roommates ✧ shawmila

chapter 7: deal.

The rest of the day passed by in a blur.  In Camila's desperation, she sure had asked Shawn to teach her, choosing to ignore his smug look afterwards.

Of course, him being him, he'd played around a little about reconsidering his offer, but had ultimately agreed. She weren't so sure now.  It was only later that she had realised that to teach someone to kiss, you had to kiss them, and she were new to this thing. 

She definitely weren't ready to kiss Shawn Mendes. 

But she kind of were. The sort-of-friendly relationship the two had built up in the past few days seemed to evaporate, at least to her. She  couldn't bear to look in the eye a guy whom she'd so casually asked to inform her of the ways to perfectly imitate the homonym of a gardening implement. 

Even thinking about the word made her feel like cringing at her bad decisions, but what was done was done. Maybe one day she'd look back and laugh at this, but that day, sadly, hadn't arrived yet. 

She weren't completely sure why she hadn't just told him that it was some practical joke or something. It could be that she were skeptical about how he would react or take it, but it wasn't that, she knew.

It was probably that she low-key wanted to see how the whole thing played out—hey, everyone wants a story to tell.  Or live out.  So far, though, all it had resulted in was wicked looks in the rearview mirror and those infrequent moments when his hand would brushed her side. 

It was pretty awkward.  For her, of course.  Virgin. Virgin. Such a familiar word, such an apt description for what was going through her mind.  We could DIY the whole thing.

Yeah, her roommate was probably the most vague speaker around the place, but the slightly teasing edge to his voice hadn't exactly gone unnoticed.

Teach her how to do things? How to be an expert at all things physical and emotional?  Teach her how to kiss?  That was simply impossible without demonstrations, and demonstrations like these undeniably required participation of two (or, well, more) parties. 

And being such a virgin, she realized she weren't half sure about where this ordeal was going, but it was disturbing to even consider.

This was an emergency, this was, all things considered, embarrassing. Kissing her roommate and expecting to live under the same roof as his attractive self for the rest of her stay?

Yeah, sure. Welcome to Canada, she thought grimly. 

| 

Shawn noticed her nervousness, and it pleased him. He would deliberately brush his hand against hers when he was taking something from her, and made sure that his leg touched hers when she were sitting on the couch together. 

It gave him immense pleasure to see her blush and shift awkwardly in her position whenever he did that. 

To be honest, he wasn't sure why he'd agreed to help her. Maybe it was the little idea that he was actually helping her, but that wasn't it, he wasn't dumb.

Shawn had seen the potential in her, the way she offered offhand comments that turned out to be pretty useful advice, the baffling amount of convincing excuses she could conjure at a moment's notice. 

He needed someone like that. In case he ever needed to bail? His roommate. If he wanted to convince someone that he was trustworthy? His roommate. If he wanted to mess around with someone at will, with no strings attached? His roommate. 

He couldn't keep her waiting for long either; she would lose whatever little amount of interest she had in the deal. And he himself couldn't keep away for long.