Bette rolled out of bed and dressed quickly as possible as to not wake the sleeping blonde who was lying naked in bed. She leaned over and placed a kiss on the blonde’ forehead, who smelled of heather. “Thanks for the fun night.”

————-

“Hello,” Bette spoke into her cell phone. “Hold on.” She pressed the speaker button on her phone. “Hi.”

“Hello, is this Bette Porter that I’m speaking with?”

“Hi, Alice,” Bette smiled at Alice’s teasing. Bette took the bottle opener off the table and pried the film canister open and went about removing the film from the canister and loading it on the stainless steel reel and placing it in the stainless steel developer tank. As much as she loved her digital cameras, there was nothing that compared to film and being able to develop her own photos. “What’s going on?”

“What’s going on? What’s going on? You tell me Bette…the gang and I haven’t seen you in like a month. You’ve missed the Sunday brunches and…”

“I know Alice and I’m sorry. I’m been busy lately,” Bette interrupted her friend, not wanting to get into it right now. “I’ll make it up to you…I promise.”

“Really? You promise? Listen Bette, I know Jodi…I know she hurt you, but you can’t shut us out.”

Bette let out a sigh. Had she been shutting her friends out? The last person she saw was Shane and that was the last time she felt sorry for herself. Fucking Jodi. “Name the date and time and I’ll show up. Promise.”

“Okay. Friday night at Milk. Ten o’clock. My roommate from college is moving to L.A. and she’s staying with me for a while until she finds an apartment.”

“Roommate…from college…right… the one from North Carolina. The mousy one with the thick Southern drawl.”

"Yes, Tina."