She Loves Control - Camila Cabello
Nicole and Adrien could never remember meeting each other for the first time. They were childhood neighbours in London, and their mothers were great friends. Both had attended the same schools until the end of primary education, as Nicole's family had relocated to Milton Keynes in the summer after year six. The pair had been inseparable up to that point; Nicole had spent countless hours at the Lopez household with Adrien doing all sorts. Painting, running around, playing hide and seek, movie nights, countless meals. That house had been Nicole's safe haven, Adrien had been Nicole's safe haven.
Even after the move the pair stayed close; every few months or so one would visit the other and they would catchup like nothing had ever changed. But as the years went on, the gaps between the trips got bigger and bigger, until it got to the point where Nicole was in her third year of university and Adrien hadn't heard from her in two years.
It had been a couple hours since Eva and Nathan had first walked into the house; Nicole's phone told her it was quarter past four. The pair had left briefly and returned with a large number of boxes filled with Eva's belongings. They had immediately begun making the room truly Eva's; putting up various photos, changing the bedsheets to her bright pink duvet set and placing several nicknacks that she had collected over the years on the window ledge.
Nicole had decided to let them get on with their hefty task, as they seemed too in sync to get involved, therefore texted Adrien to come over. That's how the two of them ended up laying on the grass next to each other with Arctic Monkeys playing in the background, two red cups half filled with Sprite placed above their heads, chatting to each other about their weeks.
As Nicole spoke about the offers she had received from different artists to choreograph their tours, Adrien's eyes were fixated on her. She had changed so much over the past couple years; she was a completely different person when she had returned to London, and she was even more different now. Naturally Nicole was brunette; it used to match her glistening eyes perfectly. She had dyed it black the day she had driven down to London, but that dye had faded considerably over the past year, though it had tainted the liveliness of her hair. When the two were kids Nicole could talk until her throat hurt, yet she was practically mute when she had returned from Manchester.
'Imagine being a backup dancer for Taylor Swift, you'd be doing the most basic moves, like-' Adrien stood up and began to tap his foot whilst bending his knee, his hand on his hip, pretending to flip his hair as he chanted the chorus to a Taylor Swift song. Nicole snorted, her smile wide. She tilted her head forward and used her hand to block the sun out so she could see Adrien's performance.
Her laughter still hadn't fully returned yet.
'Hey, Swifty, you want some food?'
'Food would be great, lovey.' Adrien extended his arm, lending his hand to her, which she gladly took. He brushed strands of grass off her jeans.
'I'll go pop something in the oven.'
Nathan knew that Eva wanted to settle in on her own. As a complete control freak, she hated it when other people did things for her. She had begun swatting him away after he had carried the boxes upstairs, so he had decided to head downstairs to see what Eva's new landlord was doing. Though as he peered at the garden, he saw her smiling up at a boy, who was doing some sort of mimic dance. He watched him extend his arm to her. He then began to pat her down, trying to get the grass off of her clothes.
Nathan had immediately jumped to conclusions and assumed that the man was Nicole's boyfriend. Of course she had a boyfriend; guys must have been swooning over her everywhere she went, so it wasn't like it would've been hard for her to find a guy. Plus, the man she was with seemed exactly who she would go for; tall, built and handsome.
Nathan hadn't realised he was staring; he snapped out of it when he heard Nicole's footsteps on the garden slabs. Out of panic, he grabbed a box full of Eva's groceries and began to pretend to sort them out. There wasn't much, it was mostly pasta with the odd condiment here or there. Nathan cursed himself, knowing he must have looked so stupid sorting through a bag full of spaghetti.
Nicole didn't seem to notice. As she walked in, their eyes locked once again, and he gave her a faint smile. She nodded at him.
'Looks like you're having fun,' she chuckled as she approached the fridge, squatting down in order to search through the freezer. 'Eva kick you out already?'
'She's a control freak and doesn't like to be disturbed when in her zen. I knew I was in her way so I came down to see what else there was to be done.'
'How bad is she?' Nicole wondered as she read the back of a box of breaded fish fillets. She really wasn't in the mood to be standing around in the kitchen waiting for food to be done.
'Not as bad as some people, but she's still quite bad. You're probably gonna have to have a long discussion about who loads and empties the dishwasher and does the laundry and hoovers, all that stuff.'
'Thanks for the warning,' Nicole stood up, deciding that she wasn't going to make food. She took her phone out of her pocket and began typing. 'You two want anything from Wagamamas?'
That's how the four of them ended up sat on a picnic blanket eating out of plastic takeaway bowls filled with Japanese cuisine, making small talk to pass the time. Adrien had asked Eva what she was studying, which had led to a long story about how she had no clue what she wanted to do when she left college, but sort of enjoyed writing, so she had jumped into a journalism degree at the University of Westminster.
'Hopefully I'll have my degree next summer, then I'll see where I can snatch a job and try to work my way up.' Eva didn't have much of a plan for an apparent control freak, Nicole thought to herself. 'And that's where I'm at. So...how long have you two been together?'
Nathan tensed up. When he had gone upstairs to ask Eva what she wanted from Wagamamas he had mentioned Nicole's boyfriend, but he hadn't thought that she would ask the two about their relationship. He hung his head to avoid eye contact and played with the food in his bowl.
Adrien, who was sat crossed legged between Nicole and Nathan with a bowl of ramen noodles in one hand and a fork in the other, cocked his head to the side to see Nicole's reaction, which he knew was to be a smirk.
'You can take this one, baby,' she told him, popping a forkful of rice in her mouth.
Adrien sighed, shaking his head, a growing smile appearing on his face out of awkwardness.
'Well, er, you see, we're not.'
Nathan's head almost immediately tilted up to look at Nicole, who was looking all too amused.
'You're not? How do you know each other then? Have you dated?' Eva quickly shot back, realising she had judged them completely wrong and that the atmosphere was quickly becoming uncomfortable.
'We were neighbours as kids, I used to live in that house,' Adrien pointed to the next part of the terraced building. 'And no, we've never dated. Don't worry, we get this quite a lot.'
'So you're both single?'
'Yeah.'
'Good to know.'
Eva stood up, deciding to refill her glass with water. Her and Nathan's gaze crossed for a split second, and immediately he knew that she had done all of that for him.
