Haven't Forgotten My Way Home (Camren)

Chapter Fifteen

Camila parked her car in the lot, and practically skipped up the walk towards Emily's little home behind Lakeview House. Ever since she'd come home from the seminar that morning she'd felt like she'd been walking on air. Then again, that may have started the night before, when Lauren called and asked her out on a date.

Camila had always thought she'd be the one to ask Lauren out on a date. It would be romantic, possibly in the park. They'd walk together around the pond, hand in hand, not saying anything but simply being together. And from her research Camila would know that the sun would set at exactly 5:39 p.m., and she'd watch the sky for the first blush of pink to appear before she would turn to Lauren with a soft smile on her face and ask the perfect question, at the perfect moment.

"Lauren Jauregui, will you go out with me?"

Not that she'd been thinking about it, or planning it, of course.

And ordinarily if anyone had beaten her to the punch and disrupted her carefully not-planned romantic gesture, she would be upset. But the quiet, nervous and halting way in which Lauren had asked her, just before they'd said good night...

"Miss Camila, I was wondering if you'd maybe like to go out on a-a date with me..."

That trailing off, that soft uncertainty, of being so unsure of herself and what she thought Camila might feel... Camila had found herself saying yes, yes, absolutely, of course, without even a second thought to her own plans and sense of melodrama. Lauren had cast the line in her own way and Camila was hooked. Not only was she hooked but she was sunk, because Lauren had sounded so relieved, so shyly proud of herself when she'd refused to tell Camila where they were going, only saying that she'd fixed everything already and Camila only needed to wear something casual but comfortable, and would she please mind picking Lauren up?

So there was a present wrapped in white and tied with a green ribbon waiting in the car, and Camila was wearing a pair of checkered shorts under a black top, with knee-high black boots to match, her heart was fluttering wildly as she knocked on the door to pick up her date.

But it was Emily who answered the door, not Lauren, and she grinned at Camila. "Before I let you in, I must ask you, what are your intentions with my houseguest?"

Camila raised an eyebrow, and Emily laughed, throwing the door open wider. "Come on in, Miss Cabello, Lauren's been running around the house all morning a nervous wreck waiting for you."

"I have not."

Camila turned and the heart that had been fluttering skipped a beat. It amazed her how in even jeans and a shirt Lauren could look beautiful, but this time she'd done her hair up instead of letting it fall on her shoulders, and somehow she looked even more breathtaking than usual. She smiled at Camila, a light blush on her cheeks as Camila simply couldn't stop staring.

"Do you like it?"

"Oh, I adore it," Camila said. She moved forward and wrapped her arms around Lauren in a hug.

"I'm so glad you're back. I missed you, Miss Camila."

She'd missed her too; it had surprised Camila just how much. She was used to being alone, at her home and in the hotels for seminars, and it hadn't ever bothered her, not much at least. She had her albums and Jasper, her TV shows and Normani and Dinah, her parents. But then Lauren had come into her life and made a home in a little piece of Camila's heart, and now the house seemed too big, the hotels dirty and lonely, and the albums of love and longing had taken on even more meaning.

It wasn't that during the few days she was gone she thought about Lauren constantly; she had a job to do and it was easy enough for Camila to get distracted even without Lauren in the picture. But if she didn't actively think about her except when calling, texting, or buying her gift, Lauren was still ever-present in the back of her mind, a quiet safety or security that was almost like the bracelet Camila wore around her wrist.