“So what she just hightailed it out of there?!? Jesus” Alice sat in shock, mouth agape. “Come on Tina, you must have done something….”

“Nope. She kissed me, got upset, started rambling about suffocation and then crawled out as fast as she could.”

“Oh” Alice nodded her head, as a sudden realisation washed over her

“What? What’s that look for? What the hell did I do”

“Well, it’s just……. It’s Bette you know”

“And?”

“Come on Tina, you know Bette better than anyone else. I think the whole dating you and Jodi at the same time thing is really affecting her. To be honest, I kind of expected it to go down with Jodi the same way you went with Helena, your so called dating both involved, what a parade with Helena followed by you moving in with Bette and ignoring Helena?”

“Me too. Your timeline is a little wrong. In fairness though, I know I didn’t handle that situation well, but Helena didn’t really become accepted by you guys until after I dumped her. And you two did get to do some fast bonding over bottles of tequila, over being dumped by two of the hottest girls in LA” Tina smiled, slightly awkwardly,

“Damn, yeah, I was a mess. Dana was so hot.” Alice sniffled a little “You, not so much veiner!” Alice laughed as a single tear betrayed her and trickled down the edge of her left cheek, as she playfully punched Tina’s arm. “Really though, Bette is a one-woman woman. Come on, she only dated the hammer skank for as long as she did in an attempt to convince herself she didn’t just fuck-up everything for kicks.”

“Wow Al, I’m so lucky to have such a sensitive friend! I know what you mean though, I get it now.” Tina sighed. “I just don’t think Bette does.”

“I think you guys know a lot more than you let on!”

“What do you mean by that?”

“There’s this word, right, circumbendibus. It means a round about ways of telling someone something. Its like if your sitting at a table with Bette, and there’s salt, pepper, butter, mayonnaise and mustard there. And then you tell her you don’t want the pepper, Jodi, salt, Henry, butter or mayonnaise” Alice muttered the names in the list through a half-cough, and then gave Tina a look of smug superiority.