All or Nothing

1

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This story is not mine. I just converted it into a Camren story. All rights to the original author.

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"Can we play Settlers of Catan later?" Leo asks as Lauren is steering him inside their building with a hand at the small of his back, nodding politely to the security guard sitting behind the front desk as they head towards the elevators.

"After you've finished your homework," Lauren tells him because she knows for a fact that he hadn't finished his algebra from the night before but she'd had a horrendous week at work and was happy for the distraction of watching a movie with him, his schoolwork long forgotten.

"Fine." He's pouting, Lauren doesn't need to look at his face to know that, but she just rolls her eyes as she stabs at the button for the thirtieth floor with her thumb.

Her phone buzzes with an email as the doors are sliding open, and Lauren fishes the phone from her pocket to read it, attention on her screen as she walks the familiar path down the hall towards her apartment.

When they'd left to go out for ice cream earlier that morning, the hallway had been empty; Lauren hadn't expected that to change, so she's not as aware of her surroundings as she probably should be, doesn't notice the cardboard boxes that litter the floor until she's tripping over one, Leo's warning shout echoing in her ears as she stumbles, ankle twisting in her heel.

She's waiting for the floor to come rushing to meet her when a pair of strong hands catch her, wrapping around her upper arms and steadying her, though her phone isn't so lucky, slips from her hands and bounces a little way down the hall.

"I am so sorry - " An unfamiliar voice is starting to spout apologies, but Lauren has no time for them, not when her ankle is aching and her phone screen is probably shattered and she doesn't have time for this, is already sure, as she turns her head to take in the assortment of boxes littering the hall, that she and her apparent new neighbor will not be getting along one bit.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Lauren wrenches herself out of the girl's – because she doesn't sound very old, sounds nervous and timid and the vindictive part of Lauren wants to destroy her – grip and takes a step back, wincing as her ankle threatens to buckle under her weight. "This," she waves a hand around them, "is unacceptable, not to mention extremely hazardous, what is - "

She finally, finally, takes in the sight of the woman standing in front of her and the rest of her furious words die in the back of her throat because oh, oh, no-one should look like that. Tall and brunette and so very gorgeous, barely in her mid-twenties with sparkling apologetic eyes, a pair of sinfully tight black jeans on her hips and a sleeveless t-shirt to show off the muscle in those arms that had caught Lauren so quickly.

"I'm so sorry," she's saying again, looking down at Lauren with timid eyes and a sheepish expression, and Lauren's anger dissipates with every second that this woman looks at her and that is unacceptable. "But in my defense, you should have probably looked where you were going."

Lauren hears Leo suck in a sharp breath behind her, and the woman shoots him a curious look before turning back to Lauren, eyes widening slightly when she sees the look on her face.

"Your boxes," Lauren replies stiffly, poking one of them with her un-injured foot, "shouldn't be lining my hallway."

"Our hallway," comes the quiet reply, and then there's a smile on her face and Lauren should absolutely not be so affected by it but her heart thumps faster in her chest all the same. "I'm Camila." She holds out a hand, but Lauren doesn't reach out to take it, and she shrugs and lets it fall back to her side. "Your new neighbor."