Fortune (Camren)

Chapter 5: She's not Carrie

"The world only goes round by misunderstanding." - Charles Baudelaire

——————————————————

"I can't,"

Camila responded to Lauren asking her to come to San Francisco for the last week of their tour, a homecoming of sorts because they would be playing their final show at the Fillmore, one of the first places Camila had booked them. "I'm so busy at work with your tour ending because it means coordinating bookings for you again, and now I have all this bridesmaid stuff with Ally because she pushed up the wedding date."

Last week, Ally and Troy had set the wedding date to two months from now, partly to accommodate Taylor, who was available now but might not be later, and partly to avoid any more castigation from Troy's mother, who insisted Ally was a "money grubbing fame whore." It had turned their small microcosm into a hurricane of planning and decision-making and organizing. Weddings really were a staggering amount of work, and Camila was beginning to wonder how she would fit it all in.

Lauren swore softly under her breath. "You want me to wait another week until the tour finishes to see you?"

Camil gnawed at her lip as she laid on her bed, the phone at her ear the only light in her otherwise dark room. "I want to see you. But I just can't leave. I'm sorry."

"Damn."

"I know." Camila said, hating to disappoint Lauren but having no other choice.

————————————————————

"What's got you all pissed off?"

Lauren looked up to see Lucy sliding onto the barstool next to her. She shrugged her shoulders, the leather of her jacket creaking a little with the movement. The patrons around her were better dressed than she was, but the bar had wisely let the star in even in faded and torn blue jeans and the scuffed jacket she wore like a second skin.

"What the fuck are you doing in here anyway?" Lucy looked around at the opulent chandeliers and the white-on-white decorations. Lauren, in her dark and unkempt state, looked like a fallen Lucifer skulking around in Heaven, trying not to be noticed even as she stuck out among the other angels.

"Good security," Lauren answered simply and brought the crystal tumbler to her lips.

Lucy flagged the bartender and ordered a beer, and then propped her elbows on the quartz surface of the bar. "So Camila can't make it, huh?" she guessed.

"Nope."

"That's shitty."

"Yep."

Lucy eyed Lauren's profile. The hollows in her cheeks were prominent in the harsh light, and Lucy wished not for the first time that Lauren would stop shouldering the burden of the band and take better care of herself. "How drunk are we getting?"

"Very."

After many drinks and a strong suggestion from a security guard cleverly disguised in a suit jacket that Lauren and Lucy leave their previous establishment, they left and had just stepped out of an elevator and walked through a door on the top floor of a building.

"Fuck me blind. How'd we get- hic- here?" Lucy stumbled, attempting to grab onto a nearby wall and instead putting her hand on top of a painting that was probably a Jackson Pollock original. She blearily looked around, unsure exactly where here was.

Lauren leaned an arm on her best friend's shoulder, glad that Lucy's small stature made the move easy. "I dunno. The limo brought us here, I think."