Calamity

Chapter 17

Ally rubbed the tense muscle in the back of her neck, pouring herself a second cup of coffee. "I need to quit that job, I swear to God..."

"I don't see why you don't," Normani said once she finished swallowing her food. "They overwork you like crazy,"

"I'll be your sugar mommy if you want," Lauren offered. "Especially if that means you'll cook french toast for me every day. By the way, where's Dinah? I thought she was coming to eat breakfast too?"

"She had a meeting with one of her TAs this morning. Something about how she can't do her citation page right for one of her assignments." Normani avoided looking at the raven-haired woman.

"Interesting," Lauren moved the scrambled eggs on her plate around with her fork.

"What's interesting?"

"Oh, nothing,"

Ally frowned. "Doesn't... Seem like nothing,"

A tense lapse of silence fell over the three of them when Ally spoke up again.

"So, what are we doing for dinner tonight? I was thinking we should try this good Greek recipe that I—"

"When were you going to tell us that Shawn and Dinah were hooking up?" Lauren turned her body to face Normani. "I thought we didn't keep secrets from each other?"

Normani choked on her orange juice, setting the cup down on the table as she tried to stop coughing. "What?" She pretended to act clueless.

"Oh, so now you want to act like you don't know what I'm talking about," the raven-haired woman laughed bitterly.

"Laur—" Ally tried to interrupt, only to be silenced by Lauren.

"You guys were determined to get to the bottom of what was going on with Camila and me, but now I'm in the dark when it comes to this." Lauren scoffed, seemingly offended. "I bet even Ally knows!"

The older woman avoided looking Lauren directly in the eye, focusing on the steam wafting from her coffee instead.

"To be fair," Normani began speaking. "You've been so far up Camila's ass, you're barely around anymore. Can't really tell you what's going on if we never see you."

"We eat breakfast together every morning, don't give me that bullshit, Normani."

"Sure, because it's an amazing idea to bring up Dinah's sexcapades at seven o'clock in the morning."

"How long?"

"What do you mean?" Normani knitted her eyebrows together in confusion.

"How long have they been seeing each other?"

"It's really not my place..."

"Answer the fucking question! Anybody!"

Normani squeezed her eyes shut and in one quick breath, said, "Since the night of the bonfire,"

"You guys would not believe who I just ran into on my way back from—" Dinah paused in the middle of the sentence when she realized what she had just walked in on. "What's going on?"

"Nothing," Lauren was quick to answer. "We're arguing about what to watch next week for movie night. Ally says she's tired of horror movies."

"They're boring," Ally chipped in meekly.

"That's because you fall asleep ten seconds in,"

Dinah grabbed herself a serving of french toast and sat down next to Lauren. "You..." She sniffed her hair. "Smell like expensive perfume,"