Facing Carmilla on her doorstep at 2:30 in the morning, Laura felt like she might be starting to lose her mind. Surely her sanity was slipping - that was the only explanation for the way her body was betraying her right now. The magnetic pull she felt was daring and obvious and Laura thought for sure that Carmilla must notice the tilt of her head, the glance down at her lips, and the slight lean closer than was warranted.
Laura did not pine. In fact, she strived to live her life as fully as possible, which she considered the opposite of pining. How was it only days ago that she'd showed up for camp normal as ever, with absolutely nothing distracting her from her summer goals? But here she was stalling outside her own dormitory door, desperate to be kissed.
She thought seriously about inviting her in - all the ridiculous cliches they'd shared tonight were clearly working their movie magic and she was swept up in a firestorm of wanting. Get it together, Hollis.
"So this is me," Laura said, and she leaned forward on the balls of her feet as she rolled her bottom lip between her teeth. She could feel the energy between the two of them drawing her in closer to Carmilla. "I had a really nice time tonight, Carmilla… thank you," Laura softly said.
Blushing, Carmilla nervously smirked as she played with the hem of the flannel Laura still had wrapped around her. "Well cutie, we'll have to do it again some time," Carmilla said.
Leaning further in, Laura's voice dropped down several octaves as she said, "I look forward to that." Laura hovered close, close enough to smell something earthy and warm and completely Carmilla. For the second time tonight, she knew she was toeing the line of what was appropriate for this situation. Undressing on the beach had been enough of a tease, surely. But her body was moving now almost out of her control. She slowly slung one arm around Carmilla's shoulders, pulling her even closer. Laura leaned in slowly, her eyes darting from Carmilla's mouth to her startled eyes back to her mouth. Laura placed a soft kiss just on the corner of her lips, lingering longer than she should have.
Laura finally pulled back and saw that Carmilla's face held no reaction at all. She just stared, seemingly awestruck. Laura gave her shoulders one final squeeze and then entered her dorm room, shutting the door softly behind her.
The Saturday after the bonfire dawned bright, warm and California-perfect. Laura stretched her arms above her pillow and felt the nice pull of her stomach muscles as she yawned. She could hear Betty still snoring softly across the room.
She allowed herself a moment to feel the emotional repercussions of the previous night. She'd willingly gotten into Carmilla Karnstein's car, in front of all of her cheerleading buddies, and sped away from a raucous party into the unknown night. When she left a party with someone, it was the kind of thing people noticed. When you left a party with a band nerd in her seriously hot black sportscar, people really noticed.
When you didn't even bother texting your friends that you made it home because you were too distracted by the sight of Karnstein's long fingers gripped tight against the steering wheel, well… that started to sound like a different problem altogether.
Laura rolled over on her side to face away from Betty, as if she needed to hide her train of thought from her friend.
What had really happened though? She tried to reason with herself. Nothing. They'd hung out on the beach, linked arms for a few moments, Karnstein had given her a flannel to wear… ah shit, she thought as she looked down at herself.
She'd stumbled in tired and a little buzzed. She had changed from her cutoffs and bikini bottoms into some small cotton sleep shorts, but her top half was still covered by her bikini top and Karnstein's shirt. If Betty woke up even slightly more sober than she'd been last night, Laura's state of dress would look pretty incriminating.
She stood up quietly before Betty had a chance to regain consciousness and padded over to change. She dropped the shirt onto her bed and smiled to herself. All those cheesy one-liners guys loved to use on her - nice shirt babe, but I think it would look better on my floor - and suddenly she was overwhelmed with happiness seeing Karnstein's shirt there instead of some guy's. She didn't want to examine that one too closely - that was enough ruminating on her feelings for this beautiful of a Saturday. She threw on her workout clothes, grabbed her headphones, and bounded out the door.
