Reversal (Camren/Norminah)

Chapter 7: Nightfall

VII. 

"Well thank god I'm all yours right now."

Dinah had been right. It wasn't just the sleepless nights that had become charged with sexual tension, but small moments during the day began to change as well. Little interactions, whispers of eye contact, small smiles, and longer than normal stares. It was all a new feeling, and definitely not a bad one. Lauren had a way of making all the nasty thoughts go away, which for me, was something that had been needed for a long time.

On the weekend of Lauren and Dinah's shopping trip, the two girls piled through the door late in the afternoon. Both had numerous bags on their arms, drinks in their hands, and smiles on their faces. I played the "good friend" card, and got up to help them in, taking some bags from Lauren and ignoring Dinah's grumbles of protest.

"Wow. You guys really got around." I commented, peering inside just one of the bags to find a variety of coloured scarves. Lauren walked behind me, setting down a brand new handful of paper bags that seemed to be breeding on the spot.

"Dinah's amazing!" She said breathlessly. "She kept finding one store after the other, and picking such amazing things! Look, I got a stuffed dragon!"

I turned around to see Lauren holding a large green plush dragon with big forgiving eyes and animated brows. I mustered a feeble smile, watching her pull a second item from another bag and hold it up.

"And we got you a unicorn!"

I took the stuffed animal, holding it up to examine the sparkling horn and long rainbow mane. "Wow... um... thank you?"

"She insisted." Dinah appeared behind me with a pat on the shoulder. "This girl is pure magic. She actually helped me flirt with half the mall and get most of this stuff totally for free! Including ice cream from the Dairy Queen in the food court." Wiggling her eyebrows, Dinah turned to Lauren. "And we did end up getting a whole whack of phone numbers, didn't we?"

Lauren reached into her back pocket and yanked out a large wad of papers, each about the size of an average business card. Tossing them up, the pages went fluttering into the air before landing on the carpet like snow.

"Wow." I blinked. "You guys were pretty busy."

"Camila could never pull it off." Dinah said, turning to Lauren. "She's got just about as much flirt power in her as a toaster oven."

With a shrug, Lauren placed her dragon down on one side of the couch, then used her now free hand to take my unicorn from me and placed it carefully on the other. "I'd say she isn't all that bad." She said with a cute smile in my direction.

"See?" I beamed at Dinah. "She'd say that I'm not too bad."

"Alright, alright." The girl rolled her eyes and waved me off. "Thanks for the day Lauren. Camila, I'll see your cute little ass tomorrow."

While Dinah showed herself out, Lauren began to fix something in the kitchen while I brought a few of the bags from the living room into the bedroom to unpack. Most of it was clothing, although there was the occasional bar of soap and bottle of body wash. Everything had Dinah written all over it, from the scent of the fabric softener to the sparkly handled hairbrush; it was clear she had influenced Lauren's purchasing choices.

While folding a few pieces of my own clothing under the bed to make space, I came across something that hadn't been there before. There were some papers wedged right at the bottom, stuck between the clear hard plastic of the bin and a layer of neatly folded jeans. They were crumpled, folded at the edges and torn in some areas as well.