HMU

one hundred twenty four

"I can't get over how dumb you look right now, oh my god."

"Hey! Just 'cause I ran out of contacts and now I'm stuck in these horrible glasses that make me look like my grandmother — no offense nana, you're always in my heart — it doesn't mean you have to be a bitch and make fun of me for it!"

"Ooh, Allysin. I've missed you, dear one."

Lauren had to admit, it was nice being on this side of things. Sitting at a table with her four friends at a coffee shop, eating breakfast together as if Lauren didn't spend most of her time in Miami felt good. She could get used to a life where she wasn't constantly stuck on the texting side of things, and where she could be with her friends without spending an outrageous amount of money on gas.

They'd decided to spend the day as a group before Lauren's first day at her gallery internship, and this was just where it happened to start. There was something so simple in the beginning of this day that Lauren found completely beautiful, and she couldn't wait to dive deeper into her summer stay in West Palm.

Not only was there now plenty of time to spend with her insanely weird and overdramatic friends, but now she could come home after a day at her internship and kiss her girlfriend hello and they could cuddle for hours and talk whenever they wanted to... As her eyes roamed over the side of her laughing girlfriend's face now, she found herself slipping away into la la land as every possibility for the summer ran through her head all at once.

"Hello? Earth to Lauren? Stop being so gross and lovey at the breakfast table, it's rude and people are trying to eat." She clenches her jaw to hide a smile, elbowing Dinah to shut her up.

"Oh? Captain Dinah wants Camren to quiet down their gay?" Normani smirks, "This is new."

"There's a time and a place, babe. A time and a place." Dinah points a finger at all of them, though it lingers on her girlfriend.

"I think if you're gay you're just always gay." Ally adds jokingly. "I don't think time or places can really change that."

"Shut up, you're short." Dinah throws a balled up napkin across the table at a now offended Ally, who throws it right on back.

"And you're a fucking skyscraper—"

"Ladies!" Lauren cuts in, getting an odd sense of déjà vu from all the strange text message arguments she'd broken up. "There's a time and a place." Lauren glares playfully at Dinah, who smirks and shoves her shoulder lightly.

Yep, I could get used to this...

---

"Why do I have a strange desire to go into that tattoo place and get some kind of tatt?"

"First of all, Allyson, you're not cool enough to call it a 'tatt.' Second of all, are you okay? You haven't been possessed or anything? What happened to 'I don't want any kind of marks on my skin, this is the way god intended for me to be and I'm not changing it.'?"

"Shut up, I'm just gonna get a cross." Ally begins to veer away from the group, turning into the tattoo place. The rest of the girls all give one another a strange look before shrugging it off and entering behind her, Lauren subconsciously reaching for the dragonfly on her neck as she looks around at the designs. They all looked insanely familiar, as if she'd seen them all before in a tatt studio located in Miami, but she hadn't been there in a year or two.

Lauren stops pacing when she spots a collection of roman numerals, glancing behind her at the other girls who were distracted looking at different books and drawings on the walls. She opens the book and scrolls through the numbers before landing on a certain one.

Ally was still looking for a cross design in another book, so Lauren figured it was as good a time as any to make her way over to the artist. Her eyes widened when she saw who it was.

"Dragonfly girl?" His eyes widen as well as he looks up from his book, talking a little loudly and gaining the attention of the other girls, who slowly make their way over. "How are you since you lost your grandmother?"

"Uh..." Lauren glances behind her at the girls, who had now joined her at the front. "I'm good."

"You guys know each other?" Dinah raises an eyebrow.

"Yeah, I gave her a dragonfly tatt two years ago." He motions for her to turn around. "Let me see it, you took good care of it, right?"

"Yeah..." Lauren lifts her hair from the back of her neck, revealing it to her four friends, whose eyes all widen upon seeing the tattoo they didn't know she had. Lauren turns around to show the tattoo artist, and he admires his work for a moment before speaking again.

"So what has you coming here? You want another tatt?"

"Yeah, actually." Lauren motions to the girls. "These are some really good friends of mine. We met on the twenty seventh of July, so when I saw your collection of roman numerals, I knew I wanted to get the number twenty seven." She pauses. "Plus, it's the same day as my birthday in June."

"Alright, come on back to the chair and prepare me wherever it is you want it. Your friends can come back, too."

He disappears into the back of the store to collect and clean a needle, leaving the girls to follow Lauren to the chair. None of them said anything until Lauren was comfortable in the chair, rolling her sleeve up to display the inside of her arm, where she wanted the tattoo.

"How come you didn't tell us you have a tattoo?" Camila finally speaks, crossing her arms over her chest. She was a little disappointed she hadn't yet spotted it herself, though Lauren kept her hair down most of the time. Camila thought about how many times her fingers must have run over it every time they kissed; her arms always going around Lauren's shoulders and her hands resting on the back of Lauren's neck.

"I dunno, it never came up, I guess." Lauren shrugs. "Remember my grandma I told you guys about awhile ago? I got it shortly after she died a few years ago. It's a special part of my skin I dedicated to her, and I don't know... it always felt too personal to share with not just you guys, but everybody. But now that we're all so close, I guess I should've found an opportunity to bring it up. But I never did."

"God..." Dinah groans, putting her face in her hands. "I have done your hair so many fucking times. How the hell have I never seen it?"

"You're not the only one that feels blind." Normani pats her girlfriend's shoulder.

"Sorry I didn't tell all of you." Lauren apologizes.

"It's fine." Camila answers for all of them, bending down to plant a soft kiss on Lauren's lips. "By the way, this new tattoo you're getting is very sweet. I wasn't even aware we all met on the twenty seventh."

"That's 'cause you have no sense of time, Mila."

And just like that, Lauren thought, they were all back to poking fun at and teasing the shit out of one another. The tattoo artist returns, Lauren showing him exactly where she wants the tattoo and bracing herself for the sting. Camila walks behind the chair, glad for the shortness of the back as she wraps her arms around Lauren from behind, resting her head on Lauren's shoulder as they both watch the artist at work on her arm.

"What about your internship?" Camila's eyebrows furrow. "Won't they like totally judge you or some shit?"

"I'm an intern at an art gallery." Lauren chuckles, "I'll be working alongside a bunch of artists. Tattoos are just another form of art, most artists have them."

"Fair enough." Camila lets out a chuckle of her own, turning her head to kiss Lauren's cheek.

Once the artist is done, he puts a bandage over it and rings her up. Ally is the next one to go, pointing out the one she wants from off the wall. It was a cross no bigger than her palm, which she decided to get on her upper back.

After their adventures in the tattoo parlor, they all decide to venture to a nearby park for lunch, stopping at a food truck before heading in and taking seats on the grass under a tree.

Lauren couldn't help but think for the millionth time — as Dinah and Ally chucked fries at one another and her girlfriend cuddled up beside her while they ate — that she could get used to this.

***