chapter eleven | when you smile, it kills me

FOR A LONG time, Mila stopped believing in love and any form of relationship. In her mind, it was burning red, which ended as soon as it started. Any time she had feelings for anyone, she dreaded it, she would try anything to avoid the heartbreak that would come with a relationship. She truly hated the idea of it.

She would lie, break peoples' hearts before they could break hers, and ghost anyone who showed interest in her. She did anything to avoid it, but with Gracie, things were different. When it came to Gracie, she wanted to jump right in.

Gracie made her believe in love again.

Now, Mila believed that love was as golden as the sunlight that filtered through her bedroom curtains, casting soft patterns across Gracie's sleeping face. It took everything in her not to grab her phone and take a photo of how adorable she looked; Gracie would have teased her, and she wished to avoid that. She had noticed an unfamiliar weight as she turned in bed to look at her sleeping girlfriend, realizing that Gracie's arm was lazily draped across her waist.

Instead of a physical photo, she decided to take a mental one instead. She stared at the woman sleeping next to her, a gentle smile on her face. Gracie looked like she was peaceful, the most that she had been in years. Mila couldn't believe that was because of her presence.

She was then pulled from her thoughts by the soft murmurs of Gracie stirring awake.

"You're staring again, Reyes," Gracie mumbled in a groggy voice.

Mila smiled at the sound of her girlfriend's voice. She thought it was the best sound in the world, even if she was the most tired person in the world. "Maybe I just like the view in front of me." She replied, a grin displayed on her face. "It is a very pretty view." She continued.

"Flattery before breakfast? What did you do?" She teased, cracking one eye open. Gracie flashed a tiredly lopsided smile at the sight of Mila rolling her eyes.

"You always assume I did something." She jokingly complained, soon pressing a quick kiss to her forehead.

She expected Gracie to continue the banter, but instead, she stretched and then wrapped her arm her Mila.

She pulled Mila closer as she let out a yawn. "You know, I could stay here in this bed all day." She pointed out and planted a kiss on Mila's temple. "Just you, me, and this bed." She added, her tired smile making its return.

As much as Mila would enjoy it, she remembered that Gracie told her she had a busy day. Who thought she would forget something she said less than twenty-four hours ago? "Don't you have a meeting with Jordan in a few hours?" She asked curiously. At the mention of the meeting, she heard Gracie let out a groan.

"Please don't ruin the moment."

"You're right, I'm sorry."

From that point, the two enjoyed each other's company, lying in bed where it was warm and comfortable. They talked, laughed, and exchanged kisses whenever they could. It was their idea of the perfect morning.

Gracie entered the sleek office space that belonged to her manager, soon feeling the buzz of her phone. The sign of a text. She pulled her phone out of her pocket and opened the conversation to see a selfie, Mila was sitting on her bedroom floor with a smile on her face, a guitar displayed in the background that leaned against the wall and a keyboard sat on her lap with a notebook next to her. She then followed that up with a text that said "Missing you already, see you soon <3."She smiled at the message, soon sending a quick text back and stuffing her phone back into her pocket.

Little did she know, Jordan was already in the office, waiting for her. She had waited longer than she cared to and she wasn't happy about it.

Jordan spun around in her chair to face her, gesturing for her to sit as she exhaled an angry breath. "You're late." She spoke annoyedly as Graci sat across from her.

"There was heavy traffic," Gracie replied with a shrug.

Jordan arched an eyebrow but chose to not comment any further. "Let's discuss your focus on the tour so far, once again, or the lack thereof." Jordan was getting straight to the point. Since Gracie was late, she had no time to beat around the bush. "With the Europe and UK leg of the tour starting up in a few months, we have to get this out of the way so we can better prepare."

She was bringing this up again? Gracie thought that after their first talk, she would leave it alone, but she was rehashing it. She just wanted to put this to rest.

"Are we seriously talking about this again?" She spoke with a defensive tone. She let out an annoyed breath as she ran her fingers through her hair. "I am giving it my all and I show that to you every single day. Right now, I'm just trying to rest a little while before I have to go into work mode again."

"Gracie, I've known you for years. I've never seen you so distracted before." She pointed out, now sitting up straight in her chair. She watched as Gracie scoffed and rolled her eyes. It was clear that Gracie was getting angrier by the moment. "I mean, you were late to this meeting! Not to mention you're always checking your phone as soon as it dings. Are you seeing the issue here?"

"I've been balancing everything just fine. Shows are great, fans are happy, I'm happy. What more do you want from me?"

Jordan knew the next thing that would be coming out of her mouth would sound harsh, but she had to say it. Something had to be said. "I want the old Gracie back, the one that took this seriously. The one who lived and breathed everything to do with her career, not this Gracie that lets her career take a backseat for...her."

The second she heard that last statement, she felt a twist in her stomach and leaned forward just a little bit to get her point across. "Don't you dare bring Mila into this." She spoke with a sharp and serious tone. She could blame this on anything, but she would not let Jordan bring her up like this. "She's done nothing but help with the tour and my career and brought me happiness. You might be my manager, but you're also my friend so I would think that you would be happy for me."

"I am happy for you, but as your manager, I have to advise that you focus on your career and you can't do that with distractions."

She couldn't believe that Jordan would say that to her face. She couldn't believe that she would say that about Mila, she always suspected that Jordan wasn't the biggest fan of Mila, but she never thought it was this bad. Once she let out a breath to calm down a little bit, Jordan took that as a chance to continue.

"I'm sure Camila is a nice girl, but this is your career, not hers. Are you with me?"

Gracie let out another breath, sadly nodding her head in agreement. Once the meeting was over, Gracie stood up from her seat and exited the office.

The later hours of the day had rolled around and they were sitting on a Facetime call. Mila was talking about her day, updating her on anything she had missed since she had been away for the day. In all honesty, Gracie wasn't paying attention to a single word she was saying. The second Mila's face popped up on the screen, everything else didn't matter.

All she could do was stare at her pretty face.

Mila stopped midsentence as she caught Gracie's gaze. She quickly realized what she was doing. "Staring at me again, I see?" she asked, her tone coming out teasingly.

"I can't help it; you just look so...comfy, " she replied absentmindedly. She earned a smile from her girlfriend. Mila's smile was one of her favorite things about her, along with her eyes. She could stare into them forever. That's what she was doing right now, even through a screen. "You have very pretty eyes." She blurted out with that same absentminded tone from before.

"What are you being so cheesy for? Did I miss your birthday or something?" She jokingly asked, soon letting out a laugh.

Gracie giggled as she shook her head. "No, I was just thinking about you and the tour. It's just crazy to me that one minute you were the girl who stole my mic during a soundcheck, and now, you're...everything." She explained, flashing her a warm smile.

No one had said that to Mila before. Now that she's heard that, she was afraid that she would never hear it again. "You're going to make me cry, stop it." She replied and wiped a tear from her eye. To cover the fact that she was close to crying, she let out a laugh until the crying feeling had passed. "Going back to being sarcastic and mean, I can't take this cheesy thing you have going." She added, soon earning a giggle from Gracie.

There was a beat of silence between them, Mila tried to stop herself from crying and Gracie continued to stare at her girlfriend. She admired how attractive she was, wondering how she got so lucky. As she thought about the path that got her to be in a relationship with Mila, it made her think about another song on the album that she wrote about Mila. She wrote it around the first time she met Mila.

She wouldn't tell her that though. At least not yet.

The two continued to talk into the late hours of the night. They talked about anything and everything that came to mind whether that be their family lives, their jobs, or anything else.

That went on until Mila fell asleep, it was the cutest thing she had ever seen. By the time she started to yawn, she knew it was time for bed too. She took one last look at her girlfriend before she spoke for the last time that night.

"Goodnight, pretty girl." She softly spoke with a tired grin, soon ending the call.

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AUTHORS NOTE!

i think this chapter might

be my favorite so far. on

another note, i love this

book so much😭. anyway,

i hope you all enjoyed and

i hope there's no mistakes!