze passed the driver. The morning light poured through the windshield, casting a bright glow glaring on the glass.
Sighing loudly with frustration, Lois rubbed her head with her hand that was propped up on the drivers door.
Why was there always a traffic jam when she was already late? Why, when she was already late, there was always something to make her even later?
"I am so sorry, Lois." a faint voice sounded beside her.
"Yeah, me too, Lolo" another voice called from the back seat.
Turning to give the person in the passenger seat a grin, she sighed again. "Its okay, JC."
Turning around to give the individual in the back seat an angry look, she spat. "You, however, suck!"
Justins eyes popped open wide. "What? Why do I suck? It was his car that wouldn't start!"
"Yeah, but I like him." she shrugged. "You, are a pain in my ass most of the time, therefore you are the one who sucks."
JC turned to stick his tongue out at Justin.
Justin replied with a simple one-fingered gesture.
Groaning with frustration, Lois hit her steering wheel. It was bad enough that she had slept in that morning, but now she had to drop Ren and Stimpy off at the studio and make it to work before anyone noticed that she was late.
She had already called her secretary and told her to make up whatever excuse she needed to keep her out of trouble, so hopefully no one would notice.
Suddenly, Justins head appeared to her right, and she looked over at him annoyed.
"Whatcha doin'?" he asked, stupidly.
"Choreographing the new stage production of My Fair Lady." Lois replied. "What the fuck does it look like I'm doing?"
"Sheesh," Justin pouted, leaning over to whisper at JC. "I think someone is PMSing."
"Justin, what the hell do you expect?" Lois said, turning to look directly at him. "You asked a stupid fucking question, and expect a serious answer? Did Mama Lynn drop you on your head as a child?"
"That's always been our explanation for it." JC smiled.
Justin mumbled as he sat back in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest in a Timberlake pout.
Lois leaned her hand back on her hand, as she waited for the cars ahead of her to move more than one inch. Hey, a girl can hope, right?
She sighed quietly to herself as she let her mind wander.
She thought back to Saturday evening, and couldn't help the smile from appearing on her face at the thought of the night.
She wasn't sure how to go about fixing things with Brian after that little fiasco with the blonde bimbo the night before. Spending half the day thinking about what to do, and the other half kicking Joeys ass for laughing at her, she finally decided to stop by the club in the hopes that he would be there.
When he looked in the pool room and saw him, she was happy, and nervous at the same time.
She had wanted him to be there, but didn't really have any idea what she was going to say.
There was probably a lot of things she could say. Things that she would normally say. But she didn't really know this guy, and the circumstances behind their meeting was different than most. Usually, she would say something smart ass or sarcastic, but she wanted to get to know this guy a little better. The stakes were higher this time than in other chance meetings with men, where she didn't really care what they thought.
Standing outside the door for a moment, she figured the best way to get her foot back in the game was to apologize. She knew damn well it wasn't her fault what happened, and it wasn't even that big of a deal. But she did know that men loved it when a woman apologized, mostly because it so rarely happened. She wasn't really one to apologize often, but she figured one time wouldn't kill her. She would just take her frustrations out on Justin later.
After getting over the initial apology, she and Brian had spent the next couple hours talking and playing pool. This was how the first night was supposed to go, she thought.
They talked about work, and she explained a few of the development projects she was working on. While he tried to describe the new system he was working on. She didn't really understand anything he was saying, so she opted for the always popular smile-and-nod approach. It appeared to have worked.
They talked about where they were from. She told him about her family back in Memphis, and he talked about his parents in California.
When the topic of friends arose, she kept it general. She certainly wasn't going to bring up her main group of friends, not wanting the celebrity factor to come into play. She told him that her best friend was also her cousin. That she had a few really close friends, that were more like a second family to her.
Thankfully, he didn't pry and let the subject change when she gradually directed it in a new area of conversation.
By eleven o'clock that night, they were both exhausted and decided to head home.
She had fully expected him to ask for her number, but he had smiled, thanked her for the fun night, and said he would catch her later.
She had sat in her car for a long while, not really knowing what to do. Was she losing it? Was she actually losing her touch with men? She had been on flirt-overload in there, and he had appeared to be responding right along. Then why the fuck had he not asked for her number?
She had spent the majority of Sunday sitting on the couch watching infomercials and replaying the nights events in her mind.
She had told Justin that she went, just like she was supposed to, and how she met up with Brian and thought things were on track.
When he asked her if she got his number or if he got hers, Lois said they were taking things slow but would probably meet up again during the week.
That sounded good, right? Justin wasn't quick enough to question her answer, and it was general enough to sound like they had made another date for later in the week.
Thank God he changed the topic to complaining that Lauren wanted to paint his toenails and didn't ask anymore questions.
She had to give Joey credit though. He did know how to pick 'em.
With the exception of the horrible first encounter, she had found herself having fun with Brian that night. Talking, joking, and just hanging out was usually something she enjoyed most with the guys and Lauren. Rarely did she ever find herself having fun and feeling this comfortable with someone she just met.
He was smart, funny, and driven. And she didn't even want to get started on the aesthetic part of him. She had spent most of the night enjoying the view as he leaned over the table to make his shots.
"Lois." JC called out beside her, breaking her from her rather fond thoughts.
"Huh?" she not so intelligently responded.
"The cars are moving now, you can drive." he smiled.
"What? Oh, mmkay." she replied, her thoughts still elsewhere as she pushed on the gas and the car started forward.
Moments later, they were pulling off the highway and towards the studio.
Suddenly, her cell phone rang.
Before she had a chance to grab it, Justin reached up and plucked the shrieking phone from the console between her and JC.
"Y-ellow. This is the ever magnificant Justin Timberlake answering service. If you are calling to discuss how amazing Justin Timberlake is, please speak now. If you are calling to tell Lois what a pain in Justins ass she is, please hold."
"Justin!" Lois yelled from the drivers seat, as she reached back towards him in an attempt to grab her phone.
"Mmhmm." Justin answered into the phone, not bothering to acknowledge Lois.
"JUSTIN!" she screamed again. "JC, get my phone from that curly haired jerkass before I THROW HIS ASS OUT ON THE CURB WHILE DRIVING AT EXTREMELY HIGH SPEEDS!"
JC tried not to laugh as he unbuckled his seat belt and turned around to retrieve the phone.
Reaching back, Justin dodged JCs hands as they reached for the phone. He continued to ramble away to the phone. "Mmhmm. Yup. Oh I know."
"Justin, give me the damn phone." JC warned.
Looking over to give Justin another death glare, Lois' eyes were temporarily distracted by the sight of JCs butt across from her.
Turning to tell Lois to pull over or something, JC noticed the direction of her gaze. "LOIS! Quit staring at my ass!"
Shaking her head, she grinned sheepishly. "Sowy, but you do have a nice butt, Jayce."
Rather than responding, he continued to reach for the phone. "JUSTIN!" he yelled.
"Mmkay. Yeah, mmkay. Okay, bye." Justin said, before clicking off the phone and handing it to JC. "There ya go." he smiled.
"You are a loser, Justin." Lois warned, glaring at him in the rearview mirror. "Who was that?"
"Your mom."
"Then why the hell were you talking to her? She obviously called wanting to talk to me."
"On the contrary my dear Lois. Your mom was so enchanted by the Justin Timberlake answering service, she talked to me instead. All she wanted to tell you was that your Aunt Brenda called and wanted Lauren to call her."
Lois didn't know how to respond to Justins stupidity, so she opted to continue to drive instead.
Pulling up at the studio, she parked her car near the main doors. Checking her watch, she noticed that she wasn't going to be all that late anyway, so decided to go inside to say hi to everyone.
Stepping inside, Lois smiled brightly at the secretary behind the main desk.
"Hey Nikki!" she greeted happily.
"Hey Lois." she smiled. "Hey guys." she nodded at JC and Justin.
"Hey girl." Justin yelled. "Whuzzup?"
Raising an eyebrow at him, Nikki smirked. "Not much. You been watching ghetto movies again, J?"
Justin began to pout, but JC cut him off by pushing him down the hall. "Dont get him started, Nikki." he smiled.
Nikki only grinned at JC, reaching out to pinch his butt as he walked passed her.
JC jumped at the action, turning to look at her with wide eyes before being pulled down the hall by Justin. "Dont stop now. You were pushing me, now I'm pulling you!" Justin rambled.
Lois laughed at his expression before turning to Nikki. "You're so bad!"
Nikki shrugged. "What? Have you seen that butt? Sure, there's not much there, but God what I would do to him in a dark closet with chocolate syrup."
Lois laughed again before waving good bye to Nikki and following JC and Justin down the long hall towards the desired studio.
Opening the door, she looked around to find Lance already in the booth, with Joey and Chris sprawled on the two couches inside.
Justin ran into the room, and jumped on Chris as he lay on the couch. "Umph." he wheezed as Justin landed on his stomach. "J, screw off! Dont make me have to shave your head while you sleep."
"What, you gettin' old, Chris? Cant take the abuse anymore?" Justin teased as he bounced on Chris happily.
"Jesus, Justin. Did you have sugar this morning?" Chris complained before pushing Justin hard off of him, and laughing when he landed hard on the floor.
Joey looked over at Lois as she walked up to him, pushing his legs off the end of the couch to give her space to sit.
"Why aren't you at work?" he asked, sitting up.
"Thought Id stop in here and say Hi." she replied. "What? You don't want to see me? Fine. Screw you then. I'm not here to see you anyway. I'm here to see Lance." she pouted, turning to wave at Lance in the booth. He smiled and waved back.
Joey rolled his eyes. "Oh shut up."
"Hey Lois!" Chris yelled as he pulled Justins hair from where he sat on the floor. "You got a message."
"What?" she asked, confused.
"Yeah." he smiled. "Weird huh? Your secretary called Joeys cell phone, cause yours was busy," Lois shot Justin an annoyed look, to which he avoided her eyes to whistle and look at the apparently interesting ceiling. Chris continued. "So yeah, some guy called your office wanting to talk to you. She said his name was Brian something."
Lois' eyes shot from her head. Joeys weren't far behind.
"Brian Wilson?" Joey asked before Lois had the chance to regain her composure.
"Yeah, that's it." Chris said, snapping his fingers at the name. "What? How do you know him, Joe?"
Lois smiled, as Joey looked over at her with confusion on his face.
She hadn't told him about going back to the club to talk to him on Saturday night. As far as Joey knew, Brian still thought she was a crazy woman who fought with little kids at clubs.
"How did he know where you worked? Why is he calling you?" Joey rambled.
"What do you care?" Lois answered his questions with a question, smiling casually at him.
"Lois." he said in a warning voice.
"Joey." she mimicked.
"Guess I mentioned where I worked the other night." she shrugged, deciding to play it cool.
"You said to two barely said anything." Joey noted.
"She means Saturday." Justin added, swatting away Chris' hands as they pulled at his hair.
"Saturday?" Joey squawked.
"Yeah, didn't I mention that?" Lois grinned.
"Um, no, you didn't." he frowned.
"Oh, well yeah. I went back on Saturday night and he was there. We talked and had a good time." she smiled casually at her hands. "No biggie."
"Guess he liked what he saw." she taunted.
Joey only rolled his eyes in response.
"What?" she questioned, turning to face him. "You gettin' nervous, Joey? Scared you may lose?"
"Hell no." he stated. "Just cause the guy called you doesn't mean you're getting anywhere."
"Maybe." she shrugged again. "Or maybe he's already captivated by," Lois paused to hold up a hand. "wait for it" she paused again. "All the wonder that is Lois."
The room erupted in laughter as Joey sat back hard against the couch in a pout.
Lois laughed along with everyone, smiling at Joeys sulking face.
Oh this is going to be fun, she thought. This is going to be a lot of fun.
