When you're ready

11. Something else

Camila felt the light of the sun on her skin as she opened her eyes, covering her face before turning around and taking in where she was. It looked like a guy’s bedroom and it took her a few minutes to remember she had fallen asleep on Shawn’s couch while they watched a movie. Had he carried her to his bedroom? She wasn’t even sure how she felt about that.

 She looked around again and spotted some books on a shelf, so she stood up, stretched her arms, and decided to take a look around. She had seen him reading a few times in school, but she had no idea he had so many books. There were a few posters of bands she never heard of on the walls and a TV and video game on the corner. Being in his bedroom felt like getting to know him on a deeper level, seeing the things he liked in his personal space.

 After looking around for a few minutes, Camila looked for her phone on the bed, thinking he might have put it there next to her, but she couldn’t find it. She adventured herself outside of his bedroom, looking for a bathroom before finally walking into the living room and finding Shawn sleeping on the couch. She felt bad that he let her have his bed because he was obviously too tall for the couch and didn’t look like he was in a comfortable position.

 Camila wasn’t sure if she should wake him up or just look for her phone and leave the house. She hadn’t exactly planned to spend the night at his house and even though she knew she had nothing to worry about since her aunt wasn’t home yet, she wasn’t really sure what the protocol was for waking up in the morning in a boy’s bed and finding him on the couch. She knew her phone would be probably on the couch though, considering that was the last place she remembers being on, so she approached Shawn carefully, trying to see if her phone was anywhere near him.

 She couldn’t help not observing him for a second, the way his lips almost formed a smile in his sleep, and how his curls were falling over his forehead. Her eyes involuntarily noticed how his shirt had rolled up a little and the skin of his stomach was showing, looking away quickly as her face started burning, wondering what would have happened if he had woken up and caught her staring at him like that. She finally spotted her phone in between two pillows next to his body, but as she tried to reach her hand to take it, she felt one of his hands on her leg and gasped in surprise.

 “ Sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.” Shawn’s voice was husky and his eyes were sleepily looking at her as she turned around. He looked confused as to what she was doing standing there, his hand still holding the back of her leg as she tried to ignore how it seemed to burn her skin where he was touching her.

 Their eyes locked for a few seconds, Camila forgetting what she was doing there in the first place before finally pointing at her phone. Shawn took a second to understand what she meant, but then his hand left her leg so he could take her phone from the couch and hand it to her. Camila took a deep breath when he was no longer touching her leg, but to her surprise, she almost missed his foreign touch.

 She watched as Shawn sat up on the couch, stretching his body that was clearly not meant to spend the night on a tiny couch like that one. He rested his head on the back of the couch and closed his eyes, his hands trying to fix the mess of curls on his head. When he opened his eyes again, Camila quickly looked away, but he had obviously caught her watching him. Before her legs would give out under his stare, Camila took a seat next to him and unlocked her phone to text her aunt that she had gone out for a walk since it was almost time she got home from work. She had actually done that the previous Sunday, so her aunt wouldn’t think that was odd.

 “ Aren’t your parents worried that you didn’t go home?” Shawn asked, making her look up from her phone and smile at him, thinking it was sweet of him to worry about that. She shook her head before texting him too, explaining she lived with her aunt who worked during the nights. “ That seems very lonely.”

 Camila nodded her head, agreeing with him. It felt extremely lonely to stay at her aunt’s house all alone during the night, but she wasn’t sure how to acknowledge the fact that Shawn was suggesting that she could stay at his house again whenever she wanted. It was even more strange how she didn’t need many words from him to understand what he meant, she could just read it on his face.

Their arms were touching as she kept looking at him, her heart skipping a beat as he reached one hand and placed a strand of her hair behind her ear. A million thoughts passed through her mind at that moment as he kept his hand on her face, but a sound coming from down the hallway startled the both of them and suddenly Shawn was standing up.

 “ I should go check on my grandpa.” He quickly said before disappearing and leaving Camila staring at the point in the hallway where he disappeared. Was he really going to kiss her or was she imagining things?

 She didn’t want to think too much of it, so she stood up and walked to the kitchen. She didn’t know where anything was, but she knew Shawn wouldn’t mind if she looked around. The fridge didn’t seem to have much and before she could stop herself, she ended up checking the freezer as well. To her surprise, they had exactly what she was looking for, so she put some of it on a bowl she found on the cabinet and took a seat over the kitchen counter.

 “ You’re having ice cream for breakfast?” Shawn’s voice made her look up just as she put a spoon of vanilla ice cream on her mouth. Camila nodded as Shawn walked closer to her, trying to ignore as he looked at her legs hanging from the counter. “ You’re something else.” He laughed and she felt her face blushing, trying to ignore all the things she felt from hearing his beautiful and genuine laugh.