i'm only given clues

Chapter 4

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They spend more time than they should checking out the hotel and by the time they're hungry, it's too late to make a reservation or get a table for thirteen anywhere. Keith spots a diner from the balcony and he makes them all walk and navigate the unfamiliar streets of Orlando, Florida to find it.

It is kind of worth the thirty minute walk when Normani's biting into one of the best burgers of the trip so far. Dinah sits beside her and smiles fondly as she reaches forward to wipe the smudge of ketchup away from her chin with the pad of her thumb.

It takes everything in Normani's power not to lean over and kiss her, long and slow and deep. She leans back into her chair when she feels herself leaning in, despite the fact she's surrounded by eleven of her friends, and spends the rest of the meal wondering what's gotten into her.

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The tension is still palpable when they get back to the hotel. They all sit in Camila and Austin's room when they get back to the hotel, and it feels as though they're being used as a contraceptive because Austin has that constant lusty look in his eye and Camila looks like she'd rather jump off the balcony than give in to it.

Dinah shifts in her place at the end of one of the beds and furrows her brow.

"Ugh," Normani says suddenly. "I'm bored. Let's do something to keep me amused."

Keith sidles up to her. "I can think of something that'll keep you really amused."

She shakes her head and rolls her eyes. "If it involves your penis, Powers, there's only one reason it'll keep me amused."

She distances her fingers a short distance apart and holds it up to show him. The room barely laughs and it's then that she knows something is definitely wrong.

"I swear to God, Powers," she sighs as she heads over to one of the drawers in the night stand. "You better have your stash."

Keith grins as Normani holds up a deck of cards. "Jack or Jim, baby?"

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They play Blackjack on Camila's bed for all the pennies they've collected over the trip. Normani laughs as she tries to teach Camila and Ally how to play, and Keith holds an unlit cigarette between his teeth as he pours out shots of Jack Daniels and Jim Beam into hotel cups.

"What's so hard to understand about making twenty-one, Cabello?" Normani laughs, glad that everyone's laughing again instead of arguing. It's amazing what a little bit of alcohol will do.

Or a lot of alcohol will do, in Camila's case, as she tries to make twenty-one out of three kings while still shouting "hit me".

Dinah sits beside her, leaning into her side. The warm arm wrapped around her back makes her feel safe rather than scared.

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Around ten pm, Normani looks up and catches Ryan leaving the room.

She doesn't run after her. She knows why her friend has left the room, her feeling of loneliness getting stronger by the sight of her ex-boyfriend and his girlfriend (Camila and Austin should be renamed Handsy Cabello and Austin Hands-on when they're drunk), and they share a look of understanding the second before the door quietly clicks shut.

The wandering of her mind is halted when Dinah throws up her arms in triumph as she gets twenty-one and more pennies than she'll probably know what to do with.

Normani's suddenly too caught up in Dinah's wide grin to worry about what Ryan might be doing.

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