Tesoro

13 | Stolen Cigarette

"On other news" Nick cleared his throat "Eric and I finally decided on the wedding date"

"Ouuu no you did not?" Camille grinned at him "When?"

"February 14th" he winked, dragging a chair so he could sit by the island and keep talking to us as we cooked.

"Valentine's Day?" Camille and I questioned in one breath.

"Oui" he raised his eyebrows "What's more romantic than getting married on the day de l'amour? Plus, remembering our wedding anniversary won't be difficult" he shrugged, then pointed to us "Don't tell him I said that"

"You're going to have your anniversary and valentine's in one day?" Camille raised her eyebrows.

Just as Nicolas was about to speak up again, we heard the door open.

We all raised our eyebrows at each other, and moments later, Gema walked in the kitchen wearing her silky green dress.

I started at her.

She stared back at me.

Then, she grinned "Oh Laura... It was great"

"Oh?" I blinked, and she nodded, sequeling in happiness before running up to hug me.

I hugged her back- but she could barely hold still. She was very jumpy, and ended up throwing her hands over Nick's shoulders and kissing his cheek as he was sitting instead.

He turned his head to her "Damn it went that well? You haven't kissed my cheek in years"

"Yes, well" she tucked a strand of hair behind her ears, sitting next to Nicolas "I don't even know where to start"

I was finding it hard to fully break out a smile for Gema, even when I knew how truly important this date had been to her.

To be truthful, she'd been through a lot in the last few months.

She broke up with her boyfriend of two years now almost a year ago, then lost her job three months after that.

She fell into quite a depression because of it- similar to what I went through when I broke it off with my last boyfriend as well.

Except, our ways of coping were vastly different.

I went to therapy, tried to drown my sorrows in alcohol alone in my room, cried a lot, and overworked myself to the brim.

She on the other hand, cried about it for a week or so, before deciding that she wanted to return to her roots.

The 'party girl' she'd always been.

So there came in and out different boys every few days or so. She was doing a lot of one night stands, and while she'd turned that down a notch lately, she was very much still about that life.

Which honestly, I was sort of jealous of.

I didn't have the ability to sleep with anyone just like that. I needed to feel connection, chemistry, anything outside of being pleased with what I saw.

Either way, the fact that she still had no job was becoming quite an issue... but maybe, this date with Ross was the start of something new. Maybe if things went well with him, she might get inspired to go into more work interviews, and not disregard the fact that she needed to pay her side of rent.

And even when I thought about it like that- my chest tightned.

I wasn't sure why, but I felt uncomfortable, and a little iffy on her actually dating him. Maybe it was because I saw him every day at work.