“Let’s go inside Dean Porter,” Tina said as managed to reduce her laugh to a small giggle. She pulled Bette up and kissed her softly.

“Kiss my boo-boo?” Bette asked in the most innocent voice she could muster.

Tina forgot the situation as she entered the house pulling Bette behind her. It was such a natural thing, to be leading Bette inside, that she forgot that she didn’t live here anymore.

That is, until she made her way into the house, greeted by the smell of coffee and pancakes.

“Are you guys hungry?” Asked Jodi as she sat down at the table with a cup of coffee. “I made enough for everybody, please. Sit, eat.”

Tina couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Why was Jodi still here? Why was she cooking them breakfast? Why didn’t she kick her ass? What did any of this mean?

She didn’t seem to be angry, sad, or resentful. She seemed to be genuinely happy. Surprisingly happy; happy to have them there with her for breakfast.

Tina was too tired to question Jodi’s motives as she tried to remember whether arsenic was tasteless or not as she surprised herself by saying “yes” and sitting down at the kitchen table mere inches from Jodi.

The air was filled not with tension, as the three sat down together, but with hope and a surprising clarity.

“Let’s eat, and then all three of us can talk,” said Bette.

Jodi looked from Bette back to Tina noticing that they never took their eyes off of each other. She had this at one time, but she let it go. Not with Bette, never with Bette, but she had it once before. When she thought about why she had come back with Bette, she realized it was more out of a sense of obligation than anything else. How could she let her leave alone when she had tried so hard to prove herself? Like Tina, she was tired of running.

“You better not break my heart,” she had told Bette after she had given her that sign even though she knew that Bette couldn’t break something she had never offered her.

Bette knew this too. She had tried to force the connection that both her and Jodi knew in the back of their minds was never there. Bette had once thought she wanted sex without emotional entanglements, but she realized that sex without emotional entanglements made her feel dead. Made her feel nothing, and she wanted to feel again.

“Actually, I was just getting ready to head out,” said Jodi as she got up from her chair. “Tina, you better not break her heart. You can’t keep running or you’ll run your whole life,” she said as she gave Tina a compassionate smile. She knew that this would be difficult for them, but not impossible.

“I won’t,” promised Tina.

“I’ll let myself out. Call me later, ok?” And with that she was gone.

Yes, Tina knew exactly what Bette saw in her.