Ingenue

Chapter - 3

Two weeks had passed by since I encountered the green eyed girl Lauren at Munchies; she seemed to occupy my every thought. It was silly of me to be thinking about someone so much that I didn't know at all, but I couldn't help my mind from wandering.

Dinah and I had very briefly discussed my attraction to females. She went on and on about how she always had a inner gut feeling that I was a lesbian. She said I gave off a lot of signals but I find that hard to believe considering I was unaware of my own desires. I don't even think I would call myself a "lesbian" anyways, just because it's a bit harder for me to peel my eyes off the articulate curves of the female anatomy than the next girl, doesn't mean I'm a lesbian.

Practice went hard today at the Elite Dance Crew studio, it seemed as if everybody was giving 100% effort with their routines. Something had definitely shifted in the atmosphere this evening at rehearsals and I couldn't quite figure it out until I saw Chanel, one of the top crew dancers approaching me . Normally I could carry out a decent conversation with Chanel, she was very down to earth and easy to get along with but my confidence had been weary lately when it came to talking to other girls. My subconscious of my confusion concerning my sexuality was starting to prevent me from doing normal things like, forming a coherent sentence without letting my mind wonder about things it shouldn't .

"Mani, can I talk with you for a moment?" she said just above a whisper .

"Yeah, what's going on?"

"I don't know if you've heard but .. the Elites are holding open auditions for the first time in almost two years, even our current team members will have to re-audition in order to secure their spots."

I cringed at this information, suddenly connecting the dots and realizing that people must have known for weeks this would be happening soon. I have plenty of confidence in myself when it comes to dance but for some reason I found myself nervous about the upcoming auditions.

"That's insane .. but wh- why are you telling me this?" I asked hesitantly.

"Well this time Ronnie and I are holding auditions and we're in need of a third judge to complete our panel.. I just wanted to find out if you'd be interested?" she smiled hopefully .

I stood in shock, trying to process everything I heard . We rarely accepted new crew and this was going to cause a lot of commotion within the studio. My inner thoughts were soon interrupted when I saw Dinah making her way towards me out of the corner of my eye .

"Soo is that a yes ?"

"Sorry , yeah I'd love to ! Honestly, thank you for even considering me." I said genuinely, because I felt honored to have been given this opportunity.

"No problem, auditions are just in 3 days, we're keeping this on the down low this information isn't for everybody." she warned me, as she eyed Dinah subtly and then walked away.

"What'd that chick want?" Dinah asked curiously .

"She was just giving me some constructive criticism" I lied.

"Mmm you don't need it though but anywayyys, I've got a good feeling that today your froyo Princess might be working" she said with a smirk.

"I highly doubt that, but it's a possibility" I said hopefully.

We left the studio and headed for Munchies and I couldn't deny that I had hope she might be there too. I couldn't stop myself from role playing scenarios in my head and fixing my hair in the mirror the whole ride there .

When we pulled into the parking lot Dinah looked at me seriously can't

"You need to chill out dawg, you look hot okay. Don't overthink it. Go in there and get your girl."

"First of all she's not 'my girl' , and second of all neither of us even knows if she's gonna be in there" I stated rather matter of factly.

"Weeeelllllll, actually I may or may not have called the store earlier to find out whether or not she was on the clock today, so yeah she's definitely in there Mani."

Suddenly a wave of confidence washed over me and I hopped out of the car and headed for the door, determined to make some sort of conversation with the girl who I had thought so much about. I quickly scanned the room of people as I filled up my yogurt cup in search of the girl until I saw her sitting on the counter behind the glass eating her yogurt and assumed she was on her break.

I instantly regretted coming, the fact that she was actually here made the situation all too real and I started to panic as I walked over to the front to pay. As I handed my money to the cashier, I noticed the green eyed girl getting up from the back counter and walking over to the register, before I knew it she was right in front of me.

"It's the triple berry smoothie girl ! I was hoping I would run into you again" she said smoothly.

"Yeah that's me... and you were?" I asked shyly.

"Yes ! We've gotta talk about very important things" she exclaimed . "I'm actually on my break right now can you sit and talk?"

I nodded and she led me over to one of the booths. Everything happened so fast I wasn't even sure whether or not this was reality . I carefully observed the beautiful girl in front of me . Her tan skin was practically glowing, the light freckles across her face were so prominent and her forest green eyes had my full attention . Even though she was only wearing her uniform, she looked so effortlessly flawless and I was sure that I was in the presence of an angel.

"Alright so I'm about to tell you some top secret yogurt shit alright?" she said seriously.

I couldn't help but laugh at her stern expression until I realized she was in fact being serious .

"Okay, lay it on me." I whispered as I leaned in across the table to listen intently, playing along with her charades.

"Munchies ... is getting rid of the triple berry smoothie .... permanently" she cried out dramatically.

I gasped at this information, truly upset at this fact but I decided to be more dramatic than usual.

"You can't be serious! This is preposterous !"

"Look, I know it's an outrage this is why I had to pull you aside I knew you'd care about the future of the smoothie selections. I think we should further discuss this via text message, mainly because nobody else cared but also because I would love to just talk to you, this tragedy was sort of just an excuse to say something to you." she smirked, and I swear I felt myself falling for her charm.

"I appreciate you trusting me with this top secret information, I'm Normani by the way."

"Well I'm Lauren, today's actually my last day here at Munchies, I'm moving onto better things; so it was good that I got to finally see you again"

"I'm really glad I got to see you before your last day , even though now that i think about it, it's kinda weird you remembered what I ordered." I laughed shyly.

"With a face like yours its hard to ignore the little things like that if we're being honest here." she smiled , reaching into her apron and writing her name and # onto a napkin.

I took the napkin from her and smiled completely taken aback by her words.

"I'll text you, yogurt girl . We'll plan a protest to keep the triple berry smoothie on the market." I teased.

Lauren's head flung back in a childish manner and her laugh did something to me that I could not explain. She walked back behind the register, and resumed working and I couldn't help but eye her on my way out . This really happened . I wasn't sure what to expect, knowing that I would no longer see her at Munchies meant that I needed to text her soon and find out if she'd want to hang out and the idea of seeing her in anything other than her uniform gave me nervous butterflies .

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updates will definitely be more frequent from now on . I suck so bad, it's because I started working at Nike and basketball workouts have started back up again so I've been pretty busy but hopefully this is a good start .

I wanna be friends with yall though. I need more laurmani shippers in my life you guys can follow me on Twitter @kardacheyanne (: if you want. have a lovely day .