The Sun, the Moon, the Stars, I'll Give It All

10

Ally scrunched her nose a bit before she responded. "One of the adults yelled when Lauren spilled her cup. It was scary."

Normani tilted her head to the side. "Well, that wasn't very nice of them," she said. "Dinah and I know that accidents happen, and we won't be mad if you make a mess by accident. Even if you did something on purpose, we would never yell at you to scare you."

She looked back to the bed and found Lauren's water bottle, with the lid screwed off as they girls had explained. "Let's keep this on from now on, okay? Having wet sheets and blankets isn't very fun."

Both girls nodded, and they seemed to have visibly relaxed at the older woman's gentle tone of voice.

Normani gathered up the sheets, deciding she may as well throw Ally's in the wash, and headed to the laundry room. Ally and Lauren followed along behind her. Lauren dragged her Simba stuffie along by the tail.

"What do the two of you want for breakfast today?" Normani asked after getting the washer going. She was surprised to see Dinah already in the kitchen making coffee. "What are you doing up?"

Dinah shrugged. "Heard you talking with the cubs. Couldn't go back to sleep after that."

Lauren pouted and crossed her arms over her chest, shaking her head furiously. "No, I Lauren. Not cub. I Lauren.

"It's, it's a nickname?" Ally asked. "Like, like Lolo?"

Dinah nodded. "Yeah, it's just a nickname. I don't mean anything bad by it," she assured, smiling softly at the girls. "I do think Ally and little Nala here should take a nap before we go," she said to Normani.

Ally frowned and watched the couple skeptically. "Go where?"

Normani smiled reassuringly. "There's a park around the block we can walk to. What do you and Lauren think about going there today?"

Lauren, who had been giving Dinah her best angry glare for calling her 'Nala', started bouncing on her feet and clapped enthusiastically.

Ally considered the question for a moment, and then nodded excitedly. "Are there, are there swings? I like them a lot."

"Yep, there are swings," Dinah said as she filled two cups of juice for the girls. "And some slides, and monkey bars. I'm pretty sure this park also has a sandpit."

"Dinah also bought some stuff to take with," Normani added. "But you'll see that later. Right now, the two of you need to eat breakfast."

The two girls settled on eating cereal and some cut up fruit, and then afterwards went to watch tv in the living room while Dinah and Normani ate their own breakfast.

"We can leave them alone in there for like ten minutes, right?" Dinah questioned.

Normani shrugged noncommittally. "Probably. Think the worst that can happen is Lauren falls off the couch."

"What were you doing in the laundry room?"

"Putting the girls' sheets and stuff to wash. Lauren decided to take the lid off her water bottle and then dumped it all over the bed," Normani explained. "Figured I'd just throw everything into the wash. I'm still trying to figure out why she did it."

Dinah shrugged as she picked a couple of blueberries up to eat. "Kids do weird shit, Mani. There probably wasn't a reason."

"I mean, I guess."

The younger woman scoffed. "You're gonna tell me you didn't do weird things for no explainable reason as a kid?"

"Of course I am. I was perfect."