Tina listened to the monotonous ticks coming from the clock which rested on her nightstand, thinking it was quite odd that the tiny contraption was going at the same pace her heart was. She stretched over to look at the time, ’3:45 in the morning.’ she read, and after doing the math she realized she’d been laying there” awake, for the past two hours, thinking about so many things, her life, her job, her promises, her commitments and most importantly she was thinking about Bette.

‘What have I gotten myself into?’ she thought letting a weak smile spread across her face. She flipped onto her side and found herself yawning into her pillow, secretly wishing she were beside the lovely Miss Porter. ‘God that kiss…’ Tina reminded herself, squeezing in a few more thoughts before her body finally succumbed to slumber. ‘I wonder if she’s thinking the same thing…’ Tina questioned right before she drifted off to rest her tired mind.
_________________________________

Alice turned her attention away from the morning paper and over to Bette, not being able to help but feel as if her friend were engaged in some kind of internal war with herself. She warily glanced at her wristwatch, it was now 7:30 in the morning, a full thirty minutes since she and Bette have arrived at The Planet to start the day right, but by now it was kind of safe to assume that Bette’s coffee had long gone cold. The fact that Bette hadn’t spoken a word to her didn’t go unnoticed, but nevertheless Bette just sat there staring aimlessly at the tabletop looking like someone had just run over her dog. Alice noted the pained expression on her face, as if she was deep in concentration. Alice finally had her fill, she had been patient long enough, and it was time to find out what all of this was about. She cleared her throat to make sure that Bette would be paying attention to what she was about to ask next:

“All right Bette, what the ***** is wrong?”

Bette tried to give her an assuring smile, but she knew her eyes would betray her.

“I don’t know…”

Alice raised a brow, “Well I don’t think you’d be acting like this if you didn’t know…”

Bette shot her a sideways look. ‘What am I supposed to tell her?’, she thought, shifting her gaze towards a nearby window. She felt the strange effects of having too much exhaustion mixing itself with such an enormous amount restlessness. She couldn’t get any sleep last night, for once her nerves actually got the best of her. Something wasn’t right. She thought that after the kiss with Tina her little obsession would go away, and when she got what she wanted all the madness would end… But now it all seemed to be taking up permanent residence in her head. ‘What’s happening to me?’ she thought, realizing that her little step forward turned out to be such a big step back, her little plan had backfired, and she quickly realized all her years of womanizing and playing it smooth… has now amounted to this. It took a few minutes before Bette could finally respond to Alice.

“It’s about Tina…”

“Oh…” Alice replied, finally understanding why Bette seemed so distant.

“Yeah I know.”

“Well what are you waiting for?”

“What do you mean?”

“Isn’t this the part where you get in there and sweep her off her feet?”

Bette shrugged her shoulders and sighed. Alice was right, she had to take matters into her own hands, she knew she had to see Tina again, but she also knew she couldn’t treat Tina like one of her random conquests. The words that came next echoed her sentiments in almost an exact sense:

“Oh come on Porter, I know you like her… I mean you never used to do this when you were with me…” Alice reasoned, but soon found herself regretting what she had just said when she heard Bette’s reply.

“Careful Alice, you’re beginning to sound a tad bit jealous…” Bette joked, squinching her thumb and index finger together, trying to lighten the mood that seemed so intense just a few minutes ago.

“P-uhleeeze! You wish!” Alice retorted, forming a small ball with the paper napkin, which came with her coffee, and playfully throwing it across the table towards Bette.

Both of them exchanged a fair amount of quips until Bette realized how late for work she truly was.

“Listen Al, I gotta go…” Bette said picking up her things.

“Yeah okay, I’ll see ya’ later.”

“K thanks!”
____________________________________

Bette got into her car and cautiously drove towards the gallery. All throughout the ride she was playing out the imaginary conversation that she and Tina would hopefully be having later, thinking of what she was going to do and say next. Unfortunately for her, work was going to have to come first, as an onslaught of meetings and conference calls persistently kept her from contacting Tina. Bette found a little window of time at around 1; she was barely halfway through dialing Tina’s number when her assistant came rushing through the door.

“Bette, Sam Lancaster is on line 1. And the person in charge of the San Diego Fall Preview is on line 2…”

Bette mouthed the words “thank you” and waved for her assistant to go. She sighed as frustration took hold of her, then buried her head in her hands thinking, ‘Christ, when is this day going to end?’
____________________________________

Tina’s day was equally as brutal, her assistant called in sick and piles among piles of paper work were stacked above her desk, her phone was constantly ringing, and her superiors were pressuring her to work double time to meet the deadline. Just when she thought things couldn’t get any worse Eric called her a few minutes before lunch:

“Hey babe.” Eric said through the other line.

“Hey yourself…” Tina answered sounding a bit pre-occupied.

“Uh, I was wondering if I could take you out to dinner tonight…”

“I don’t know Eric, I still have a lot to do here and…”

“You’re canceling on me again.” Eric said a bit crestfallen.

“Oh come on babe, it’s only for””

“Save it Tina!” Eric said in a visible tone of anger.

“God! What is your problem?”

“Nothing, it’s just that I make time for you, and all you do is…”

“All I do is what?”

“Cancel!” he half-screamed through the receiver.

“Oh nice Eric, very nice!” Tina said obviously upset.

“Listen I can’t handle this right now… I have to go… bye.”

“*****!” Tina cursed under her breath as she hung up the phone. ‘I really didn’t need that!’ she thought, yet at the back of her mind she knew she didn’t have enough time to waste pondering on such feeble thing, ‘Eric will just have to wait’.
____________________________________

At around 4 Bette was finally finished with work, but to her disappointment Tina’s line was busy, and after many attempts of trying to reach Tina she finally gave up. “Now what?” she asked out loud.

She stood up from her chair and decided to put all her files and papers away, then out of nowhere a sudden stroke of genious hit her.
‘If she can’t come to the phone, then I guess I’ll just have to go and come to her…’

Bette hastily grabbed her purse and her keys, before she made her way to her car and drove the distance towards Tina’s office.
____________________________________

At 4:15 that afternoon the phone was no longer as bothersome and Tina could finally breathe a sigh of relief, the enormous stacks of paper were slowly thinning down, and from the looks of things it seemed like meeting her deadline was actually possible. She was underlining a typographical error, when she heard a knock on her door. “Come in., she yelled, her eyes not leaving the script she was holding.

“Hey.” she heard a familiar voice say, the effect on her was almost unmistakable. A smile crept across her face.

“Bette…” Tina said, suddenly directing all her attention towards Bette. “What are you doing here?”

TBC =)