Losers In Love ❁ d.j.h

• chapter seven •

"Are you sure you don't want me to drive? It says..." Dinah clicked on another button, pulling up a rest stop in Fort Worth. "Two hours and forty seven minutes."

Normani's eyes were barely showing emotion as she focused on the road. She had both hands on the wheel and an air of calm surrounding her. Her shoulders barely moved in a shrug when she spoke.

"I'm not letting a stranger drive my car."

Dinah sent a screenshot off to Isley before clicking into a different chat with someone else. Her fingers moved slowly to type back a suggestive text before her eyes traveled over to the brunette.

"How long are we gonna be strangers? Because so far, I've seen you like four times now,"

"Not by choice."

"And we've been texting back and forth for like a week,"

"A simple how are you does not count."

"And we've kissed."

"Being in someone's mouth does not make them less than strangers." Normani noted.

Dinah smirked. "I can think of several instances in which that makes someone less than strangers."

Normani's face screwed up. "Do you ever not do that?"

"Do what?"

"Flirt."

The blonde feigned innocence closing her phone and ignoring the residual buzz of a text. "I'm not flirting."

The brunette rolled her eyes, turning on her blinker to switch lanes. Dinah smoothed a hand over her gloves.

"Besides, it's probably better that you don't use your hands as much. I've seen the bruises... That's gotta hurt. Especially with nothing to soften the skin."

"I can think of something that—"

"Don't. Please don't go there."

Dinah chuckled, holding her hands up. "Okay. Okay, I'll stop." She checked the phone in her lap, mouthing the text to herself before snorting and closing it again. She looked out the window. "I should've smoked before we got in the car."

Normani didn't have an answer for that. The car was painfully quiet with little to no music, and sure, Dinah liked getting under her skin but not enough to get kicked out of her car. She had a feeling touching the radio would do that.

"Why don't you like smoking anyway?"

Normani's mouth drew into a thin line. Her eyes could practically glaze over from all of the memories of the short, pudgy black woman holding the cigarette to her lips. Empty promises and beer bottles she couldn't bring herself to throw away, even when they were years old. She'd wash them out and fill them with water, and preserve them until they were the only 'cups' in the house. Her mother was sentimental like that, refusing to throw out any reminders of the men she slept with, even if none of them were good. And then she'd go to work to an office job every Monday with even her doobie smelling like olive oil and cigarettes.

Normani hated every second. Hated her for never knowing how to quit while she was ahead.

Well, she did eventually learn. But it was always at the expense of Normani.