“It’s nice to see you Miss Pieszecki.”

“Hey Bill. How you doing?”

“I’m fine thank you. How are you?”

“A lot better thanks.”

Bill eyed Dana warily. Dana shifted uncomfortably but never let go of Alice.

“Everything is in order. You were right, he was living at your place, but we threw him out and changed the locks.” He handed over a set of keys to Alice. “I hope you don’t mind but my wife cleaned your apartment after he left.”

“She didn’t have to do that Bill.”

“She felt bad after all you went through, she just wanted to do something.”

“That was really sweet of her. Just let me get settled and I’ll drop by to say thanks properly. This is Dana by the way; she might be around for a bit.”

Alice gave Dana a questioning look which was returned with a smile and a nod. Dana stretched her arm out and shook Bill’s offered hand.

“It’s nice to meet you Miss. At least we know that Alice has some good friends to rely on.”

Alice rolled her eyes but smiled at Bill. Ever since she moved in Bill and his wife had taken it upon themselves to look out for Alice as she reminded them of their own daughter.

“I’m not a kid. I don’t need looking after.”

“You try telling my wife that. You have know idea the amount of times she nearly went to the hospital to see you. But I told her I did, I said that Alice told us that she wanted some alone time and that we weren’t to go around and bother you.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. You wouldn’t have bothered me, but I really wanted to just, you know, be with me.”

“Julie understood artistic temperament she said. You needed to be at one with yourself, or something.”

“Something like that. Anyway, I really need to get inside. I’ll come round soon, I promise.” 

“You’d better; you know that you won’t be able to avoid Julie for that long. She’ll want you round for dinner. You can bring your friend.”

“Absolutely.”

Bill held the door open as Dana helped Alice limp into her building, she turned and Dana noticed that Alice was nervously biting her lip again.