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Chapter 3

"I just don't know what's gotten into her. It's like she's on drugs. Or insanely hormonal," Dinah complained as she and Lauren dodged the slower walkers on the street. She stopped when she saw a lady trying to pass with a baby stroller. "Oh my God, Lauser, do you think she's pregnant?"

Lauren, who hadn't stopped, turned on her heel and slapped her across the face in one fluid motion. "Don't ever put that out into the universe, Dinah Jane Hansen."

Dinah, who was in minor shock, reached up to work out the stinging in her jaw. "Good grief, woman!"

"Do you have any idea what that would do to us?" The publicist asked Ariana's personal designer with a finger pointing hard at her chest. She shivered in her moderately expensive boots. "Ariana. Pregnant. She'd be a fucking demon on speed. She'd make Hitler look like a decent guy who was just a little misunderstood. And the spawn? I can't even imagine what kind of evils would be packed into a Grande/Davidson hybrid. It boggles the mind."

"Chill out!" Dinah Jane yelled. She stretched her mouth a few directions still trying to get the kinks out. "That was completely unnecessary, by the way."

"The slap or the implication that Ariana's baby would be a be a tiny Lord Voldemort?"

Dinah looked affronted by the question. "The slap," she practically squalled. "Ariana's potential child would absolutely be a tiny Lord Voldemort...with Pete's dopey grin."

"I can already see the gassy infant look on an actual gassy infant."

"While I agree that I'm tempting the fates," Dinah said between trying to pop to her jaw back in place, "that really hurt."

Lauren reached up and pinched her cheek. "Sorry, Porcelain."

"Ow," the woman pushed her hand away. "I asked you never to call me that."

"It's cute, and you can't argue your a delicate quality," Lauren said as she turned and continued down the sidewalk.

Dinah rushed to catch up with her. "You never did mention how lunch with Lucy went," she said as she tucked her arm through hers.

"I didn't," the woman dismissed the implied question as they walked step for step.

"How is she?"

"Married."

Dinah tugged on her arm. "C'mon, Lauren. How is she doing?"

"Great," Lauren shrugged. "That's what she told me."

"Well good for her."

Lauren nodded, "Yep."

"You haven't convinced her to move back yet?"

"Nope, she's a mother. She has a family now," the raven reached up to tug at her easy to manage ponytail as they entered one of the nicest buildings on the Upper West Side. "She's happy where she is, DJ."

"Oo-kay."

"What?"

"Nothing."

"I'm just saying," she said, pulling one hand up defensively.

"Well, stop just saying," she ordered. "What about you, what's going on with you?"

"I just happen to have a date this Friday," Dinah confessed. "Assuming Ariana Grande's oh-so-important schedule doesn't interfere."

"That's great, DJ," Lauren smiled genuinely. "Who's the lucky fella?"

"I don't really know her all that well. We met at one of Ariana's soirees, I think she's a senator's daughter."