an: this chapter was irritating me but not because it's not good just because it's not long but whatever enjoy and leave some comments i love reading them
It's a little too calm in the dressing room for Lauren.
She's not sure why, normally she embraces the few moments of calm, but her suspicions are confirmed when coincidentally, it's just her, Ally, and Normani in the room. She knows from experience that that's never anything good.
The door bursts open a minute later and Dinah and Camila come through, both dressed in their outfits for their set tonight, and Dinah's holding her speaker.
"We..."
Lauren rolls her eyes, "Oh god."
"We wish you a Merry Christmas, we wish you a Merry Christmas! We wish you a Merry Christmas..."
"And a happy new year," Normani finishes for them, earning glares to Lauren and Ally from the other two.
"You have to join," Dinah says, and Camila pouts.
"Yeah, it's Christmas, you grinches," she agrees.
"I don't have to do shit," Lauren retorts, and Dinah rolls her eyes.
She switches We Wish You a Merry Christmas to some other instrumental before singing, "Jingle bells, Lauren smells, you all are really lame. Oh what fun, it is to die, in a gross dressing room, hey! Jingle bells, Mila's cool, she likes all my songs, you all suck and are gonna die in the muck, and that is not my problem, hey!"
"Wow, D, you should be a songwriter," Lauren comments, and Dinah just sticks her tongue out at her.
"Mila likes my songs."
"Does she, though?" Normani retorts and Dinah just rolls her eyes, sits on the couch, and grumbles something to herself incoherently.
Normani snorts and leans against Dinah, going on to talk about something with Ally that Lauren tunes out.
Her focus is more on Camila, who's stood across the room talking to their makeup artist about something that Lauren can't hear over the other commotion of the room. Lauren knows, though, from Camila's expressions, that it's nothing bad and the way she seems to laugh with her whole body makes Lauren's heart warm.
Dinah crosses the room and sits down on the floor next to her, whispering, "I know y'all are fucking, but can you keep it to yourselves?"
Lauren's face goes red, "Shut up."
"Absolutely not!" Dinah retorts, "You shit on my song, I shit on your inability to commit."
"I do not think those things are equal," Lauren responds, turning off her phone and putting it down on her lap.
"They might as well be," Dinah says matter-of-factly, her voice still quiet, "C'mon, you're not gonna tell me anything? When we were at the studio last week I literally caught you fucking in the bathroom. That's nasty."
(Lauren can't decide if that was funny or traumatizing, she's sure that she'll find it funny in the future, but Dinah catching her knuckle-deep in Camila isn't something she exactly is proud of.)
"We didn't intend for anything to happen," Lauren replies quietly, fiddling with her ring, not wanting to point out that Camila recently took off hers.
She remembers the conversation vividly, Camila handing her her copy of the ring and saying she doesn't need it anymore. When Lauren asked, Camila just explained that she heard something that was going to put a time constraint on their relationship and she didn't want to wait until the last second.
Lauren remembers wanting to ask why, why Camila needed to give it to her now, why Camila felt like that was their natural stopping point even though not five hours after it, they were skin-to-skin in a hotel bed, why what Camila heard was putting any more of a time constraint on them aside from the inevitable end to the group.
Dinah's voice cuts into her self-made pity party, "Mani was right, you think so loudly."
"Why do you guys say that?" Lauren asks, pouting.
"Because," Dinah laughs, "you just do. You're all grovel-ly and existential looking."
"That doesn't even make any sense."
"Yes, it does."
Their conversation is cut short by Will walking into the room, telling them they need to report to the side of the stage.
Dinah stands first and pulls Lauren up, quickly spinning her around and dusting off her ass, only saying, "You've been on the floor for an hour, I'm looking out for you."
Lauren doesn't respond and checks Dinah, who's fine because she was only there a couple of minutes, and they follow Will to the stage area.
"Who's leading tonight?" Lauren asks Dinah.
"Mila, I think," Dinah responds. They hand their phones over to Will as they're given their in-ears and sure enough, Camila huddles them into a circle.
"Okay, this is the first of four shows," she starts, "and no one out there cares about us. They probably care a lot more about Demi or Charlie Puth or Selena Gomez. So we're going to have fun and we're going to kill it and Ally, when you do the prayer, please add in that none of us fall because that would be embarrassing. Merry Christmas!"
"Woo!" the girls cheer.
Ally then starts the prayer, and Lauren can't help but peek at Camila.
Maybe Camila ended things with the ring, but nothing's really ended.
-
"Holy shit!"
"Oh my god!"
"Dinah get out!"
The door slams shut and Camila pulls the covers over their bodies, moving the leg she has between Lauren's legs and laying down next to her.
They're quiet for a minute aside from labored breathing until Lauren groans.
"We're never going to hear the end of that."
Camila laughs, "I can't believe we just got caught."
"You're only laughing because you got caught as a top," Lauren says, reaching for the pillow underneath her and slapping Camila with it.
"Oh yeah," Camila snorts, "Dinah's never letting that go. "
Lauren groans, covering her face with her hands, "I'm going to kill myself."
The bed moves under her and next thing she knows, Camila's leaning over her and pulling her hands away from her face, "C'mon, Lo, we gotta get dressed now. No need to scar Dinah more than we already have."
Lauren raises an eyebrow, "You sure? We're both still naked."
"Ms. Jauregui, I assure you, if you're patient, you'll be rewarded," Camila presses a kiss to her lips, "Alright. Let's go!"
Lauren scowls as Camila gets out of bed, not even bothering to cover herself.
"You can't just- say that... and do that. That's mean."
"Poor baby," Camila teases, pulling on panties, "Get up."
Grumbling, Lauren gets up and puts fresh clothes on as well, avoiding looking at Camila again.
Once dressed, she fusses with her hair in the mirror, not liking it for whatever reason. And she's also sure she hates her shirt even though she's worn it a million times and her jeans fit weird and the tips of her socks are rubbing weirdly against her toes and her boots are a little too clunky and-
"You look beautiful, stop listening to the mirror," Camila interrupts her thoughts, grabbing her hand and putting her phone in it, "Let's go."
Camila leads them out of the room, where Dinah and Normani are stood in the hallway, talking about something.
Dinah sees them first, immediately scowling, "You two are disgusting."
"Where's Ally?" Camila asks.
"No, we're not skipping over this. It is eight in the morning. We haven't even had breakfast!" Dinah exclaims before crinkling her nose, "Except for you two, you fucking nasties."
"Have you two even showered yet?" Normani asks, sporting the same expression on her face.
"Had I known we'd have time, we would've," Camila retorts and then smirks, adding, "And maybe more than that."
"There are things I don't need to know about," Dinah rolls her eyes, "Ally's holding a table for us downstairs. You two need to wash your hands. And maybe your mouths. With holy water."
Lauren flushes, not saying anything. Truthfully, she just wants to fade into the wall before Dinah can start with the inevitable bottom jokes.
"You two need to take a bath in hand sanitizer," Normani says, a disgusted look still on her face as they walk toward the elevator.
Once downstairs, Lauren disappears into the bathroom and washes her hands for (what was probably) a prolonged amount of time. After drying off her hands, she catches herself looking in the mirror again.
Camila's words echo in her mind; Stop listening to the mirror.
Right.
She leaves the bathroom, catching Camila's glance as she leaves before the younger girl goes in.
She goes to their table, where Dinah has a seat next to her open and Normani has the seat between her and Ally open.
Lauren begrudgingly sits down next to Dinah, not wanting to be anywhere near Ally when the teasing starts.
"Have we ordered yet?" Lauren asks quietly, and Normani shakes her head.
"Just drinks. Dinah ordered you and Mila waters, and now she and I have a bet going that Mila's going to want hot chocolate."
Lauren nods, "She'll want it."
"Only if she knows it's on the menu, which neither of us are allowed to point out," Dinah responds, glaring quickly at Normani.
Lauren snorts, Normani and Dinah are so competitive about stupid shit sometimes.
Camila comes back to the table just in time for them to order - Camila's lucky that she doesn't really have to look at menus and always orders the same things - and just as quickly as the waiter appeared, he leaves.
"So I waited to embarrass you idiots," Dinah prefaces, glancing at both Camila and Lauren, "but this morning, when I walked in on you two being disgusting, I found out that someone isn't the badass we thought she was."
"We are in public!" Ally exclaims, but Dinah and Normani ignore her. Lauren's just sure that she wants to be a chair right now.
"You didn't tell me that," Normani pouts, "Lauren's a bottom?"
"Yup," Dinah nods, reaching over and ruffling Lauren's hair, "our little badass is all a lie."
Normani looks at Lauren, "Hmm, I see it."
"I hate you both," Lauren says, playing with the edge of her napkin, "Assholes."
"Need I remind you that we're in public?" Ally hisses, making the girls go quiet.
"Maybe Ally's the scary one," Dinah says quietly, making Lauren elbow her.
"Be nice."
"I am so nice."
"I'm more shocked that Mila's a top," Normani comments, glancing at Camila, "What happened to I've never kissed anyone?"
"Our little Mila's all grown up!" Dinah coos, reaching across the table and scratching under Camila's chin.
"She's not a dog," Lauren snorts as Camila smacks away Dinah's hand.
"Or is she?"
Lauren tunes Dinah out, sipping on her water absentmindedly before childishly pushing the straw around with her tongue.
"So Mila became a crazy sedductress and Lauren went back to being five years old and finding entertainment with straws?" Dinah asks, drawing Lauren's attention back to the table.
"Seems like it," Normani replies, snorting.
"I'm not some crazy sedductress, what the hell?" Camila says before glancing around the room, "Wait, do they have hot chocolate here?"
Normani gives Dinah a look before responding, "Maybe ask when the waiter comes back around. Also, Mila, hate to burst your bubble, but you've had your glow up."
"Thank you, but that doesn't mean that I've turned into a crazy sedductress," Camila retorts.
Lauren finds herself tuning them out again, memories of this morning bleeding into her thoughts.
(Oh yeah, last night, too.)
God, she needs some self control.
Her thoughts float to the fact that they have some kind of livestream tonight, and she feels anxiety bubbling in her chest. At least when they're on stage, there's no guarantee that anyone's going to be close enough to analyze her every move, but cameras? Live? It's exhausting to think about, let alone do.
She twirls her ring on her finger, humming a song that she's sure she picked up from Camila earlier this week.
She feels a nudge at her shoulder. Dinah.
"Penny for your thoughts?" She asks quietly.
Lauren shakes her head and gives Dinah a small smile, "I'm good."
-
fifteen chapters left!