Lauren Jauregui was the kind of person that was easily entertained. She could easily lose herself in the pages of a good book, or in the beats of a song. If it appealed to her heart, it could carry her away without effort until she forgot her own name. And she lived for these kind of things; the little things, she adored them. Orange skies when the sun is going down, the summer breeze drifting through open windows and making curtains flutter. She lived for the art that is the world; and it gave purpose to her life in so many ways.
She loved going onto spontaneous trips, loved to spend time with her friends, hanging out and talking until the sun came up.
She loved taking pictures of everything she saw, because everything was worth being captured for all of eternity. Especially her friends, they were worth being remembered forever.
Lauren Jauregui found joy in all the small things – but not now.
"Mani!" Lauren whined loudly, from her spot on the bed where she lay sprawled about, faced up at the ceiling. Her best friend, Normani, was sat at the desk, furiously tapping away on the keyboard of her laptop, lost in concentration. Lauren whined once more when she was obviously ignored.
"What?" Normani finally snapped, spinning her chair around swiftly, to face her annoying best friend.
"I am bored," Lauren simply said, eyes still locked on the white above her, failing to notice her friend rolling her eyes at her.
"Then do something."
"I would," The raven haired girl sighed, "But someone is too busy writing an essay."
She herself had finished the thing days ago, but then again, she didn't have a crazy schedule – unlike Normani. That girl just had so many things going on that Lauren wondered how she was able to get enough sleep at night. If she were the one running from class to dance to music to family – she'd be long buried under the ground; died from exhaustion.
A book was thrown into her direction and landed onto her stomach, which made Lauren grunt loudly.
"Hey, what was that for?" She complained loudly, finally pushing herself to sit upright and regard her friend.
"For that subtle dissing you just did," Was the response before the ebony girl faced her laptop again, back to ignoring Lauren, who groaned loudly again.
"Okay, that's it," Normani removed herself from her desk and walked over to Lauren, hand outstretched, "give me your phone."
Puzzled, Lauren handed it over and watched as Normani tapped away, ignoring her friend's questions.
After ten minutes, Normani handed her back the phone; at first, Lauren found nothing altered: there were no new messages in her inbox or on Facebook or Tumblr or whatever – so what was it exactly that Normani did? But then she noticed the little icon – it vaguely resembled Tinder.
"No, Mani!" Lauren already got onto her high horse. There was no fricken way she would ever stoop to installing Tinder on her phone – desperate to get laid or meet anyone. She was perfectly happy being single, thank you very much, and she did not need fuckboys and fuckgirls blowing up her phone; or however the damn app worked.
Normani simply held up a sole finger to silence Lauren, her look actually stern. The raven girl had never actually seen her friend look so stern; she surely felt intimated. She fell silent right away.
"It's actually Hinder," Normani explained slowly, as if she were talking to a five-year old. Lauren felt offended, but she dared not to say anything. "And it's an app for people who are on a Tinder date but need assistance getting out of it. It's a new little thing. Maybe you can go do that and stop bothering me – go save some damsel in distress and do the world a favour."
Lauren's only logical reaction to Mani's sass was sticking out her tongue, but it went unnoticed for Normani had already turned her back at her.
"And put that tongue back in your mouth, you nasty."
**
After that, Normani had refused to pay Lauren any attention, so the girl had found no other option than to browse through Tumblr while her friend tapped away at her laptop. She was still utterly bored, and the Hinder app had done nothing to entertain her. Until –
Camila (19), Miami, is seeking assistance. Show message attached.
Curiously, Lauren tapped on the notification. Immediately, the app popped up onto her screen, and the message made her chuckle, for it read, 'Help! Bored to death.'
Me too, Lauren thought sourly. Quickly, she tapped the 'accept' button, not even considering to decline, and the address showed up.
"Bye," Lauren merely said as she grabbed her bomber jacket and donned it over her crop top. She wasn't acknowledged but it didn't faze her; she was on a mission, after all.
Her mission took her to a coffee shop, a five minute walk from their college campus. As soon as she walked into broad daylight, she looked down to give herself a quick once-over. Ripped shorts, crop top, bomber jacket; nothing wrong with that. She was only going to crash a date, after all.
She hurried over to the shop and soon she was standing in front of it. It wasn't that crowded and she could easily observe every person sitting in it.
She fished her phone out of her pocked and re-opened the app so she could peer at the little profile picture that Camila had provided. After she had studied it, she looked into the shop again, seeing if she could spot the girl.
And sure enough, there she was. She was pretty.
Lauren had a clear view onto her face, as she was sat facing the window, and she looked extremely bored. Her eyes – Lauren couldn't tell which colour – were darting through the shop every thirty seconds, as if she was avoiding looking at the man before her. Lauren could only see his back, but from Camila's expression alone, she could tell that the man was nothing impressive.
Nervously, Lauren combed through her wild, wavy locks, bracing herself to walk to the door and crash that date. As her hand gripped the door knob, she realized she had no clue what she was doing. She froze, knuckles pale as her grip tightened. She was about to just burst in and save this girl from a boring date – without a plan.
"Stupid," She muttered to herself, stomping her foot in a rather childish manner. She stood there cussing herself for several minutes until someone behind her cleared their throat – obviously on their way in, and she had no choice but to open the door and do this.
"Okay, Jauregui," She said under her breath. "You can do this."
The person who urged her to open the door looked at her strangely as they got in front of her, and she swore she could see them subtly shake their head.
Great, she thought as she walked further into the shop. She contemplated ordering some kind of cold beverage – it was really hot outside – but decided against it.
Lauren turned so she was faced in the date's direction, and took two, three deep breaths. Her whole frame moved as she exaggerated the breaths to calm her nerves, then nodded to herself shortly – and went right for it.
"Gosh, I am so sorry," She said hurriedly as she dramatically let herself fall down onto an empty chair at Camila and her boring date's table. "I am terribly late."
Camila blinked once as she turned to regard Lauren, clearly flabbergasted that someone was joining them. But if she looked surprised, the man looked far worse. Lauren could see his face now; he was plain. Not ugly, but not that handsome either. She felt sorry for Camila right away – the man was wearing a tailored suit and she could tell just from sight he was probably a business man who had fit the date into a tight spot for the girl, expecting his date to fall at his feet because he looked so neat. Ugh, Lauren hated men like that.
She left no room for the two to recover though, knowing she had the element of surprise on her side now.
"Camila," She continued on, waving her hand through the air into the man's direction. "You didn't say this handsome man was joining!"
"Oh.. Uh," Camila spluttered in her haste to continue the charade. "I guess I forgot."
Lauren grinned widely at the girl's antics, and she found it endearing that the girl's cheeks actually reddened.
"No matter," She waved it off quickly, the man still not having said a word. "I'm Lauren."
She held out her hand for the man politely, who took it hesitantly.
"Austin," He grimly said. Lauren shook his hand shortly and made sure to keep eye-contact as she reached for a napkin and very obviously wiped off her hands.
His dull brown eyes followed her movements and she could clearly see the offense on his face, but her grin did not falter for a second; on the contrary, it only grew wider.
Lauren knew she had a reputation to come off as intimidating, and she was sure going to use it to her advantage. Especially her eyes had this effect on people, so she made sure to keep her piercing stare onto the man. He shifted uncomfortably under her gaze, until finally, she decided to give him a break and turned to Camila.
"I'm sorry I'm so late again," She apologized again, "I just came from that coffee date, you know."
"Oh, yeah," Camila eagerly dove into the open invitation for a conversation not including Austin. "How was it?"
"Terrible," Lauren sighed. "This dude would just not stop talking about himself. About how he was such a big shot at his job – as if."
Her gaze returned to Austin again very subtly, who was now frowning, eyes locked on his cup of coffee. He was stirring through it absentmindedly, obviously not interested in what was going on now that his spiel was interrupted.
"Yeah, it's very boring when people just keep talking about themselves..." Camila said slowly, but it fell onto deaf ears.
Lauren waved to a waitress to order, hoping to prolong her stay until the man got bored and left. Camila placed another order as well, and so the charade continued.
After twenty minutes, Austin still hadn't left and Lauren was actually impressed with his willpower – she thought he would have left a long time ago. But no, here he was, his predatory gaze now locked onto Camila. He had been staring at her for the past ten minutes now and it was truly cringe-worthy, but the other girl had perfected her game in avoiding his gaze; she solely paid attention to Lauren as they pretended to be good friends catching up after having not seen each other for a few weeks.
Lauren was bored of the dude though, and determined to win this round; so after five more minutes, she glanced at her watch quite obviously.
"Oh, shoot," She said, quite alarmed, her emerald eyes locking with Camila's warm, chocolate eyes. "Look at the damn time. We're going to be late for our dinner reservations!"
She stood up and grabbed Camila's wrist gently, tugging her along before Austin could actually say something.
"Can you take care of the bill?!" She shouted back over her shoulder as she dragged the Cuban girl along with her out of the shop. They hurried along until they rounded the corner, where Lauren finally let go of the girl. There, she allowed herself to burst into laughter – Camila joining her almost immediately.
After a minute or two, her own laughter died down as Camila still continued to giggle. She smiled warmly. She really liked how bright the Cuban girl looked now – sunshine lighting up her face as her laugh brightened up her day.
"Thank you, Lauren," Camila finally said when she had calmed, hand gently placed onto the raven haired girl's arm. Her hand felt warm and Lauren's smile only grew wider. Their eyes locked again and Lauren could feel a blush creeping up.
"Thank you," Lauren simply said, which caused for Camila to blush this time. They stood there, both of their feet shuffling for a minute.
"I – ah," Camila finally started shyly. "I should go. Thank you, again."
"Yeah. Don't worry about it. Take care."
With one last look at each other, both girl turned away from each other.
Lauren Jauregui smiled the whole walk back to her campus dorm, her heart fluttering lightly. Her step was bouncy and free. She actually whistled when she opened up her dorm.
Yeah, Lauren enjoyed the little things in life; such as rescuing a damsel in distress.
**
A/N: hiiiii it's me again. This is a new idea I came up with; not sure if one shot or short fic. Whatcha think? Feedback me! And don't worry, an update for Tessellate is coming soon.
Love you guys.