There's No Way

Vanilla

[Camila's POV]

- I hate not being able to kiss you
- Or tell you how pretty you are
- Or hug you for way too long
- This sucks

I snort-laughed as I watched the text messages from Shawn come through on my phone. I peeked over to his desk to see him already looking at me, sticking his bottom lip out in a pout. The wheels began turning in my mind and before I knew it I was striding over to his cubicle.

"Hey Shawn! I need to get some things out of the storage closet upstairs, would you mind helping me?" I asked. He shot me a puzzled look at first, but quickly caught on to my little plan.

"Oh, uh...Oh! Y-yes, of course I can do that!" he mumbled as he stood up from his desk and followed me to the second level of the building. "You're sneaky, how come I didn't think of that sooner?" he questioned.

"I guess you're lucky you have such a smart girlfriend, huh?" I remarked as I happily dragged him into the elevator. His lips were on mine the moment the elevator door closed – his hands traveling from cupping the sides of my face down to my hips, pulling me flush against him. Just as my fingers began to tangle into his messy brunette curls the elevator dinged, signaling that we had arrived at our destination on the next floor up. The doors slid open, revealing another employee that had been waiting to get on. Shawn and I both awkwardly smiled and nodded at the other employee as we stepped off the elevator – both of us extremely grateful that we had enough self-control to pull away from each other before the doors opened.

We scurried down the hallway together, heading straight for the storage closet. I slowly opened the door, breathing out a sigh of relief upon seeing that nobody else was in there. We both slipped into the small, dimly lit room – Shawn closing the door behind us.

"Alone at last," he whispered as he grabbed my hips and pulled me closer to him. His lips immediately landed on my neck, causing a quiet gasp to leave my throat.

"Slow down, tiger," I joked as I brought his face up to mine so his lips would be on mine. "Making out at work is already risky enough," I mumbled in between kisses.

"I guess that's fair," he muttered. "Besides, I don't think we could go much farther and still be sneaky – you and I both know you're not the best at being quiet..." he said with a wink. I playfully swatted his arm as my face got hot with embarrassment.

In any other situation I would've wanted to spend as little time as possible in this cobweb-ridden storage closet, but with the way Shawn's lips were hungrily attacking mine – time seemed to slip away from me.

"What time is it?" I asked as I pulled away breathlessly.

"3:30, why?" he asked as his kisses moved back down to my neck.

"Babe," I murmured. "We've been up here for almost half an hour, people are going to start getting suspicious."

"So? Let them be suspicious, we're just coworkers working together...we're not doing anything wrong," he mumbled as his lips made their way back up to mine. I laughed at his failed attempt at a justification.

"As much as I would love it if my job were just to make out with you all day I really do think we need to head back down," I said as my fingers gently brushed a few stray curls out of his face. He let out a defeated sigh before responding.

"Yeah, I guess you're right," he whined as he placed one last kiss to my cheek. "And for the record, if I ever own my own company one day I would be more than happy to hire you full-time to just hang out in my office and make out with me whenever," he stated matter-of-factly.

"Dude I'm serious, that's literally my dream job," I said through my giggles. After regaining our composure, we made our way back down to our desks – but not before taking full advantage of the elevator ride again.

----

"I'm being serious!" Shawn exclaimed as he drove us home from work.

"There's no way you're being serious – vanilla is nobody's favorite!" I responded. "Vanilla ice cream is starter ice cream: you have to add other things to it in order to make it good," I explained. He vehemently shook his head in disagreement.

"That's not true! Maybe you've just only had really shitty vanilla ice cream..." he said in an attempt to defend himself.

"Orrrrrr...maybe you're just incredibly boring," I replied. He shot me a look before rerouting and turning on a totally different street than we normally would. "Wait, where are we going?" I asked. He refused to tell me, but my question was quickly answered as we pulled into our local grocery store. "Shawn, why are we here? We have plenty of groceries at home," I complained. He just shook his head and laughed.

"We're here to get you some quality vanilla ice cream, since clearly you've never had any before..." he remarked as he got out of the car. We walked hand-in-hand through the aisles of the grocery store until finally reaching the frozen section. Shawn's eyes skimmed the shelves of the freezer as if he was on a mission.
"Ah!" he said in delight as he opened the door, pulling out one of the small pints. "This one is where it's at!" I looked down at the pint in his hands. It was Madagascan Vanilla Bean Gelato from a brand called Talenti.

"Damn, you're right. You get the fancy shit!" I said as I took the container from his hand.

"I like to think I deserve the very best," he said. I playfully rolled my eyes before responding.

"I guess I can't argue with that. Come on let's go check out," I said as I grabbed his hand.

"Hold on! There's still two more things we need to get," he blurted out as he guided me by the hand to one of the aisles across the store. He pulled me by the hand over to the silverware section, grabbing two spoons.

"Okay, now we can checkout." I shook my head in confusion.

"Shawn, we have plenty of silverware at home – you don't need to buy new spoons..." he cut me off before I could even finish my thought.

"We don't have time to go home, you need to try this now," he stated bluntly.

"You're crazy," I said through a laugh.

----

After checking out, Shawn and I sat in the near-empty parking lot of the grocery store and watched the sunset as we shared our pint of fancy vanilla ice cream with our brand new spoons.

"Ok, I'll admit – this is really good." Shawn's face immediately lit up in victory upon hearing my words.

"See! I told you! The only reason vanilla isn't your favorite ice cream flavor is because you've never had good vanilla ice cream before," he blurted.

"Whoa there...I never said it was my favorite! I just said that it's really good. I still think you're completely crazy for saying that vanilla is your favorite ice cream flavor," I informed him. He flashed me a frowny face as his shoulders dropped in disappointment.

"Well fine then! Since you're the ice cream expert, what do you think is the best flavor?" he questioned.

"Easy – Chunky Monkey by Ben & Jerry's," I answered confidently. He shook his head.

"Never had it." I stared at him in disbelief. As if reading each other's minds, we both let out hefty sighs before getting out of the car and walking back into the store to pick up another pint – this time, Chunky Monkey.

"It's not possible to overdose on ice cream, right?" Shawn asked as I threw my head back in laughter.

A/N: Some fluffy randomness for you guys before some much more exciting chapters. 👀