Cant't help falling in love (CAMREN)

CHAPTER 4

She woke up the next morning with her face pressed into the cushion of her couch, her neck stiff and sore from sleeping in one position for too long. She groaned and rubbed at her face with the back of her hand, stretching her legs out on the couch and wincing when her joints protested. There was a soft sort of hum coming from the speakers of the turntable, the record spinning and the needle back in its resting position.

With another groan she pushed herself off the couch and wrapped her blanket around herself, the hard wood of the floor cold against her feet. She soldiered on to the turntable to turn it off; with a flick of a switch, it was silenced. She absently scratched at her stomach, yawning, as she made her way into the kitchen, passing the thermostat on the way to give it a couple of taps; nothing happened.

She opened the fridge but then she froze, remembering the events of the previous night. It was a little fuzzy at first, her mind sluggish from sleep, but the images surfaced. The diner, a Cadillac, and Lauren Jauregui; Lauren Jauregui's hands, and her mouth, the half-moon of her smile in the dark, the spark of her eyes caught against the end of her cigarette. Camila pressed her fingers to her lips, and she could feel heat crawling up her neck at the thought of Lauren kissing her. She hadn't kissed anyone since high school, and the first girl she kissed since was someone that she hardly even knew.

"Dammit," she hissed, closing the fridge, trudging back to the couch in the cold of her apartment, keeping the blanket tight around her as she flopped down onto the hand-me-down sofa, lying across it and pressing her face into the cushion once more, huffing. Lauren wanted to see her again, and Camila had promised her Friday, which was growing closer every second. Tomorrow. Camila made some embarrassing sound, pulling the blanket over her head.

She was an idiot.

She shouldn't have agreed to it, but she'd been so caught up in the urgent tone of Lauren's voice at the time and the way her body seemed to bend effortlessly under her hands. Camila couldn't have said no to her. Camila rolled over and rubbed her face. She needed to shower. She'd spilled something on her sweater - it smelled like booze.

Maybe Lauren was just being impulsive. Maybe she'd forget about it and not show up.

Something snagged at her heart when she thought of that; she didn't want Lauren to forget about her. It didn't seem fair that Lauren might get to brush her aside and Camila would remember her for the rest of her natural life.

She hadn't been kissed like that in a long, long, time; maybe ever.

She hoisted herself off the couch. There was no sense in acting like anything was out of the ordinary. The most she could do was go about her day and then deal with whatever Lauren decided to do.

She glanced at the clock on her night table, picking it up to check the time without her glasses. Quarter past ten. She hadn't slept too late. She sighed and set it back down and unbuttoned her sweater, pulling the shade down on her window as she did. She had to wait by the shower for at least five minutes for the shrieking pipes to warm up, and even then it was lukewarm by the time she actually got in. She cursed, yanking the curtain behind her, and soaped up as fast as she could, letting the water hit her head and the back of her neck. As she acclimated, she started to sing a little, working the soap into her hair, blinking it out of her eyes as she did.

She stopped, hesitating for a moment, tilting her head.

"What?" She said, yanking the curtain aside, turning the water down to hear better. The sound came again and, confused, Camila quickly rinsed and grabbed a towel, struggling to dry herself off as someone pounded on the door.

"Hold on!" She called, attempting to find her glasses in the mess of her apartment, pulling her clothes on at the same time. Her shirt was wet and clung to her and she had to seriously work to get into her pants, shimmying into them, yanking her shirt down, not bothering with the button or fly. The persistent knocking kept coming and Camila finally found her glasses where they were stuck between the couch cushions and shoved them onto her face as she went to the door, hoping they weren't too smudged up from her fingers. After nearly knocking the mug off her end table as she ran past it, she undid the deadbolt and heaved it open.