Dare You To Love (Camren - Norminah - Vercy)

Chapter 6: Airhead

Camila's POV

I turned on the giant electric mixer and let out a heavy yawn. It was 6 in the morning, aka too early to life, but here I was making a batch of freshly baked bread for Allycakes before the store opened. It'll all be worth it when you're depositing that $250K check.

After Lauren had stormed out of my house, I thought I had no way of running into her again without it seeming suspicious, so I decided to work for Allycakes for a little while because I knew Ally was going to be selling desserts at the motorcycle expo that Lauren was going to be at. This way I'd have a legitimate excuse to be there and catch Lauren off guard. And not to mention, get paid to be around motorcycles. It was a win-win situation.

A sharp knock on the back door snapped me out of my thoughts.

"What're you doing here?" Ally asked, when she opened the door and Normani walked into the kitchen

"You said you could use my help, remember?" Normani said, waving to me.

"Yeah, but I wasn't expecting you to come in till after your honeymoon. Or are you guys back already? In just two days?" Ally asked.

"We've decided to postpone our honeymoon actually. Our marriage was arranged, you see, so we're postponing it till we've had a chance to really get to know each other," Normani said casually with a smile, but her fists were clenched as if she was trying to convince herself that she was happy with this decision. I knew Dinah felt trapped and I had her back no matter what—a best friend's occupational hazard—but I still felt really bad for Normani.

"That's actually very mature of you guys. And I'd love to have you start right away, Mani! We'll do all the boring paperwork stuff later, but let me go grab you an apron," Ally said, rushing into the storage room.

I touched Normani's hand as reassuringly as I could and said, "It'll be worth it when it happens, Mani."

"Can I ask you something? Just between you and me?" Normani said with slight hesitation.

"Anything."

"Does Dinah think I'm annoying?"

"What? No. What makes you think that?"

"Well it's just that she's barely been home in the past two days. And she doesn't seem to want to talk to me most of the time that she is home, so I thought maybe I did something wrong to-"

"You didn't do anything wrong, Mani. Trust me. Dinah's probably just too used to living alone. And she's never been in a real relationship before, so just give her some time to adjust to the changes. She'll come around," I said, hoping I was right.

Normani gave me one of her beautiful genuine smiles and said, "You're right. I need to be more patient. I mean, it has only been a few days. Thanks Mila. I'm really glad we'll be working together for a while."

"Me too," I said and gave Normani a big hug, because she was going to need it to deal with Dinah.

"Hey guys! I need help reaching the extra aprons!" came Ally's voice from the storage room.

"Do you need your step stool?" I called back, breaking away from the hug.

"No, I have it. I just need to be 6 inches taller!" Ally called back, "I really need to invest in a ladder."

"Half of this job is just reaching things for Ally. I swear that's all she's paying me to do," I said to Normani, making her giggle.

I hoped I was right about Dinah adjusting to Normani, because if Dinah gave her a chance, I thought Normani would be the perfect life partner for her. But till that glorious day, I was going to try my best to make sure Normani was comforted.