“What’s not funny?” Dana asked walking up with Lara by her side. Alice stiffened, her mouth pursing into a thin line at the sight of the red-haired chef standing closely next to Dana.

Feeling the tension rise to a maximum in the room Bette offered an answer to Dana’s unanswered question. “Well it seems that Shane and Carmen have been participating in some table sex.”

“Dinner table sex.” Alice added her nonchalant guards now fully up. “Oh my.” Dana said sitting down smiling at Shane. Her smile quickly vanished as realization settled in, “Wait, I’ve eaten off that table.”

“We all have Dana, we all have.” Tina said smiling sending everyone except Carmen into a fit of laughter. “I have to get to work, sweetie.” Lara said kissing Dana on the cheek. “Yeah, we’d hate to keep you.” Alice said receiving a glare from Dana which she quickly shrugged off with a “What?”

Planting one last kiss on Dana’s cheek, and waving goodbye to the other girls, Lara walked off disappearing behind the doors of the kitchen. “Do you have to be so mean, Alice?” Dana asked as soon as Lara was out of earshot. “I’m not being mean, all I was saying is that we’d hate for her to be late for work, we wouldn’t want her job to be in jeopardy, god knows we love her working here.”

“Right. I’m gonna go you guys. I’ll see you later.” Dana said getting up, followed quickly by Alice asking “Where are you going?”

“Why does that matter?” Dana asked. “It doesn’t you know, but you just got here, you don’t have to go already.” Alice replied, her head bowed feebly as she played with the straw in her drink.

Letting her guards down Dana sighed, not wanting to hurt Alice, but not knowing what else to do. “I have to train, Al.”

“Right. Of course.” replied Alice quickly sitting back down and burying her face into her magazine. Baffled, Dana stood there completely at a loss of words for Alice’s sudden change of mood. Scanning over the rest of her friends for support Dana was relieved, but saddened when she saw Shane mimicking Alice popping pills.

“Yeah, I’m gonna go now.” Dana said with a quick wave and one last glance at Alice and her magazine.