off camera.

chapter eleven

Camila watches back the last of her footage, before getting the video ready for upload, titling it and filling out the tags. She gets it set to upload, making sure it's on private, and it's on the right timer to automatically release itself tomorrow.

When there's a curt knock on her bedroom door, Camila frowns in confusion. Nobody ever knocks in their house, except for Ally, but she tends to just knock as a warning and walk right in. "Um, come in?"

Her bedroom door swings open, and she meets her favourite green eyes, her stomach flipping. Lauren smiles, holding up a DVD case. "I brought your favourite Christmas movie. At least, I hope it's still your favourite."

Camila makes herself look away from Lauren and examines the DVD. "Elf. Yeah, it's still my favourite."

Lauren smiles, "Good, glad that hasn't changed. We're watching it, and now I'm just realising that you probably don't have a DVD player, because who the fuck does anymore? I don't even have one. Okay, so, we've established that I'm dumb."

"You're not dumb," Camila laughs, squeezing Lauren's hand reassuringly. "It's okay, my old laptop has a DVD drive and I still have it, so we can watch it on there."

At the words, Lauren seems placated. She shrugs her backpack off her shoulders, and Camila just smiles at her, taking her bomber jacket off for her and hanging it up on the back of her bedroom door; she's trying her best to figure out a way to get Lauren to let her wear her jacket, but she hasn't figured it out yet.

Eyeing the backpack, she asks, "are you staying over?"

Lauren shakes her head, squeezing her hand before Camila walks over to her closet and searches for her old laptop; she knows she'd stuffed it back here when she'd bought a new one, "No, I just finished class, so that's why I have a bag with me. I knew that Lucy had a copy of Elf and I remembered it was your favourite movie, so I figured I'd drop by once I'd finished and see if you wanted to watch it with me."

"How many classes do you have today?" Camila asks, and Lauren yawns as if to signal just how tired she is. "More than one?"

"Mhm, I picked my classes mostly based around the compulsory things I have to take and the schedule they already have. I have a long day on Thursdays, but it's worth it because I get Fridays free, and I only have one hour on a Monday." Lauren shrugs, getting herself comfortable on Camila's bed. "Tuesdays I'm done by one, but I have non-stop classes from nine, and I have two classes on Wednesdays, 9-10 and 10-11:30. Then after that I'm usually working, same on Mondays. And sometimes I do the morning shift on Sundays."

"Send me your schedule so I know when I can come over and annoy you." Camila says, finally locating her old laptop and its charger. She walks over to the bed and plugs it in, laughing and adding, "I like that you don't dispute that I'm annoying."

"Of course you're not annoying," is Lauren's delayed response, and when Camila opens up the laptop, she gets the DVD out of its case, "after this, we're watching A Christmas Carol."

"Wow, festive movie marathon," Camila grins, taking Lauren's hand and resting the laptop on her stomach. She could rest it between them, but that would mean not getting to snuggle, and Camila isn't giving that up. "Come here."

Lauren smiles, and rolls onto her side, head resting on Camila's chest. Camila wraps a protective arm around her, and Lauren relaxes into her touch, lacing her fingers through Camila's once the younger Latina presses play on the movie.

As the movie plays, she absently runs her fingers through Lauren's hair, and it's little things like this that take her back to when they were kids. Lauren was always so cuddly back then, and it was like they couldn't go five minutes without touching each other in some way, whether it was holding hands in the playground or touching knees under the table at lunch. It was one of the things she's missed, even as she got older and made new friends; she wasn't even as touchy with her ex-girlfriend.