Suddenly, her door swung open, smacking Sabrina in the forehead.
"OW! Shit! That hurt!" she cried, grabbing her head and doubling over.
Justin peeked around the corner, his gold-colored fro appearing first, then his huge blue eyes peeking out next.
"You okay, Beener?"
"Yeah, thanks for slamming the door into my head," she replied, rubbing her head in the spot where the door had bonked her.
"Sorry," he said, leaning over. "Lemme see your head."
He held her head in between his hands, pulling her closer to him. Scrunching up his eyebrows, he looked at her head critically.
"See anything?"
"Well, there seems to be brain damage, but it looks like it was caused before the door hit you," he teased, girnning at her.
"Oooooh!" she cried, jerking away, and pounding on his arm. Then, she jumped him and started beating on him.
"OWW! OW! Dammit, Beener! Lay off the hair! OW! Girl, you're messin' up my fro!"
JC knocked on the door and leaned on the door frame, watching the pair. "If the children are done quibbling, we're ready to go."
"JC, don't try to make me look stupid by using big words," shot Justin.
"I don't have to try," was the dry reply.
"Ooooohh!" exclaimed Sabrina. "Burnt your biscuts! Mark one up for the Josh-man!"
JC turned to her. "Almost ready, chica?"
"Yeah, just gimme about ten minutes." seeing JC roll his eyes, she replied "Well, I would have been ready by know, if J-Dawg hadn't decided to attack me with the door!"
"I just wanted to see if you were ready!" he exclaimed defensively. "Geeezzz! Chill!"
"I AM chilled. Now SHOO!"
The guys got out of her room, and as she shut the door, she rolled her eyes. Just like they used to be!
When she was fully ready, she made her way carefully downstairs, where everyone was waiting for her. When she hit the bottom stair, she finally stopped concentrating on not falling on her ass and looked up. When she saw the guys' expressions on their faces, she started giggling. All of the guys had huge bugging eyes and their jaws were dropped.
"Whoa!" breathed Joey. "You sure have changed, hon!"
"Yeah," agreed Chris. "I mean, you were pretty last time we saw you, but now you're-" and he whistled.
"I'm still the same girl," she assured them. "Just a little bit grown up."
She was nervously picking at the backless shirt that she decided on that night. It's red, shimmering design went well with the dark blue flare jeans that showed off her figure. She topped off the outfit with black, Japanese platform sandals that had a dragonfly outline of rhindstones on it. Her hair, which had been recently cut to her shoulders and highlited blond, was pulled back into a high ponytail, with chunks of hair pulled out that framed her face. As usual, she had her puka shell necklace on. She never took it off after she got it in California from Lance, four years ago.
She looked up, and started to laugh hard. Chris was pretending to faint, and Joey was catching him and fanning his face.
Lauren grabbed by the hand, and dragged her out of the house, rolling her eyes, and muttering "not baby-sitters, for God's sake!" When they were out of the house, they heard Justin say "Hey! Where'd they go?" Then, they were met by a stampede of the guys, as they ran out of Lauren's house to catch up with them.