“You mean a lot to me too.”

‘Hey Alice. I’m *****.’ The sentence seemed so much easier in Dana’s mind, when Alice wasn’t around. Sitting in the Planet, waiting for Alice to arrive, Dana could even utter the words in a small whisper without stuttering or mumbling words along the way. However she knew it would all change when the blonde beauty walked through the door.

“Dane are you mumbling again?” A voice asked in a sarcastic tone behind Dana, making her jump. It was Al – speak of the devil.

“Jesus Al you scared the life out of me!”

“Good morning to you too grumpy guts,” Alice replied dryly, sitting down on the chair opposite Dana. Alice had only known Dana for about a month, and to most people that wouldn’t seem like a long period of time. But in that month the two had hung out almost every second day, and had spoken on the phone every night. Even if it was a short period of time, they felt like they basically knew each other off by heart. And right now as Alice stared at Dana’s worried expression, she knew something was bugging the tennis star. “What’s up?”

“N-Nothing is up Al,” Dana replied in a less than convincing tone. “Why would something be up? I-Is something up with you?”

“Ahh no. But then again I’m not the one acting like I’ve got severe ADD. Something is bothering you.”

Dana shut her eyes for a minute, concentrating all her energy on getting the words out right. ***** this was hard.

“***** this is hard.”

“What’s hard?” Dana looked up at Al in surprise.

“What’s what?”

“Hard.”

“What’s hard?”

Alice looked at her unimpressed. “You tell me Dana.”

“Right,” Dana had no idea what was going on so decided to leave it. She closed her eyes once more and hoped to god Alice was still there when she opened them. “Alice you’re *****.”