Room 47 // Laurmani

Chapter 8

"Jesus fucking Christ you moron" 

"I-I-I'm sorry ma'am, I'm new here" the coffee man looks at you in alarm over the counter. He looks foreign, and you're pretty certain he sounds Italian. He scratches his brow and his bushy moustache practically quivers in fear. You must have some pretty fucking awesome death stare. 

You and Dinah are both in the line at Starbucks and it's Tuesday but you don't see Lauren till after your work so your mood is not going to be great anyway, but you're especially pissed off right now, this moron has gotten your order wrong twice. Dinah grabs the side of your arm, "Relax Normani," she says trying to calm you, "You'll get your coffee" 

"I. Want. A. Peppermint. Mocha" you state slowly to him, pounding your hand on your palm with each syllable. "Not a Caramel Brulée or a Peppermint Frappuccino, which FYI is a totally different thing" 

A blonde woman comes over and gives you your order, "sorry about the inconvenience, please have this on the house as our means of apology" 

"Thank you," you say exasperated. 

"You are a very mean woman," the Italian man growls at you. "Huh, is that right gilipollas?" you give a short laugh. "You can suck my dick for all I care Mario" you turn around and quickly walk away to one of the tables, making sure you flip him your middle finger over your shoulder as you go. 

You're especially crabby because for the last two nights you've lost sleep thinking about Lauren. Most of your stray thoughts end up reliving the scene in her garage all over again and it saddens you. You're not sure if you are aroused by it, OK you are, but mostly it just unsettles you. You need to get her out of your head. 

"Nice sweater" Dinah snorts at you as you walk toward your table. "Fuck off," you snarl at her. Yeah, you're wearing the lizard sweater again but it's cold out and you love it. Big fucking deal. It's awesome. 

"Lord, Normani what is up with you today? Are you on your period or something?" Dinah asks as you both sit down. "Seriously, what is wrong, and don't say it's the coffee order I can tell it's a lot more than that" 

Fuck. 

You blink at her and again you are debating whether or not to tell her about everything, last time you held out because you hadn't really admitted to yourself how you felt about Lauren. Now though things are different, if only slightly, OK, you like Lauren but you're not gay, you can't be and you've pretty much admitted out loud to Lauren you like her too, although you're pretty sure the noirette already knew anyway. Why not tell Dinah? Truth is you're quite scared really. She's either going to think you're a freak or laugh at you, but you feel yourself slowly going crazy so you need to tell someone. 

You take a deep breath and look at her, "Dinah, I need to tell you something and I need you to promise you won't freak out, or judge me" Dinah's eyes go wide, "OK Normani spill it because you are really starting to scare me" 

You run your finger along your lip in thought, thinking of how to even put everything into words. "I...I think I...OK I have feelings for someone who isn't Keith" you state and scrunch your face up awaiting the backlash. 

You watch as Dinah's mouth drops slowly open and instead of drinking her coffee she puts it back down again and stares at you in disbelief. "OK," she says slowly, narrowing her eyes at you, "Let's just be rational here, I mean you've been with Keith since high school right? Having a crush is totally-" "It's not crush," you interrupt her, at least of that you are certain, "It's a full-blown feelings thing, like completely drowning in feelings and can't stop thinking about them and I feel fucking sick most of the time" 

"A-are you serious? Maybe that's your depression or something" You scoff, "Ironically I'm only happy recently when I'm with..." you trail because you're almost scared to say 'her' out loud. "Who is he? Is it someone I know?" Dinah asks nervously.