Do You Trust Me?

Chapter Ten

NOT PROOFREAD

Normani

I'll learn every single way.

"I can't believe you flew in for this," I laughed while watching Lauren groggily walk next to me. She'd been saying how she wanted to come to our games since the start of my freshman year, but her work kept her from her own personal plans. I never blamed her for it. If anything I was the one telling her to not worry about it. It warmed my heart a little when it'd get texts after my game only to find out she'd been watching all along through live broadcasts.

"This is your first game against Stanford," Lauren scoffed while fixing her long locks up into a ponytail. I was able to see her closely now. Dark circles under her eyes while her skin scarily got whiter. Even through the baggy tee shirt from Catalina's tour I could see she'd gotten thinner, but from what I've seen on her stories she'd been seeing a trainer. Along with spending a lot of time doing other gigs besides music. "I had to see you up against Dinah. It took-what-three years for this match to finally happen?" It settled me to see the small excited smile grow on her lips.

Something had happened on the tour Catalina. I found out through social media that their tour together got cut short due to some unexplained problem between the teams. A very vague statement was released on Lauren socials of how something had come up and she wouldn't finish the Latin America leg and not go on the Asia tour. It seemed like Lauren wasn't in charge of those kind of things anymore since everything was a either a candid or professional shot of her. The captions were never even there or just photo credits. She was completely gone from the internet.

Looking over I met tired green eyes only to have her smile at me, "What?"

Lauren still hasn't talked about it. I don't even want to bring it up because I don't know how bad it was.

"Don't you think you should've covered up more?" I joked while pulling my shades off my head and handing them to her, "I don't want people to jump you while we walk around."

I met Lauren out by the team's bus. Thankfully security guards understood why she wanted to be dropped off by the buses and moved the barriers out of the way. They believed her after a whole bus got a look of her peaking her head out the window and started yelling for her. One of the younger guards even pulled up on a Segway and excitedly offered to show her around, but Lauren explained that I waiting for her.

I pulled off my numbered hoodie and handed it over, "Here. It is kinda cold in there." I shrugged while being okay with my long sleeved Duke shirt, "They also sell merch for the championship."

"Are you nervous?" Lauren asked me as she pulled on the hoodie, "This kinda being the biggest game of the season...and playing against your girlfriend."

I shook my head as we walked in through a side door of the arena where the guards had been let known about Lauren's presence. The guy that'd moved the gate had told her he'd get us in through another way since the front would cause a ruckus. "No...just...Impatient."

"What?" Lauren chucked with her hands on the hoodie pocket, "You already want to get in there and play?"

"No. More like to see Dinah." I admitted begrudgingly while whipping my phone out to see no new texts from her.

"Oh," Lauren held out and even bumped me playfully. I looked over from my phone to see her smirking at me, "Can't wait to be with her again, huh?"

I felt my mouth go dry before quickly shaking my head, "N-No! She's been avoiding me."

"I was just kidding," she said and I could hear the concern slowly coming in her voice, "I-Are you guys doing alright? Is she still worried about the distance?"