I was angry for a moment, but then Laura grabbed my other arm and faced me toward her, she had a radiant smile on her face.
"Finally! I'm free!" she shouted "Orin, take us to Ingen's house. I'm going to need somewhere to crash until school starts."
"Hop on."
I helped Laura get on Orin's back.
"Shoo, feral mutt!"
Laura's father came outside and started arguing with her mother, but we were long gone before things got "heated."
BANG!
I looked around for ambushers and found none.
"Don't worry, my dad will be fine, he's survived much worse episodes of rage from her."
"So, what are we going to do about this." I gestured at our still-attached hands.
"I see no reason to let go of my boyfriend."
There was a collective cheer shared between all of the presences in my mind.
"I can't argue with that logic, want me to make you a treehouse?"
"Yeah, as long as it's better than your workshop."
I started to worry about how Laura perceived my work.
"Hey, I may be a workaholic, but I am not so vacuous that I would disregard my significant other."
"Huh? What do those words mean?"
I saw my blunder and attempted to explain.
"Apologies. It's a nervous tic of mine to begin vocalizing in an expansive vocabulary. I even mentioned to Spirit that my heart was fluttering 'asynchronously' when I observed your features."
Orin started translating "'Sorry. It's a nervous tic of mine to start speaking in big words. Heck, I told Spirit that my heart was beating 'asynchronously' when I saw you.' At least that's what I think he's saying"
Laura giggled.
'Smooth'
'I know, I took notes.'
"I swear, whenever you talk to people your eyes lose their color like every four seconds."
I looked away and said, "Well I can't exactly leave Spirit hanging."
"Oh, so that's what you were doing, I thought you were just spacing out."
"To be fair, it's basically the same thing, except I'm talking to Spirit rather than to myself."
An awkward silence fell over the group.
"What's your favorite color?" Laura suddenly blurted out.
"Green." I responded too quickly. "What's yours?"
"Orange." Laura gained a little confidence when I didn't reject her suggestion when she was sure I would judge her for even mentioning it.
"Sorry to interrupt you lovebirds, but we are back at the gate."
We got off of Orin and approached the guards again.
"Afternoon Ingen, who's this little lady you're pulling around?"
"Don't you recognize me, Lambert? It's Laura."
"No way, Laura is scary, you are adorable."
Laura touched the flowers on her head and cursed.
"This ring a bell?" She pulled a knife from god knows where and showed it to this 'Lambert.'
"Sure does, the Cap'n wants to see you tomorrow." He looked towards me "Ingen, you either have gone mad, or you found a keeper, no matter what, don't make her angry. Go on in."
"Duly noted."
We walked to my house and many passers-by were wondering who the new girl was.
"Was I really as angry looking as they say?"
"If I'm going to be blunt, yeah, whenever you weren't trying to kill me you looked like you wanted to kill everyone."
Laura sighed "Everything is different."
"Yeah, really."
My mind finally caught up to recent events.
'What the heck did I start? I have no idea how having a girlfriend is supposed to work.'
'You've already started out strong, you even offered to make her a house.'
'I guess you're right, but how do you know about relationships?'
'When you sleep I can use your mouth to talk to Jordan, and she's an expert.'
'Why was I never informed of this?'
I was snapped out of my conversation by Laura.
"Hey, we're here. Talk to Spirit later."
We opened my front door and were greeted by my dad.
"Hey son, have you dropped off Laura yet?" He looked up from the dish he was cooking for lunch. "Jordan! The thing happened!" He excitedly yelled.
'We're still holding hands aren't we?' we thought in sync
THUD!
Something upstairs fell and mom came down the stairs with a half-finished haircut.
"Yes! I knew the ship would sail!"
"Well it did, but we have more important things to discuss."
We told my parents about the trip to Laura's house and how she had been disowned,
"That's awful! How could someone do that to their own kid?" mom lamented
"It's not awful, it's an opportunity. You saw what they did to me in that house, and now I'm free of it. I just need to stay here whenever we go on break."
"Of course you can stay here, but where will you sleep?"
"My room..." There was a short pause where everyone in the room looked at me disapprovingly. "...and I'll stay on the couch."
I gave a betrayed look to everyone in the room.
"I'm no pervert!"
"Well, you are going through the binding..."
"I don't like what you're insinuating, mom."
"Shi- I mean Trash! I forgot about lunch!" Dad ran into the kitchen to finish his task.
"I am not insinuating anything, it's just that both of you are going to be of age soon."
That comment made both me and Laura into veritable tomatoes.
"Don't rush anything like that!" The squeal in Laura's voice emphasized her embarrassment.
I tried to change the subject.
"Moving from these matters, what is your proposal for the organization of living arrangements?"
"Don't worry Laura, I can translate nervous Ingen. He says 'Let's figure out where we will sleep so I don't have to talk about this anymore."
In the end, we decided that my idea was for the best until I could build the treehouse. We went back from break with a half-finished treehouse in my backyard.