Shit. Alice realised how this must have looked to Dana and made a hasty beeline for the door. Running was definitely not Alice Pieszecki’s thing, especially running in three-inch stiletto heels but luckily Dana hadn’t managed to walk too far away.

 “Dana wait”, the blonde called after her but was ignored. “Dana come on, it’s not what it looked like”. Dana halted all of a sudden and sharply turned on the balls of her feet, almost making Alice jog straight into her.

“It’s not what it looked like? Alice you were holding hands and smiling at Gabby Deveaux, was I just your date until someone better came along?” The brunette’s tone was not of anger but utter hurt tinged with disgust. Alice stared into Dana’s pools of blue and prayed that she would find some form of understanding there.

“Please don’t ever say or think that again. Gabby was telling me about her script being made into a movie, I was congratulating her. If you don’t believe me go in there and ask her yourself”. Alice started speaking softly feeling wounded that Dana would ever think those things about her… then she just got pissed.

“Jesus how selfish do you think I am Dana? What, you think I’d leave my first date with you to go be with her, do you have any idea how excited and nervous I was about this or how much you mean to me?!” She practically yelled the last part at the poor woman in front of her. Seeing Dana’s eyes well up and pools about to trickle into streams, Alice’s anger vanished into love as she pulled Dana into a close hug.

Dana felt thoroughly ashamed that she had not only misjudged the situation but also her best friend’s intensions. Here was Alice putting her bitter feelings aside to congratulate an ex she despised just to make someone else feel good and all the tennis player could do was walk off in a jealous rage. “I’m so sorry Dane, I’ll take you home if you want”, Alice whispered into Dana’s ear causing goose bumps to form all over her tanned skin. Dana pulled back from the hug and caught the falling tear on Alice’s face with her thumb.