the encounter

Chapter 5

Lauren's POV

We continue walking the dogs, and I am mesmerized by how the winds strikes Camila's hair. She looks like a fierce lioness. A confortable silence has fallen between the two of us, and as I am about to break it, I feel my pants buzz. Someone was calling me.

At first I tried to ignore it because I was having such a good time with Camila, but then she noticed that my phone was ringing.

"Laur, I think your phone is ringing."

"Yeah me too"

"Aren't you gonna take the call? What if it's important?"

"Ugh. If you say so"

I take the phone and roll my eyes as I read who the caller is.

"Lauren" He said.

"Wassup"

"Where are you?"

"If I told you, you would be mad at me, so do you want me to lie or like, how do you want me to respond that question?"

"Lauren where the hell are you? They are asking for you here. They are going to scold you if you don't get your ass here."

"What time is it?"

"Uhh... it's almost 4:30"

"Shit fuck okay" I say as I hang up.

"Lauren what's wrong?"

"I...I gotta go. I'm so sorry"

"Why, what happened? What's wrong?" Camila asks, as I can evidently see her starting to get anxious.

"Camila i'll explain later"

"Oh okay" She says as she looks down. I know that she is scolding herself for coming off as overprotective, but her behavior is totally normal in this current situation.

"No wait, don't be sad i'll text you later and explain. I promise." I say as I take her hand.

"Okay then, you should probably order your uber now"

"Right. Thanks" I say ordering an uber.

"Wait can you handle both dogs?" I ask her, feeling bad that I have to leave her here alone, with the two dogs.

"Well I normally take them out alone, so yeah. And for your information, I actually am strong, even though my appearance might not give it away."

"Oh, feisty I see. I like feisty Camila. Or shall I say Karla?" I say teasingly.

Camila's cheeks redden and she looks at everything except my face.

"Lauren oh my god stop it" She says as she walks away.

"Your wish is my command" I say with a smirk.

"Goodbye Lauren" She says while rolling her eyes. How can someone roll their eyes in an attractive way? Ask Camila, she might know the answer.

"Seems like the universe heard you. For your luck, Julio, my uber, is here. So, see you soon Camz." I say as I give her Leo.

"Bye Lolo" I hear her say as I am closing the door of the uber.

As soon as I close the door of the car, I greet Julio and ask him if he needs help getting there or anything. He say's that it's okay.

This is not good because I needed a distraction, I couldn't start overthinking about what just happened. I had to try to talk to him or think about something else.

Okay. I need to come up with an excuse as of why I wasn't in time for the meeting. I cannot tell them I was with Camila because I wanted to, they would get mad and call me irresponsible and blah blah blah. Okay Lauren relax. Okay so, i'm gonna say that she wants me to star in some music video and that's why I was with her, because of business. I didn't have time to tell Tara because it all happened super fast. We went to Migue's as a work date. Wow i'm such a genius. She wanted to talk about the video and what? Get to know me? They know were friends some time ago. Wait what if someone leaks something about the dogs? Okay what with the dogs. Something with the dogs. The music video includes the dogs. BOOM. I had to see if the dogs liked me before shooting the video or something. My story seems legit.

"Señorita, we are here." Julio the uber driver tells me.

"Gracias, have a nice day!"

As I get out of the car, I can see Tara throughout the window. Her brows are furrowed. She looks really mad. I get the keys out of my pockets and get in the house.

"Hey I am here" I announce.

"Look who decided to show up. An hour late. Without an excuse." Says Ty's manager. I haven't even bothered to learn what his name was. It's really unimportant to me.

"Okay don't talk to Lauren like that, she does indeed has an excuse. A really good one. Right Lauren?" Ty says in an attempt to help me.

"Obviously" is all I managed to respond. I can see Tara's disappointing stare from the other room.

"Oh yeah so what where you doing?" The manager asks.

I explain them the plan I made up on the way here. As imagined, they totally bought the idea. Or so I thought.

"See dude, I told you she had an excuse" Ty tells his manager.

"This time you're off the hook, but next time you should at least warn us that you weren't gonna make it in time" The manager responds.

"Yeah sorry about that"

Up until now, Tara hadn't said a word. That lowkey scared me. She always has something to say.

"Okay let's get this over with I need to go to the studio" Ty says.

"Yeah okay. Let me go change" I say.

"Don't take too long please, let's just go eat some ice cream or something, very casual" Ty says mainly to his manager. His manager approves of his idea and so does Tara.

I leave and go to my room to shower and before I close my door I hear someone clearing their throat. Tara.

"Look Lauren I am gonna be direct towards you. They might've eaten your pretty excuse of why you were late and with Camila Cabello but I know you better than them. I also know that Camila doesn't have any single coming out recently so there is no music video. So I am gonna need you to tell me what was it that you and your closeted ex-girlfriend doing together" She says with her poker face that she uses when we sign deals or contracts.

I was speechless.

"I uh... look it's not what it looks like I swear... we were just... we were just catching up... yeah we were just catching up as the old friends we are. Nothing too serious." I try to clap-back at her, but fail miserably since I wasn't expecting this outburst to happen.

"Lauren you know that as your manager I will always end up finding out the truth. But it's okay if you don't wanna tell me directly. I just hope you weren't stupid enough to put both of your careers at risk. Not that I really care about hers. You are my customer, not her. So look, you can do whatever you want. You are a very intelligent and amazing grown woman that knows that her actions have consequences, so please take care of yourself."

"Okay look Tara I know that you want the best for me but literally nothing happened. And if something where ever to happen just know that Camila would do anything to protect me even though that means ruining herself. Been there, done that. So do not speak so poorly about her. She is, or well, was someone really special in my life and I would like it very much if our relationship was close as it was before."

"Also she was never my girlfriend" I say before Tara can respond. I believe that this time did an amazing job at clapping back. I do understand from where she is coming from but that doesn't mean she can say those things to me. I am literally her customer not her enemy.

"Okay Lauren I am sorry then. Just... be careful. That's all I got to say" Tara says with a sigh. She then leaves my room and closes the door on her way out.

I cannot believe this conversation just happened.

I need to get ready so I try to push those thoughts out of my mind and bury them in the back. I take a quick shower and then put on The 1975 merch with some black shorts and my black doc martens. I also apply some light make up and brush my hair.

I take one quick snapshot of my outfit in my mirror and post it on my instagram story tagging Ty.

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a/n: hey guyss sorry for the late update I was just super busy with school last week and couldn't make time to write and I was also in a type of writers block. Anyway, here she is!
Remember: be nice to yourselves!