Aviva

Twelve | What Are We Doing?

- Cameron Hayes -

"So, let me get this straight... All of your products are coconut flavoured?" I ask.

Right now I'm at Aviva's dorm, lying on her bed as she sits in front of her desk. She's applying coconut oil to her hair. I'll admit, it smells quite nice. Am I contemplating buying some, just for the sake of it? Yes. Am I actually just going to take hers? Also yes.

She chucks a bottle at me that I catch with ease. She tells me to read the name of the bottle of perfume when I ask for it.

"Most of them yes. But my perfumes and other stuff aren't." She laughs softly, turning to me. Then she turns back and groans at the homework in front of her. "This work will be the death of me." Dramatically dropping her head on the desk.

"I'm sure it's not that bad, let me see." I offer, taking her laptop. I point to her mistake and she facepalms when she realises.

I take the opportunity to grab a pillow and chuck at her head. Obviously getting hitting the target successfully. She immediately sits up and gapes at me. "Because I'm black or something?"

I look away as I don't really know what to say to that. "What? Noo..." I drag on.

My slightly flustered face makes her break character and I realise she was joking. I sulk and roll over to the other side of her bed no longer facing her. But rather a picture frame sitting on her bedside table.

It's a picture of a her, when she was younger with her two older siblings. She's sitting on Levi's shoulders and Riva is pulling her hair.

"Oh come on Cam, I'm joking." She trails off looking in my direction. "What are you looking at?" I feel her presence close behind me and I turn to face her.

"Is this you?" I ask, already knowing the answer.

She takes the picture frame and dusts it off, "Yep. I remember this day like it was yesterday actually."

"You looked cute. What happened?" That earns me and eyeroll and a light slap to the head. She mutters something under her breath tries to walk away.

No, not yet you're not.

I cuddle her stomach and lay my head on her lap. She caves and strokes my head. I close my eyes and sigh deeply. I really could get used to this.

"Cameron, what are we doing?" She whispers after a while. I open my eyes and she startles. She probably thought I fell asleep.

I know what she's talking about. What are we even doing? Why after all this time, are we hanging out with each other willingly? What changed?

There's so many questions that I can't answer, and as smart as she is, neither can she.

So I give her my honest answer, "I don't know Aviva." When we make eye contact, her eyes soften and I look away. It seems like my answer was good enough for her as she continues to stroke my hair.

"I'm stealing that hand cream by the way."

"I'll buy you your own."

***

"Cam, give me a second." Bruno calls out to me. I nod in reply and wait for him, scrolling on my phone as he talks to Joyce. When they're done, he gives her a goodbye kiss and he parts ways with her and walks to me. Bruno and Joyce? You know what? I ship it.

Before he gets to me he holds his hand up stopping me from saying anything. I hold my hands up in mock surrender with a mini smirk. Nevertheless, we do our little handshake and he shakes his hair to remove some of the extra water from the showers.

I spin my keys around my fingers as Bruno fills me in on his day. He's the captain of the basketball team. You wouldn't think so because he isn't boasty about it at all. He puts his head down gets his work done, practices and goes home.

No wonder most of the girls are obsessed with him. It's like we're back in high school again. Seriously.

I guess Joyce is the lucky girl.

"What are you daydreaming about?" He asks, breaking me out of my trance.

Fangirling about you and your new girlfriend that's all. "How I need a break off of work."

"Sure... Well before we go, I need to get a new pair of trainers, so can we make a quick stop?" He pleads. I toss him my keys and he does a little 'get in' sign before driving off to SneakerWorld.

***

When we walk in, the store is bustling with customers. Probably because of the sale.

Bruno directs me to exactly where he wants to go.

"Welcome to SneakerWorld, can I assist you with anything?"

I recognise that voice...

I turn and see Aviva speaking to another customer, directing them to whatever they need. What are the odds? She helps out one customer and moves on to the next and the number of people dramatically decrease.

She carries a stack of boxes and carries them out, but they're at risk of toppling over. Before I know it, I grab two boxes and grin at her.

"Hey you! Thanks, just follow me here, I'll take it off of you in a sec." She says. Then I follow her as she hands out the shoe boxes accordingly. When her load is done, she takes the ones I took off of her and also gives them out. One of them, happening to be Bruno.

I follow her until she reaches the back where there's an employees only sign. She turns to me with a solemn look and I wave her off. "Don't want to getting into trouble Jones. I'll call you later."

"Wait! Cam, before you go." She stops me and I turn back around.

She goes behind the counter and takes out a bag, rummaging inside of it. Then she pulls out coconut hand cream and hands it to me. "Here you go."

I take it gratefully as she gets called by her boss. "I'll see you later Jones." I wave. She waves back and continues serving customers as Bruno and I leave.

"Oh, so you were dreaming about her?" He says, like he's realising the answer of a maths equation was right in front of him.

"Shut up, I'm late for work." I argue weakly.

He nods completely unconvinced and drives me to work.

****
End of chapter 12! Shorter chapter for you guys. But this is a cute chapter, compensates for the shortness.
Who is your favourite character so far? Have a good day, bye.

-Coco