“Tasha?” called out Alice with a silent hope she wouldn’t reply as she pulled her keys from the back of the door and ushered it silently closed.

“Yeah Alice” came the inevitable reply.

Once she heard her voice Alice couldn’t believe that she had ever not wanted her to be there.

“Heya baby” she smiled

“What did you get up to tonight?”

“Just went over the case with my attorney” explained Tasha as she looked up for a quick peck.

Alice dumped her keys on the coffee table and slumped her bag onto the couch as her jacket slipped off on top of it

“Cool”

“How bout you? You’re looking a little too sexy for a dinner with Shane” teased Tasha, undressing her with her eyes.

“Oh not much” Alice couldn’t work out why she was lying, or why she felt like she was cheating- but everything had gotten very weird, very quickly

“Just meet up with the girls at the Planet”

“The six of holding up the walls there again, huh?” scoffed Tasha

“Jodi didn’t come”

No sooner were the words out of her mouth, than Alice knew it was now inevitable that the whole story be told- so better that it be on her terms.

“We were scooping out these youngins who are like a mirror of all of us ten years ago”

Tasha didn’t reply at first, she was reading an email and had assumed that Alice’s conversation was a fairly standard one, but the words slowly filtered through. The pause was golden to Alice though, who felt that maybe, just maybe she’d been handed a freebie- it wasn’t totally impossible after all that the universe might give her a break one of these days. Seizing the hope she walked into the kitchen to make a little coffee

“Alice?” each muscle in the called body seized up.

“Yep”

“Please tell me you’re not stalking strangers”

“No, no” laughed Alice- affecting a persona she thought might abate Tasha’s curiosity

“You want some coffee”

“No, I’d better head to bed”

“Oh, okay honey”

“Wanna join me?”

“No I might watch TV or something for a little bit”