Chapter 8

The next morning Peyton woke up at 5:00 to get ready.  She walked over to Lainey's room just to see if she had come home in the middle of the night without Peyton knowing, but to no avail.  Lainey's room was still the same as it was the night before.

Peyton trudged back to her room and got her stuff ready to shower and get ready for the day.  By the time Peyton got ready it was already 6:10 and it was a thirty minute drive to the studio where the talk show was filmed.

Peyton made it to the studio at 6:40.  She was 10 minutes late and already had 3 texts from her father asking where she was and telling her that she was late.

She walked in and everyone was in such a bustle setting up for the show that no one realized she was there until her mom yelled out for her.

"Peyton!  It's about time you got here.  You're 10 minutes late.  Get to your dressing room now the makeup team is waiting on you."

"Sorry mom.  Is Lainey here?"

"Yes, she's been here for 20 minutes.  Did you not see her this morning?  I asked her where you were and she said that something had come up and you were a little behind but told her to go ahead.  Is everything ok?"

"No, yeah.  I'm fine mom.  I just got a bloody nose this morning in the shower." Peyton said hoping her mom would believe her since it wasn't uncommon for Peyton to get nose bleeds sometimes.

"As long as you got it taken care of.  Now get to your room.  You two are on first."

Peyton walked through the studio to the back where the dressing rooms were.  As she was walking through the studio she saw Lainey out in the crowd talking to a man in a wheelchair.

After Peyton was finished with her makeup there were only 5 minutes left till showtime.

She walked out to the studio and saw that Lainey was now sitting in the seat right next to the host laughing and talking.

"Peyton" Drew, the host, called out as Peyton walked up to the seat next to Lainey.  "So glad that you could join us this morning"

"The pleasure is all mine Mr. Stetson.  Sorry I was running a bit behind this morning.  I hope I didn't throw things off too much.."

"Oh please call me Drew and it's completely fine.  You are right on time the show is about to start."

Lainey hadn't looked at Peyton yet.  Peyton on the other hand hadn't taken her eyes off Lainey.  Lainey was wearing a baby blue silky sundress that flowed at the bottom and stopped midthigh, white heels, and white jewelry to match her heels.  Her hair was up in a princess braid bun.

"Ok ladies and gentlemen we're live in 5...4...3...2..." and then the director pointed and mouthed the 1.

The intro music started and the audience began clapping.

"Hello, hello, and welcome to Morning Dew with Drew.  As always I am your host, Drew Stetson and boy do we have a jam packed show this morning.  Starting with these wonderful ladies right here, Lainey Howard and Peyton Chapman."  The audience clapped.  "Good morning ladies it's so nice to see you. Thank you for coming!"

"Good morning Drew.  It's great to see you as well looking ravishing as always." Lainey answered.

"Oh please you're too sweet!  Speaking of sweet, a little birdy told me that you have some pretty 'sweet' news.  Care to share with the rest of us?"

"I don't know who gives you your information Drew, but they are should get a raise because this was kept strictly confidential. We didn't even tell our friends about this."  Lainey looked to Peyton and gave her best fake smile and put her hand on Peyton's thigh just below where her dress stopped.  "Peyton, and I are engaged."

Everyone in the crowd gasped. After the initial shock was over the host continued the conversation.  "Wow, congratulations! I had no idea.  If someone would have asked me, before today, about you two I would have told them that they were crazy.  I was under the impression that you two weren't even friends, but boy was I wrong."

"Yeah, we did our best to keep it out of the media for as long as we could because we didn't want people's opinions affecting our relationship."

"That's sweet.  I can see why you would do that.  Putting things out for everyone to know puts a lot of pressure on things to work out.  I do have a question for Peyton though.  I don't know if I just missed it or if it was all part of some elaborate coverup to keep this relationship hidden, but I never heard of your breakup with your high school sweetheart Scott Bowman.  What happened there?"

Peyton was unprepared for this question to come up, and honestly thinking about Scott still hurt.  "Scott was never a coverup for anything.  We did agree to still stay friends after the breakup and it never got messy.  Plus with him not being famous and me trying to stay out of the spotlight as much as possible for anything having to do with relationships, the media just never picked it up because there was no drama involved."

"How long ago did you guys breakup, because I believe that it was just a few weeks ago that we saw you on each other's pages and walking down the street holding hands."

Peyton froze not knowing how to avoid this situation.  Everything he was saying was true, and she hadn't prepared answers in advance.  Luckily Lainey jumped in to save Peyton.  "What happened between Scott and Peyton is their business.  Peyton and I try our best to only look towards the future and not back at our past.  No one likes to sit and talk about ex's, Drew.  Speaking of relationships though I heard that a congratulations is in order for your family as well considering your wife just gave birth to a beautiful baby boy?"

"Yes!" Drew exclaimed, excited to take any chance given to talk about himself.  "Yes, she did.  I talked about it a couple of days ago on the show, but I'll say it again and again.  She gave birth to a beautifully healthy baby boy.  Can we please get a picture of him up on the screen?" Drew called to his crew.  "Ah yes, there he is." Drew said as a picture of his newborn son popped up.  "Colin Lee Stetson, our fourth and FINAL child." Drew chuckled at the last bit.

"You have such a wonderful family.  I can only dream of having a family of my own half the caliber yours is now." Lainey said looking to Peyton and giving her a small smile.

"Awe, look at you two, so precious.  I'm sure you guys will have a family just as wonderful some day down the road.  I wish you nothing but the best. Although, as much as I'd like to sit and talk to you both about families all day that is all the time we have for today.  Thank you again for joining us and please come back any day."

"Always a pleasure Drew." Lainey said.

"Peyton Chapman and Lainey Howard, everyone." Drew announced as the audience started clapping again.

"Up next after the break we will be joined with more outstanding guests and even have a special performance by the one and only Bazzi." The crowd began to cheer.

"CUT!  Wonderful job everyone. 2 minutes till we're back start the countdown." the stage manager yelled.

"It really was great seeing you girls.  Thank you for being here and congrats again on your engagement."  Drew said standing up.

"Thank you, Drew." Lainey said as her and Peyton stood up as well.

Lainey and Peyton walked back to their dressing rooms.  Neither spoke the entire walk back.  Lainey had the room on the left and Peyton's was on the right, just as Peyton was about to say something Lainey shut her door.

They both changed out of their tv clothes and redid their makeup so that it wasn't so caked on.  Peyton finished changing before Lainey did and grabbed her stuff to leave, but stopped to knock on Lainey's door.

"Just a second" Lainey yelled from behind her door.  She quickly threw on a shirt and opened the door to find a nervous looking Peyton, but after seeing who it was she shut her door and went back over to finish getting ready.

Peyton opened the door and walked in to find Lainey taking off her tv makeup to redo a more casual everyday look.  "Lainey can we please talk."

"Busy." Lainey said without even a glance towards Peyton.

"C'mon please.  Where were you yesterday?  I was worried sick."

Lainey just grabbed her stuff and brushed past Peyton without answering her question.

"Lainey, c'mon you can't ignore me forever.  We're engaged." Peyton whisper yelled as she struggled to keep up with the fast moving Lainey.

"I'm late" was all Lainey said.

"I'll come with you.  Where are you going?" Peyton said as Lainey busted out the studio door, on a b-line to her car.

"We drove separate." Lainey said trying to find the most viable excuse for the girl not to come with her.

"I had a driver drop me off.  I was going catch a ride home with you."

"I'm not going home." Lainey said unlocking her car doors to get in.

"Well, then I'm coming with you wherever you're going." Peyton said as she dropped down into the passenger seat.

"It's an all day affair and you aren't even in the right clothes."

"You have clothes in your backseat.  I saw them yesterday when we got in.  I'll change in the car.  Just tell me where we're going please."

Lainey rolled her eyes and let out an irritated sigh, coming to the realization that Peyton was not getting out of her car.  She put the car in reverse and started off towards her destination.  "I'm going to build a playground for children."

"You're what?!" Peyton exclaimed.

"Ugh" Lainey sighed "Every Saturday my bestfriends and I always work with a charity or something of the sorts to better the community.  This weekend we are working with the Kaboom charity which builds playgrounds and stuff for children.  We have worked with them before and really enjoy it, plus they are almost done with this one so we will probably stay and play with some of the kids who help afterwards.  The playground is in South Town so you can order a driver to come pick you up once we get there if you want, or you can help, or you can stay in the back out of my way I don't care.  All I ask is for you to leave me alone while we work.  I'm doing this for the kids.  I don't want to deal with 'us' right now."

"Ok" Peyton said defeated.  This caused Lainey to look over at her for the first time since the interview.  Lainey furrowed her brows at the girl and shook her head before looking back to the road and continuing to drive.