Serendipity // Camren

Chapter 3

Camila licked her lips as she listened to Lauren explain the film's shooting schedule. Part of her wanted to tell Lauren that she was more than capable of reading the paper herself, but that was just a small part. A teeny, tiny part. Most of her was just enjoying being in the company of this new Lauren Jauregui. She had initially been apprehensive about being alone with Lauren, but now, after a little more than an hour with her, she felt confident in her earlier observation that the Lauren she was looking at now was most definitely a different Lauren than she remembered.

Realizing that Camila wasn't quite with her, Lauren looked up from the page she was going over aloud and chuckled as she noticed the far-off look in the brunette's eyes. "You still with me here, star?" she teased.

Camila looked up into smiling green eyes and felt her breath hitch in her chest. She really is startlingly beautiful. "I am. You were saying that for the next three to four weeks we'll be here at the studio, doing some of the interior work that they needed the sets for, and that after that we'll be going onto the location for the rest of the filming with some occasional set work thrown in where needed."

Lauren laughed and nodded her approval. "Very good. Do you have any questions?"

"Actually, I do," Camila said, sitting up straighter in her seat as she studied the woman across from her. While she was certain that Lauren had changed, there was a part of her that could not believe that Lauren was actually comfortable with her character's orientation. And, in true Camila Cabello fashion, she decided to address the matter directly. "Are you seriously okay with this role? With playing a lesbian and kissing another woman?"

Lauren's stomach flipped at Camila's question. She had known that she would have to tell Camila about herself and her life-altering epiphany eventually, but she certainly had not figured it would be quite this soon. She bit her lip nervously as she took a second to think about the different ways she could answer Camila's question and, for the briefest of moments, she considered deflecting it with a 'Sure, it's just pretend'. But she also knew that since she would be kissing and touching and doing simulated sex scenes with Camila over the course of their filming, that she should tell her the truth. Not the whole truth, of course. Camila did not need to know that she was actually in love with her. Now that she finally was actually sitting in the same room as Camila, she did not want to send the poor girl running back to New York as fast as her luscious legs could carry her.

Camila watched curiously as a million thoughts seemed to flash through Lauren's eyes and tilted her head questioningly as the raven-haired woman chewed her lip nervously. "Lauren?"

The sound of her name pulled Lauren from her thoughts, and she shook her head and rolled her eyes. You're being an idiot, Jauregui. Just tell her, she chastised herself. A horde of butterflies took off in her stomach, leaving her feeling as if she were coming out for the first time again. "I'm gay, Camz."

Camila's jaw dropped in surprise. "You're... Oh."

"Yeah, oh," Lauren muttered as she studied Camila's face carefully, trying to get a read on what she was thinking. After staring at each other for an extended moment, it became clear that she had just managed to render Camila Cabello completely speechless, and she cleared her throat again. "Sorry, I could have done that a little more smoothly, or something, but I was just... I really hate..."

"Shh," Camila shushed, leaning into the table and reach across to cover one of Lauren's hands with her own, in what she hoped Lauren saw as a reassuring gesture. "You just caught me off guard. You're gay?"

Lauren felt her breath hitch in her throat at the feeling of Camila's hand over her own. God, that feels good. "Yeah."

Hundreds of questions for the raven-haired woman immediately came to mind, which Camila knew that she had no right to vocalize, but she couldn't help asking, "When did you know?"