Just Off The Key Of Reason

Chapter 3: Far from the Madding Crowd

Since it was February, and they were in New York, walking through Central Park, Camila was freezing. Her apartment had deceived her into thinking it was warmer outside than it actually was. Now, she strolled along next to Lauren, trying to stop her teeth from chattering. Fucking Siri was a liar.
Lauren glanced down and studied her for a moment, a frown forming on her face.
"Are you cold?"
Camila smiled regretfully and nodded as her teeth clicked together. "I know, I know. I should've been prepared. I feel like I'm on an Arctic expedition."
Lauren slid her coat off her shoulders and went to drape it over Camila. "Here. Put this on." Camila was surprised, but allowed the taller woman to help her slide her arms through.
"Won't you be cold?" Camila asked worriedly.
Lauren just shook her head with a small smile and went back to playing with the flaps on her mittens. They had gotten lunch at Camila's favorite café, and were now walking it off in the Park. Camila looked up when she noticed Lauren's head pop up and a slight bounce appear in her step. The brunette's eyes were bright and innocent and excited, and Camila followed the line of sight. Straight to a balloon man. Camila smiled.
Camila didn't say anything; she wanted to see if Lauren would stop them. Sure enough, they almost passed the vendor before Lauren slowed, then turned to Camila and stopped, biting her lip.
"I want to get a balloon." She blurted, then made a WTF face like she didn't know why she said that.
Camila grinned knowingly and pulled her over to the vendor. "Me too!"
Lauren looked surprised and excited. Camila asked for a purple one.
"Um, can I have a blue one...and a yellow one, please? And a green one?" Lauren said shyly.
Camila smiled and put a hand on Lauren's shoulder. "I think my friend here needs a balloon animal hat as well." Camila studied her for a moment, then nodded decisively. "A lion. Definitely a lion."
Camila hoped this guy knew what he was doing, otherwise it'd come out as a hat of yellow sausages. Lauren really didn't need that.
The vendor grinned at them. "Alrighty. What about one for you?"
Camila started to shake her head, but Lauren held the hand that had been on her shoulder and interrupted quietly. "She needs one too." She glanced down at Camila. "A bear. Please."
The man nodded happily and made their hats and handed them their colorful balloons. They actually looked like animals, which made Camila and Lauren look sort of like fools, but, whatever. They were fabulous.
"What now?" Camila asked. Her balloon hat was slightly too big so it sat crookedly on her head. Lauren focused on tying the string of one of her balloons to her wrist. Camila tried not to smile.
"Um, we could...I don't know, lie in the sun for a while? It might warm you up. I'd just rather stay outside, than..."
"Perfect." Camila said brightly. She smiled as Lauren tossed a few dollars in a homeless man's hat, offering him a wave and small, "hi."
She wondered how this woman got to be so sweet, and why she didn't share enough of it with the world.
~oooooooooo~
"Lauren!" Camila proclaimed, striding out of her bedroom when they got home. "I still don't have your cell phone number."
Lauren was curled in a corner of the couch with one of her books. Camila watched realization dawn on her face.
"I don't have one." Lauren said somewhat sheepishly, eyes going back to her book.
Camila was not able to process this fact. Her own life would fall to pieces if she didn't have her phone; she'd end up living in a cardboard box by the river not knowing her name and singing to the ducks.
"You don't...have a phone?" Camila was wide-eyed. Lauren was starting to look uncomfortable. She shook her head.
Camila hesitated and schooled her features into something less...judgmental. She really was just fascinated. "Why not?" she asked.
Lauren shrugged her shoulders lightly. "I don't need one." She said quietly. Camila studied her for a moment and went and sat on the other end of the couch.
"How do you contact people? Talk to friends?" Camila asked, the shock in her voice replaced with curiosity.
Lauren frowned, still with her face in the book. "Who?" she asked.
Camila sighed. "Lauren."
Lauren didn't respond. Camila ducked her head a little lower.
"Can you look at me, please?"
Lauren bit her lip and dragged her eyes up to meet Camila's warm brown ones.
"Thank you." Camila smiled. "But, what about your aunt? Don't you have to talk to her?"
Lauren's eyes flickered away, but returned to Camila's after a moment. She shrugged again. "If she wanted to talk to me she could use the landline."
"You don't talk to her?"
Lauren shook her head slowly. "Not really."
Well, that wasn't right, Camila thought. If Camila was this sweet girl's aunt, she'd be calling every day to make sure the woman was eating more than sugary cereal and Twinkies for dinner and wasn't being abducted after playing on the swings in the park. In fact, she'd probably do that as Camila. So, logical conclusion, get Lauren a phone.
Camila leapt up off the couch and strode over to the kitchen counter, where she grabbed her bag.
"Come on, Lauren. We're getting you a phone."
Lauren didn't move, just watched with wide eyes from her position on the couch.
Camila quieted her enthusiasm a little bit, and went and sat back down, with Lauren's coat and bag in her hands.
"I mean, I'm not forcing you, but it would be cool to be able to text you during the day."
Lauren looked surprised. She was running her fingers along the edges of the pages. "You'd text me?"
"Of course!" Camila grinned. "You can distract me during my lunch breaks, and I can call you and complain about Dinah being a bitch, or coordinate picking up take-out...Plus, I don't think I've ever used our land line in my life; I'm not entirely sure how it works."
Lauren smiled and bit her lip. Camila waited.
"Can I put games on it?" Lauren asked, green eyes staring right into Camila's bright ones.
"Ohmygod, I have to introduce you to my friend Ally! She can teach you about this game called Angry Birds, and then it will consume your life and I'll probably never see you again."
Camila was serious. When she'd first gotten Angry Birds, she'd lost a piece of her soul. Being the perfectionist she was, she had used one of her math books to study the slingshot angles. She had even started building a life size version of the game in her backyard, a perfectly logical way to gain practical experience to beat this thing, when her parents staged an intervention.
Lauren smiled and put down her book. They got home later with a new iPhone, a blue case with an elephant on it, and the latest version of Angry Birds from the App store.
~oooooooooo~
The next day, after dinner, Camila was sitting in the living room with Lauren, waiting for her friends to get there to pick them up for the club. Apparently, yesterday was the only day they would ever be early for something, and it was never going to happen again. Sure, they had called and said that Zayn had hammered a nail into his thumb and they were delayed at the hospital, but that was not a good enough excuse in Camila Cabello's book.
She sighed in exasperation and glanced around. Lauren's knees were bouncing around like a horse in a gallop and she was focused on picking at the frays of the belt on her coat.
"Lauren." Camila said quietly. Lauren halted all movements and looked up, eyes fixing on Camila's lips. Camila gave her a small smile and Lauren sat on her hands, ears turning pink.
Finally Camila's cell buzzed with a message that said her friends were down in a cab waiting for them. Well, it actually said "get down here, our driver's an ass," so Camila led Lauren down to the elevator and then outside and into the back of a very crowded cab.
It wasn't Camila's fault that she ended up halfway in Lauren's lap, the brunette flushing deeply and focusing her eyes out the window. Dinah and Zayn seemed far too amused by this. They got to the club without any groping incidents, well, intentional groping incidents, and tumbled out of the cab in relief.
Lauren had that anxious look on her face again. She wouldn't stop playing with the cuffs of her jacket, and finally Camila just stilled Lauren's hands with her own, and held them as they got a booth along one of the walls in the club.
Camila glanced at Dinah and rolled her eyes; the woman was already in an argument with some guy at the bar. They had literally just walked through the door and she found herself wondering if Dinah was drunk. Camila supposed it was just Dinah's personality; the kind of person who came off as perpetually drunk.
She and Normani returned to the table with six shots and Camila took a deep breath. This was going to be a long night
Lauren's eyes were focused on the shot that was set in front of her. "Um, I don't...drink." She said quietly. Dinah just stared at her.
Camila nodded in realization, and nudged the nervous brunette with her shoulder in reassurance. "Zayn, can you get her something else to drink?"
Zayn seemed conflicted. Or constipated. He seemed to be having trouble processing. Camila waited; he'd grasp everything eventually. After a moment he closed his mouth, nodding silently, and went up to the bar.
Dinah seemed to have regained the use of her words. "Why the fuck don't you drink?" She sputtered in disbelief. Camila leaned away from her; really, Dinah couldn't seem to fathom this non-alcoholic phenomenon.
"I just don't, um, I don't like it." Lauren replied softly, hunching over the table and playing with her sleeves again. "Sorry." She mumbled.
"Whoa, don't apologize, Lauren." Camila said, wide-eyed and glaring at Dinah. She absently rubbed the brunette's back.
Dinah ignored her. "What do you mean you don't like it?"
Normani grabbed Dinah's face and turned it around to face her. "Honey. Stop." She said slowly. "Leave her alone." Dinah rolled her eyes but acquiesced. "It's just weird." She muttered.
"Because we're not all alcoholics like you?" Harry remarked. Camila smiled gratefully at him as Zayn returned with a water for Lauren.
"Thanks." She said in a small voice.
"No problem." Zayn grinned.
About half an hour later, when they were suitably intoxicated, Normani grabbed Dinah and dragged her out to the dance floor. Harry was chatting the bartender up, though Camila had no idea why. She had never seen a more manly man fix drinks in her life. Zayn had vanished about ten minutes after they'd entered the club, never to be seen again.
Camila was glad Lauren seemed to have relaxed a little. She was actually looking around now, and tapping some extra straws against the table like drumsticks.
"You know, you do that a lot." Camila remarked observantly.
Lauren slowed down her tapping and glanced at Camila, but didn't say anything.
"It's like you can't sit still." Camila continued. "Hyperactive." Camila tried to step carefully; really, it was just the alcohol playing it a little fast and loose with words like hyperactive.
Lauren nodded and stopped tapping all together. She held her hands like she didn't know what to do with them. Camila watched her.
"It's not bad." She said. "It's cute."
Lauren flushed. "It's a-I mean it's like a tic...sort of. Like, a nervous habit. I-my aunt-she used to hate it. She gave me medicine for it."
Camila furrowed her brow. "What? To stop it?"
"Yeah. Just, I don't know...dull everything down..." Lauren trailed off quietly.
Camila thought this over, and then picked up the straws Lauren had dropped and tapped out her own beat on the table. She smiled at Lauren. "I don't like dull. Your way is much better."
Lauren bit her lip to contain her smile and grabbed more straws from the pile. When Harry returned, unsurprisingly unsuccessful in his quest to convert a heterosexual man, they were having a drum war. Well, Lauren was having a drum war. Camila was making a fool of herself after knocking over her drink when she tried to use it as a hi-hat. She didn't mind; she found Lauren's shy laughter sort of heartwarming and wanted to do it again to keep the sound going.
"Do you guys know where Mani and Dinah went?" Harry asked, shielding his drink from the wrath of Camila's straws.
Camila shook her head and stopped playing. "They're probably having sex in the bathroom." She felt Lauren gasp next to her and turned to look at the brunette.
"They would do that here?" she asked incredulously, uncharacteristically loud.
Camila laughed and raised her eyebrows. "Yeah. When's the last time you went to a club?" Lauren flushed and ducked her head. Camila chastised herself. Karla Camila Cabello, think before you speak. Don't blurt. And stop knocking peoples' fucking drinks over, you look like a slob.
Camila tapped Lauren's cheek with one of her straws. "Sorry. I didn't-"
"I've never been. To a club, I mean. I've never been to a club before." Lauren said before Camila could word vomit some more. She was glad Harry had turned his back and was pretending this whole exchange wasn't occurring.
"Oh." Camila wondered what the opposite of word vomit was. Lauren glanced over and met brown eyes, and gave Camila a small, bashful smile, which Camila returned. She didn't bother searching for her vocabulary.
Normani and Dinah slid back into the booth a minute later, definitely looking like they'd either just stepped out of a wind tunnel or ravished each other in the bathroom.
"Hey green eyes," Dinah called from the end of the table. "You find anyone you can take home? I mean, we know Camila here's a fucking hermit," Camila rolled her eyes, "but I'm sure we can find a pretty boy for you."
"Well, whatever you do, don't go for the bartender. He fails to appreciate any good qualities that a person may have." Harry remarked bitterly.
"I'm actually gay." Lauren murmured, eyes on her drink, blowing bubbles into the water.
Camila knocked her fucking drink all over the place again. Holy mother of-contain yourself Camila. Control yourself. Harry screeched like it was lava approaching the edge near his lap.
"Jesus, man, calm down." Dinah said, grinning maniacally, eyes fixed on Camila's face. Lauren was still blowing bubbles through her straw, slightly faster, more panicky bubbles.
"You're gay, Jauregui?" Dinah asked loudly. Obviously she needed the whole club to hear, just to be sure.
Lauren looked in her direction warily. "Yes."
Dinah looked like it was Christmas morning, or she was planning something that could only end in disaster. Camila felt the urge to put her body between Lauren's and Dinah's to protect the woman next to her.
"Did you know you're on the same team as Cabello?" Dinah looked like the fucking cat that ate the canary. Camila was bright red and Lauren wasn't fairing much better. Harry was ignoring everybody and everything, trying to get Camila's drink out of his pants.
Lauren obviously had no idea what to say. "Um, I...no?"
Camila covered her eyes with her hands to collect herself and block out Dinah's goddamned face. She turned to speak to Lauren quietly, hoping her eyes were calm, but knowing they probably looked like damn crackhead's.
"Thank you for telling us, Lauren." She said simply, after ducking her head to catch green eyes.
Lauren nodded hesitantly. "I-thank you for...telling me. Dinah, I guess." Lauren scrunched up her face. Camila figured she hadn't meant to thank Dinah. Most people don't; it's usually an unavoidable accident.
"It's okay. I would've told you anyway. Dinah just likes to stick her poky little hands in everybody else's business because she knows we're cooler than her." Camila said, lips quirked. She expected to hear a 'shut the fuck up!' come down the table and was pleasantly surprised when it never happened. Then she almost vomited when she looked at Dinah and found her latched onto Normani's face.
Harry was stuck in a permanent face-palm. Or maybe he was mourning the loss of his favorite pants to Camila's drinks and drumming mishap. Whatever. Camila felt much lighter now; happier, like anything could happen.