We'd been on tour for 2 weeks now and had just arrived in New York. The girls had a day off so we'd planned to go and hang out and go visit some touristy places.

Some of Ally's family had decided to come and visit, so she was going to spend the day with them, so it was just me, Camila, Dinah, Mani and Lauren. We were walking out of one of the museums we'd visited when Lauren, who was giving her voice a rest so wasn't talking, started doing strange hand gestures.

'Girl, can't you just write down what you want or something', Dinah said, not understanding what she was trying to say, 'because this whole hand gesture this really ain't workin' for me'

Lauren just shook her head and started doing the same gestures, just more exaggerated.

'Seriously Lo this really isn't working', Camila stated, making Lauren roll her eyes, but she still continued to do the same actions

'Lo you know we aren't any good at charades, just say it, one word won't hurt', Mani pleaded

'I think she's saying she wants pancakes', I said. Everyone turned to look at me when Lauren started nodding her head frantically and pointing at me

'How did you know that?', Dinah asked me

'She was clearly trying to flip an imaginary pancake, plus its 1:30, so it was obviously going to be something about food', I stated like it was nothing

'I wish I had someone who knew exactly what I was trying to say all the time', Mani whined, 'I know I'd never let them go', she said looking at Lauren, who just ignored her and started walking somewhere to get pancakes.

The other 3 girls looked at me and smiled sympathetically, I smiled back and we walked after Lauren to go get our food.

Once we arrived at the diner, we sat in a booth towards the back and started looking at the menus. Once we decided what we wanted, a waitress came over to our table.

'Hi, what can I get you girls today?', she asked in a happy tone

'Nutella and banana pancakes please', Camila asked

'I'll have pancakes with maple syrup please', said Dinah

'I'll have the same', Mani asked

'I'll have the same as Camila please', I said, pointing to her, 'Nutella and banana'

The waitress then looked to Lauren who opened her mouth to say what she wanted, but then remembered she wasn't meant to be talking. She looked over to me.

'She'll have maple syrup pancakes, with strawberries', I said for her, knowing what she wanted. She smiled at me in thanks and I smiled back.

'Okay, I'll be right back with those for you', the waitress said

'Thank you', we all said as she walked away.

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Soon enough, she brought our food over and we ate it all pretty quickly, then got up and paid. As we were leaving, Camila's phone started ringing.

'It's my mom, I'll just be a minute', she said answering the phone, 'Hola mama', she answered as she walked away.

A few minutes later she came back.

'Hey guys, my mom and Sofi want to hang out this afternoon so I'm gonna head back', she told us

'I'll come with you, I want to sort out my stuff and get some laundry done', Dinah said

'Looks like it's us three this afternoon then', I said to Lauren and Mani.

'What d'you wanna do?' Mani asked after Dinah and Camila said goodbye and started walking away.

'We could go see a movie or something...what's out at the moment?', I asked.

'I have no idea, but lets look', Mani said pulling out her phone. As soon as she did it started ringing, so she picked up. 'Hello?', she said into the phone, 'Dinah what are you talking about?', she asked sounding confused, she then looked towards me and Lauren. 'Oooohhhhhhhh', she said stretching it out, realisation crossing her face.

I looked at her questioningly, confusion in my eyes. She hung up the phone and turned to us.

'I gotta go too, I, uh, need to do my laundry too', she said hugging us goodbye and running off before we could question her.

'Well....the wasn't set up at all', I said looking to Lauren. She smiled awkwardly. 'Do you just want to head back too...?', I asked her. She shook her head quickly and made the film hand gestures you'd make if you were playing charades and got a film to act out.

'You wanna go see a movie?', I asked and she nodded confirming my suspicions.

'I don't know what films are actually out at the moment, if there is even anything interesting to see', I said, she shrugged her shoulders and started walking towards the closest movie theatre/cinema (whatever you want to call it).

We ended up going to see a film called 'Don't Breath', which is a horror. I hadn't heard of it, but the guy at the ticket desk said it was good, so I got us 2 tickets and some popcorn and we went and sat down.

I wasn't overly fond of horror movies, but at the same time, I loved them, they get your adrenaline pumping, plus it gave me an excuse to cuddle in close to Lauren's side and hold her hand.

Once the film finished and we were walking out, I still had a tight hold of Lauren's hand, she looked down at them and I let go, then she lifted her hand in front of my face and I could see she had several deep cuts in the back of it.

'Oh my god!', I gasped, grabbing her hand, 'did I do that?', she nodded

'Why didn't you say something?', I asked her, she just shrugged, and I remembered she wasn't meant to be talking.

'you could have told me to hold a little less tightly', I told her, she just shrugged again and looked me in the eyes.

Ugh. Her eyes. I could stare at them forever. I got lost in them, as usual, and for a minute, forgot what our situation was. I started to lean in and for a moment I could have sworn she did the same, but then all of a sudden she pulled back and looked at the ground.

'We should, uh, we should p-probably head back', I stuttered, she nodded and we started walking back to where the busses were parked.

It was a 10 minute long, extremely awkward walk, I couldn't stop thinking about what had almost happened, I looked over to her occasionally. What I would give to know what she was thinking right in this moment. She doesn't seem mad, but then she doesn't seem anything else either. I wish I could read minds, life would be so much more simple if I could do that. I played a character who could read minds once, when I was like 13. If only that movie was real.

Soon enough we arrived back at the bus and when we walked on Lauren went straight to her bunk. Great. She's probably trying to avoid me.

'How was the movie?', Normani asked me, seated on the couch in the front living area

'It was good', I stated simply

'What'd you see?', Dinah asked, seated next to Mani looking through her phone

'Some horror movie called 'Don't Breath'', I told them

'Oooohhh, a horror movie huh?', Dinah said wiggling her eyebrows

'Nothing happened Dinah, other than me squeezing her hand so hard she now has huge cuts on the back of it'

'So you held hands...?', Mani asked suggestively

'Who held hands?' Ally asked as she walked onto the bus

'y/n and Lauren'

'It was only because we were scared, I'm sure she'd probably let any of you hold her hand if you were scared too', I said, rolling my eyes. 'I'm gonna go take a nap', I said walking away from them all. I wasn't actually tired, but I didn't want to have to deal with all their questions.

As I lay in my bunk thinking about my day, I closed my eyes and started to fall asleep, then my stomach started to rumble. I looked at the time, it was 7:13pm, not wonder I was hungry, I hadn't eaten since we had our pancakes at lunch. I got out of my bunk and went into the kitchen. Surprisingly nobody was there. I started to make myself a simple peanut butter and banana sandwich (if you haven't had one of these, you're missing out, they are AMAZING). I turned around to get a plate to put it on and almost dropped the sandwich as suddenly I saw someone stood right behind me.

'Shit! Lauren you scared me', she didn't say anything, just looked at me

'Can I help you with something?', I asked her. She continued to look at me. I furrowed my eyebrows at her and went to move past her to get a plate.

All of a sudden, I was pushed back against the counter and her lips were pressed against mine. I was so surprised I didn't know what to do. She started to pull away and I realised I should probably do something, so I dropped my sandwich and grabbed onto her waist pulling her back into me, deepening the kiss. Once we started running out of breath, we both pulled away.

'I knew you couldn't resist me', I said smirking, making her laugh

'Shut up', she told me

'I thought you weren't meant to be talking..?', I asked and she pushed my shoulder.

She started leaning in the kiss me again, but suddenly the doors burst open and Camila came skipping in with Sofi on her back, both laughing, so Lauren jumped back and sat on the couch opposite where we were stood.

I stood there for a second then lent down to pick up my sandwich, trying to act as natural as possible. When I stood back up I looked over at Lauren questioningly and she shook her head. I guess she didn't want anyone to know about us being, I don't know, I don't think I can really say being back together, because all we did was kiss, but I had hope that it wouldn't just be left at that. I guess I could deal with us having to sneak around again, that's how our relationship had always been, so it wasn't anything new, I just hoped that one day we wouldn't have to sneak around. We'd never kept it from the girls though, they'd always known about us, so I don't know why she wanted to keep it from them this time. Maybe I'm just getting ahead of myself, maybe it was just a kiss, maybe this isn't actually going to go anywhere, maybe she already regrets kissing me.

'y/n?'

'Huh?', I asked not realising Camila had been talking to be

'I said, are you going to eat that or just hold it while looking off into space like and idiot?', she reiterated

'Oh, uh, no, I dropped it, so I was just gonna throw it away, I'm not hungry anymore anyway'

'how long was it on the floor for?', she asked me

'Not long, why?', I asked, knowing exactly why she asked

'Well, if you don't want it, we can't let it go to waist, the floor isn't that dirty, it was cleaned this morning', she said, taking it out of my hand and checking it over before taking a bite. I laughed at her and shook my head, then went to sit down next to Lauren.

At least she wasn't avoiding me. And who knows, maybe this is actually going to go somewhere, even if it does go slowly.

🖖🏽