Give In

hoping

Shawn's POV

I let out a sight when she went inside and the car started again. The driver, an old man with grey hair looked at me through the mirror.

"Women, right?", he commented.

"They should come with a manual, man"

"Tell me about it. I have a wife and 3 girls at home".

"How you do it?", I asked him.

"You just go with it. You take what they give you and try to make the most out of it. Most of the time they are just clueless as we are".

"Yeah. We're all kinda lost, aren't we?"

"You have no idea". He said shaking his head.

Inside of my apartment I let myself sink into the couch and I rubbed my face with the palms on my hands. Maybe I needed a drink.

I walked around trying to keep my head busy. I didn't want to think about what she said, I was trying so hard not to fall for her words but it was really hard at this point.

I poured some of the whiskey my friends had given to me some time ago, for my birthday I think, I wasn't sure, but it was there and the bottle was almost full.

Fuck, I didn't like what I was feeling. I was doing such a good job keeping my feelings to myself and not letting them go anywhere. Knowing that Camila was in a relationship made it easier for me to control myself around her.

She was gorgeous, and fun, and so smart, but I didn't want to mess with her life. She seemed to have everything together. She had a good life, a job that she was doing amazingly, a boyfriend that, even though I was making fun of him, seemed to make her happy or so I thought. I never meant for her to take my words seriously, I was just teasing her. It was my excuse to talk to her, to make her laugh and to push her buttons just to see her annoyed face.

This changed everything. This meant that I might have even a slight chance of getting closer to her and that scared the shit out of me. I never let myself think of that before, I respected her relationship. I didn't want to fall for her and knowing that she was out of my league, taken, helped me do that, but now...

Man, I was screwed. I drank all the golden liquor I had in my glass and I felt it burn my throat before I brushed my teeth and went to bed.

The way it looked, I had two options if she breaks up with her boyfriend. One, I could keep myself away from her, respect the boundaries, act like nothing happened and eventually get over this crush; because, let's be real, a girl getting out of a long-term relationship has a lot to figure it out on her own before jumping into another one. Or two, I could show her everything she was missing out by being with that guy, I could rock her world and put everything of me to help her get over her ex-boyfriend quicker than she thinks.

I had no idea which path to take. I sighed and tried to sleep.

...

Sunday was a blurry, I don't actually think I did anything remotely productive, but I tried to keep myself busy just to not think about Camila.

Before going into the office on Monday, I felt my stomach squeeze. One phrase out of her mouth flipped my entire world and I was already hating the power she had over me.

I stepped on our floor and I saw her putting her things down on her desk. We were done working together, but our desks were still next to each other.

"Hi, how are you?" I said coming closer.

She looked beautiful as always, with a white blouse and tight skirt over her knees. Her long hair fell over her shoulders and back, ending in soft curls.