“Oh, no, not again!” Alice’s attention was distracted
from the brunette’s and brought back to the table by the sound of Heather’s
voice. She was walking back to the booth with two beers when she saw Alice’s
eyes fixed at the bar.

“What?! I didn’t do anything!” Alice said
defensively, recalling her thoughts earlier.

Dana was utterly confused about the whole situation.
Just mere seconds ago, she was set on ignoring Alice and making the blonde feel
bad for using her tonight. And she saw it, she saw the concern on Alice‘s face,
noticing how quiet she was …but then it changed, her attention was drawn
elsewhere. Granted, Dana’s attention was elsewhere too, on Melanie to be exact.
Something about the almost-stranger attracted her and prompted her mouth to go
on babbly mode. But Dana’s jaw almost dropped at how blatantly Alice and the
brunette at the bar were flirting …in front of the other’s girlfriend, no
less!

Dana suddenly started to panic inside, luckily Melanie didn’t
notice. Why hadn’t Dana seen it before?! She felt so nave for trusting the
first person she met on campus. Why couldn’t she have seen that Alice‘s friendly
exterior only hid the sleazy, stealin’ heartthrob underneath. Heartthrob? Did
she just say “heartthrob”?

“Aw, geez!”she whispered to herself, getting more and
more confused by the minute. “I’m gonna go get a bottle of water from the
machine,” she hastily explained to Mel, pointing at the vending machine she saw
by the washrooms and headed in that direction before anyone could stop her.

Alice had her mind
back on the brunette at the bar. Her last thought kept coming back to her.

“What now…?”

It seemed unthinkable for Alice to be the “other woman”
but she felt so drawn to the brunette, it was almost worth the risk. Plus, in
her defence, the flirting was not one-sided and sometimes was even stronger on
the brunette’s side. No, she couldn’t feel responsible for a relationship that
was weak even without her in the picture. For four weeks straight she had seen
the brunette at the Grind, and for four weeks they had flirted. Sometimes it
was harmless staring. A couple of other times were blatant seductive actions
that caused the brunette’s girlfriend to react like she did just a few minutes
ago.

But, just like before, Alice couldn’t bring herself to
care very much, because, to be brutally honest with herself, Bette was right.
This is college, and dammit, there are tons of girls to be had and laid! It’s
not about love, it’s not about forever. *****, it isn’t even about going steady.
It’s about seeing what you want and going after it. Alice looked at the
brunette at the bar, she seemed to be waiting for her. Deciding that it was now
or never, Alice stood up.

“I think I’m gonna go get a drink from the bar.” She
turned her head to tell Heather as she walked away from the booth.

Heather helplessly called out to both girls in a sort of whine, neither one
of them really hearing her.

“B-but, hold on, you guys… I just brought you some
beer…?”

——————-