lovesick

fourteen

"And you can say whatever you want about Dinah Jane, the girl made a name for herself already. It's been what? Two months? And she's all we've talked about since."

"No, I'm not saying she's not impressive, calm down, Jude. All I'm saying is— when is she dropping a song by herself? We all want to know if she can make a number one without a big name next to hers."

The blonde leaned forward in the car and switched the radio station herself. Steven and Patrick were too engrossed in their own conversation to realize what had been said on it.

"Sorry, D, I didn't notice you didn't like the station." Steven apologized. His wavy hair had been brushed back today and Dinah was given the blessing of seeing his light eyes. She would be lying if she said she hadn't thought he was attractive. He smiled at her and the blonde's cheeks went pink. "We'll drop you at the interview and walk in with you, you know the drill. When we get there, I'll see if stopping for pictures is a good idea or not."

Dinah nodded her head.

"Okay, got it."

He turned back around after that and continued his conversation with Patrick while Dinah got sucked in by a series of different thoughts. She was nervous about the interview she had to do, but that wasn't even on the forefront of her mind.

Normani had been all she thought about. Normani's voice, Normani's smile, Normani's boldness and her infuriatingly charismatic ways. She was just never afraid to speak her mind and Dinah wished she could have even an inch of her courage. It was amazing to her, the way the darker girl could command the attention of a whole room, just by entering it. She liked that she was one of the very few people that Normani talked to and seemed to actually like.

"Dinah, we're here. But the entrance looks crowded— Patrick, can you drive round back?"

The blonde put her phone away and made sure to silence it so she wasn't distracted. She needed her full attention on the task at hand, which was surviving the interview.

She watched a group of people stare after the Jeep, some were paparazzi, with large cameras in hand waiting to snap pictures and others were supporters that had come just to see her. Dinah turned to Steven.

"Can't we just stop for a second? They're not that many."

The man flexed his fingers out of habit, and eyed the group for himself. He looked back at Dinah and let a smile take over his face, which let her know that she had won.

"Fine, but not for long. You can't be late to the interview anyway."

Patrick gave a disapproving grunt, but he couldn't exactly tell Dinah no. His job was to protect her, not make decisions for her.

He pulled into the reserved parking space, and got out of the car. It wasn't long after when Dinah heard her door open. She looked around in her purse instead of getting out immediately, and searched for a compact mirror. Patrick and Steven exchanged looks.

"What are you doing?"

The blonde smoothed lip gloss onto plump lips and then turned to look at him. "Touching up my makeup? I don't want to look bad in the pictures I'm about to take with them."

"I don't think they'll care." Steven laughed.

Dinah laughed along but it was short. "They won't, but I will. I don't need ugly pictures of me on the internet."

The two men exchanged another glance.

Fifteen minutes later, after close lipped smiles and brief hugs mixed with signing of cards, books, phone cases— anything they had on them, Dinah was finally seated in a couch opposite two interviewers. She recognized one of them from a reality television show that used to run but was probably canceled by now. So far, the questions had all been the same as the ones she received before in other interviews with Lauren or Normani. The same old, boring questions: Music, dating, crushes, future features then back to— so are you thinking of dating anyone?