Rivals // Norminah

53

"Lani if you don't stop fucking moving I won't be able to tie this properly" I groan.

"Well this fucking collar is itchy man!" She starts tugging at the suits collar. I slap her hand.

"Stop it! You're messing it up!" I continue adjusting her green tie. I tug it down and smooth it out before taking a step back and glancing at my work. "Damn, I made you look handsome as fuck" I smile.

"I mean, that's not hard when I'm built like a a damn God" Lani starts posing in the mirror. I let out a light laugh as I sit down in the chair in the fitting room, crossing my legs.

"Right, sure" I chuckle. She continues posing in the mirror before spinning and looking at me.

"What are you gonna wear?" She asks. I shrug.

"I don't think I'll be wearing anything"

"Damn, that's hot" She smirks. I roll my eyes.

"What I mean is, Dinah hasn't asked me yet so I don't have anything"

"Does she need to ask you?" Kehlani asks. I raise my eyebrow.

"What do you mean?" Lani turns back to the mirror adjusting the bottom of her suit.

"I mean, I'm pretty sure she just assumed y'all would be going together. I mean I did. Does she actually need to ask?" I scoff.

"You asked Dua with a damn song" I point out.

"That's because we had a conversation a few months ago where Dua wanted me to ask her properly for our senior year" Lani slides her jacket off and hangs it on a hook.

"We'll I shouldn't have to ask. It should just be known, and Dinah's ass knows I'm extra so she should know I want a damn promposal of some sort" I express. She shrugs.

"We'll see if she does. Not really in the position to talk to her about it" Lani starts to loosen her tie. I cross my arms.

"You guys still haven't talked at all?" I ask.

"Not much to talk about Mani" I sigh.

"There's a lot for you to talk about. You guys are best friends for Christ sake!"

"Well maybe best friends are overrated. Maybe it was a matter of time before Dinah and I split" Lani stares at herself in the mirror deep in thought. She sighs before shaking her head. "I'm gonna go pay for this" She says holding up her jacket and tie leaving me alone in the fitting room.

I can't believe I ruined their friendship...

-

"I can't believe she's staying with me for these next two weeks!!" Vanessa says bouncing up and down in my passenger seat as we head to the airport. Her girlfriend, Madelaine, is flying down to stay with her these next two weeks for prom. And as you can tell, she's very excited about it.

"We'll I'm excited to meet the girl who has to deal with your personality indefinitely" I joke.

"Good, cause honestly I think you're gonna love her!" She says excitedly. We pull into the airport and slowly cruise through the arrival lanes. "Oh my god, there she is!!" Vanessa yells pointing a gingered girl with a suitcase by her side.

I slowly pull over and before I even have a chance to put the car in park, Vanessa has already open the passenger side door and is hopping out.

"Mads!!" V runs to her wrapping her legs around her girlfriends waist and arms around her neck. Madelaine spins her around while laughing.

"Hi beautiful, I missed you!" She says smiling. Vanessa lets go of her dropping back to the ground, and kissing her girlfriend.

"I missed you too" She happily smiles. "Oh, this is my friend Normani or Mani" Madelaine turns and looks at me while pulling me into a hug.

"Nice to meet you and thank you for taking care of this loser for me" She says pulling away. I let out a laugh.

"Nice to meet you too Madelaine, and she's a lot to take care of" I smile.

"Oh please, call me Mads. We're not strangers" She smiles.

"Now that that's out of the way, let's roll people!" Vanessa says shoving Mads suitcase in the back of the trunk. "I have a lot of pent up sexual energy so drive us home fast Mani" I roll my eyes.

"I'm so sorry you've had to deal with her this long" Mads jokes. I chuckle.

"It's been a rough time" We all get in the car and begin our journey to Vanessa's house. "So tell me, how did y'all meet?" I ask glancing through the rear view at Madelaine.

"Theater class our freshman year actually. As cheesy as it sounds, it was during casting for our first ever play Romeo and Juliet. We went to a school for the arts, so you can imagine how competitive the casting and auditions were" Mads explains.

"Yeah, it was actually very stressful, but also fun at the same time" V adds.

"Exactly. Anyways, I blew the directors away with my audition for Juliet and immediately got the role so they asked me to stand in and help with the Romeo auditions for chemistry. So before V went, this kid named KJ went first and had a pretty great audition. It was gonna be hard for someone to beat him, and Vanessa was already at a disadvantage for being a woman... so what did she do?" Mads smirks. I glance at Vanessa next to me.

"Before she continues, in my defense I had to stand out and I also saw hot attractive she was so I had to kill two birds with one stone" I playfully roll my eyes.

"This girl came in a full Romeo get up while deliver the lines with perfection, and this wasn't apart of the script, but she dipped me down and kissed me right there in front of the directors. Then afterwards had the confidence to ask me on a date afterwards"

"Which obviously she said yes to" Vanessa smirks.

"You were cute"

"Still am" Vanessa flips her hair. I laugh.

"Anyways, how has my girl been fitting in?" Madelaine asks.

"Oh, she's a crowd pleaser for sure. Came in real strong with the confidence and everything. All my friends loved her immediately, and she surprisingly earned my girlfriends like which is very hard as a new person" I say keeping my eyes on road.

"Dinah, right?" She asks. I nod.

"Correct. Yeah, her whole palm reading thing really clinched the deal" I smile. Vanessa glances back at her girlfriend light snickering. Mads playfully shakes her head.

"Vanessa, you dumb bitch. You didn't..." Mads jokes. Vanessa starts laughing. I eye them a little weird.

"Did I miss something?" I chuckle.

"This hoe can't read palms Mani" Mads laughs. "She just deep dives through your Instagram, Twitter, etcetera to get info on people"

"But how'd she know about Dinah and I then?" I glance at V.

"I may or may not have picked up on the energy, looks, and tension off you guys" Vanessa shyly says. I punch her in the shoulder.

"I can't believe you" I laugh.

"I needed to make a good impression" She laughs.

"And you went with palm reading?" She shrugs. We all laugh and continue chatting it up until I drop them off at Vanessa's house. We say our goodbyes and I head back home.