like a forest fire | camren (au)

1

On the first day that Lauren starts working at Starbucks, she swears to herself that she will never write her number down on someone's coffee cup. No matter how cute they are. She will simply not allow herself to fall down to that level.

"It's so ridiculous," she tells Normani when it comes up in conversation during one of her first days. "Completely desperate, and such a cliché too. I'd never do it."

Normani gives her a knowing smile. "You just wait, new girl. It happens to all of us at some point." She grins, leaning back against the counter. "Someone unexpectedly attractive will walk in and you just won't be able to stop yourself, no matter how hard you try."

She waves her hand in front of her face pretending to be fanning herself. Lauren simply rolls her eyes at her new colleague and continues rearranging the pieces of red velvet cake, while Normani winks at her.

She hasn't been working at Starbucks for even a month, when, indeed, it does happen.

:::

She is busy rinsing out the milk cans in the sink with her back to the counter when she hears someone cough behind her. In the hurry to spin around to help the customer, she accidentally turns the faucet the wrong way, causing an abrupt wave of water to spray up out of the sink, all over herself.

"Fuck-" she swears as the water starts dripping down the front of her white shirt, soaking right through it. The fabric keeps sticking to her stomach, as she tries to wrench out her sleeves in a pathetic attempt to clean herself up. Jesus Christ - she's been working here for like a month already, and she's still fucking up.

"Maybe you should take it off."

Lauren spins around and there she is - long dark hair, big brown eyes, teasing smile on her face that can either be interpreted as suggestive or innocent, which is quite the unsettling combination.

"W-what-" Lauren stammers.

The girl's eyes flick down to Lauren's shirt. "Your shirt - maybe you should take it off. You don't want to get yourself wet."

For some reason, Lauren can feel herself getting flustered, even though it makes no fucking sense to get flustered over something like that, because of course the girl doesn't mean it like that. Damn her mind for being so goddamn inappropriate all the time.

"Yeah, um," Lauren mumbles, pulling on the fabric. "I probably should - sorry about that - I'll just..." She can see her manager eyeing her from the other side of the café and she quickly straightens her spine, walking up to the register. "I mean - can I get you anything to drink?"

The girl smiles at her, the corner of her lip curling up in a way that makes Lauren's pulse heat up under her skin. "Just a cappuccino, please."

"A-all right," Lauren says, trying not to let the nerves of her embarrassment make her voice waver. She grabs one of the paper cups. "What's your name?"

The girl looks Lauren up and down, smile still spread on her face. "What's yours?"

"Oh-" Lauren says. "I actually meant - um - for the cup, for your order, so that we can... Not really in a what's your name kind of way, you know. Just-" She has to bite down on her bottom lip really fucking hard to snap herself out of it. "I mean, I'm Lauren."

"Lauren," the girl repeats, her voice just a little bit raspy. "I like it... I'm Camila."

Lauren quickly scribbles it down on the cup, praying that she'll get the spelling right, because she does not want to ask any more questions. It's probably best for her to say as little as possible at this point. She mumbles the total amount, before quickly turning around again to busy herself with making the cappuccino. Normani is in the back, so Lauren is the only one running the counter at the moment.