Previously…



At her request, Alice, Dana, Shane, Carmen and Howie all got up from
their seats and groaned at the same time.



Hearing this, Bette turned to Tina, who was giving her a puzzled look.
Bette held her hands out and shrugged.



“What?! Did I say something?”

After another round of musical chairs, Kit standing there with menus in
her hand before finally telling them to just sit where they were, and
more annoyed, but some amused, looks from Planet patrons, everyone was
finally seated and ready to peruse brunch menus. In all the moving
around, Dana ended up back on her chair and left to stare longingly
across the table at her girlfriend.

Alice and Howie were talking animatedly as they tried to figure out how
they could work avocadoes into one of the items on the menu. Dana
chuckled to herself softly, shaking her head. What were the chances of
her falling in love with someone who had the same weird, and numerous,
food cravings that her brother had? Somehow, in the space of time from
this morning when she left Al’s apartment until now, Alice and Howie
seems to have found some sort of connection. Ever since they sat down,
the two of them had been talking non-stop in a sort of friendly banter
that would only exist between lifelong friends.

“How… come on, you don’t think the Grilled Calamari Salad would go
well with avocadoes?” Alice asked, gesturing at the menu on the table.
In actuality, she wasn’t quite sure whether the two would go well
together either but she suddenly realized that she was also craving
calamari!

“Hel-lo, Little Miss Rockstar,” Howie scoffed at her attempt of a
craving combination. “Calamari and avocadoes would so not go together.
Everyone knows that calamari is more of a lemon-y pairing.”

“Right, lemon-y.” Alice scoffed right back. “Not gonna argue with you
there, Cosmo.” She was about to turn her head and stick her tongue out
to tease Howie but he beat her to it by tickling her until she was
squealing. “Okay, okay. get off me…
You’re making me sit on my cellphone… I’m gonna get Nokia branded!”
Al reached in her pocket and hastily emptied its contents onto the
table.

“Only if you promise to come up with better ideas.” Howie complied,
ceasing his tickling and pointed a finger at her. The pair went back to
contemplating the menu, with everyone else at the table looking
astonished at their interaction. Dana, who had been reading off of
their menu upside-down, had to move the contents of Alice’s pocket so
she could read the appetizers. Among the blonde’s keys, pocket change
and cellphone was a neon purple guitar pick that had a cute picture of
a turtle and the word “Dunlop” on it. Dana looked at it and made a
mental note to herself to ask Alice about it later.