"You just gotta trust me baby."
***
Lourdes Brown has been hurt, badly. Instead of fully healing from her trauma, she turns to drowning her sorrows in work and school. She refuses to let herself get hurt again and has made a vow to not entertain th...
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"I wanna go home," Genesis complained from next to her. She was working a 5-9 shift and the diner was dead. It was a Monday night on November 1st, no one was going to stop and come into the small diner unless they were ordering takeout or they were there for doordash. It was 8 o'clock and she had only served one table. She and Genesis were sitting on the counter seats, talking and gossiping, trying to pass the time.
"You always wanna go home," She pointed out.
"Yeah, and?" Genesis countered. "Ain't nobody coming to this place right now, you know how it gets when it's cold."
When it transitioned to Fall or Winter, the diner tended to get less busy. It was a small space that mostly consisted of outdoor seats, but since it was cold outside no one wanted to sit outdoors and their customer count declined. Some people trickled in to sit at the counters and the 4 booths they had lined up against the walls, but during the weeknights, they usually weren't busy.
"Where's Hakeem?" She looked around for him but he was nowhere to be seen. Hakeem, Lourdes, and Genesis usually worked their shifts together, it was rare for him not to be there, especially since his father was the head cook.
"He called out," Genesis said while picking her nails. Lourdes was surprised, he almost never missed a shift.
"Weird," She shrugged.
"Soooo," Genesis dragged out the 'O' making Lourdes look at her with confusion.
"What?" She asked.
"I heard you talking to Rashir Martin," Genesis raised her eyebrows suggestively at her.
"And how did you hear about that? We don't even go to the same school," Lourdes narrowed her eyes.
"Um, he's like, famous? He's the number one draft pick, Lourdes, people keep up with him," She gave her a look as if to say 'Duh'. "But congrats sis, you bagged a baller,"
"I didn't 'bag' anyone, we're just friends," Lourdes shrugged her off. She had been getting this a lot lately. Ever since she befriended Rashir, Nico, and Mateo she had been getting loads of follow requests on Instagram, and been photographed with Rashir on more than one occasion. She was even posted on The Shade Room. When she read the comments on the post, she was disgusted to see the number of girls calling her unattractive and tearing her down, all because she was posted with their celebrity crush. She had blocked The Shade Room immediately, refusing to read any more of the cruel comments, and eventually went on with her day, but the comments still got to her.
It was weird, she knew that Rashir was known, but she wasn't aware that he was practically famous. When he first requested to follow her, she hadn't paid attention to the number of followers he had. When she recently checked again, she was baffled to find that he was verified and had over 800 thousand followers. Same with Nico and Mateo, but they had fewer followers than him. Nala had never complained about being posted on The Shade Room, or be harassed by people taking pictures of her and Nico, but Lourdes guessed it was different since Rashir was the 'star' of the team. If it was exhausting for her to just be posted once, she couldn't imagine how bad it was for Rashir.
