Never Say Never

Chapter 18

When Camila wakes up she feels well-rested, but it's still dark, and she groans when she catches sight of the alarm clock in the corner and sees that it reads one a.m., and she's only been asleep for four hours.

She closes her eyes and tries to go back to sleep but she feels wide awake, and after half an hour she gives up, knowing it's not going to happen anytime soon. Wary of waking Leo, she grabs her phone and slips as quietly as she can from the bed, cracking open the bedroom door and padding into the living room beyond.

She reclines on the couch, which is definitely comfier than her bed back home, and switches on the giant plasma TV, keeping the volume low as she flicks through the channels for something to watch. She settles on a quiz show, and scrolls through her phone in the hope that she'll start to feel sleepy again soon.

It doesn't work, and she's still wide awake when she hears a door open, and she tilts her head back to look over the back of the couch and nearly falls off it when she catches sight of Lauren walking towards her, because the tiny black nightgown she's wearing should, quite frankly, be illegal.

It shows off far too much leg, the expanse of Lauren's thigh left exposed and Camila's reasonably confident that if she turned around, her ass would barely be covered.

Thankfully, she's also wearing a dressing gown, and when she catches sight of Camila she fastens it hastily around her waist, covering herself up as she pads closer.

"Sorry, did I wake you?" Camila asks, a little sheepish because she thought she'd been quiet, but Lauren shakes her head and, to her surprise, joins her on the couch, sitting at the other end beside Camila's feet.

"You couldn't sleep either?" Lauren asks her, keeping her voice low despite the fact that Leo probably wouldn't hear them even if they yelled, considering how massive this place is.

"I did for a while, got about four hours I think. You?"

"About the same." Lauren leans back against the couch and closes her eyes, and Camila studies her face in profile, aches for her pencil so she can sketch the perfect view. "You're going to be wrecked tomorrow." Lauren tells her, eyes still closed. "If you've never had jetlag before."

"I'm not the one who has to work all day."

"Oh, so I don't have to pay you watch Leo anymore? Excellent news." One thing Camila's noticed these past few weeks is that at night, when she's tired, Lauren is much more likely to let her guard down and relax around her than she is in the morning, and right now she's the least guarded that she's been for a long while.

"You know what I mean," Camila rolls her eyes. "I'm pretty sure Leo would be happy to lounge around here all day tomorrow if I made it fun enough – you actually have to go out and talk to people."

"An unfortunate side-effect of being CEO," Lauren admits. "I've survived on less sleep, though."

"Do you usually have trouble sleeping?" She's noticed a few more bags under Lauren's eyes, lately, though they're very carefully disguised and Camila's never dared ask about them.

"Sometimes." She finally opens her eyes, turns her head to look at Camila, cheek pressed against the back of the black leather couch. "It's been worse, lately, since... since Nick left."

"Gotta get used to sleeping alone again," Camila says, and she hates herself for wondering when Lauren last let someone share her bed.

"Mm. Luckily, I don't need much of it to function."

"Are you one of those people who thinks that sleep is for the weak?"

"For slackers," Lauren corrects, and Camila's lips curve into a smile. "How about you? Not even an eleven hour flight enough to get you to sleep through the night somewhere new?"