“I thought you’d ask this sooner or later,” Gabby answered in a calm tone. “The truth of it is Alice, I brought you along to see if I could win you back as such. I pulled Liam and Brad along because, let’s face it, would I have been able to get you this far on your own?”

Alice sat in silence, nodding slightly at Gabby’s words. She wasn’t really surprised at all that Gabby had this other motivation for bringing them along, what she was surprised at was the direct and carefree manner she had told her.

“I-I’m sorry Gabby but a trip to Hawaii isn’t going to change anything,” Alice replied softly, her gaze not faltering from Gabby’s eyes. “I’m in love with Dana, so much in love with her that it hurts. Plus I can’t really forget that the last time we met, you threw a photo frame at my head.”

“Yes but that was after making fantastic love Alice,” Gabby reminded her slyly.

“Yes but normal people can make love without feeling the need to kill the other person afterwards Gabby.” Alice spoke slowly, her usual sarcastic tone shining through once more. “Look Gabby, you’re a fantastic person, and what you did today was brilliant, and we’ll all be in your debt for it but I really can’t be anything more than a friend of yours.”

Gabby nodded slowly for awhile, finishing the last few dregs of champagne in her glass before looking up at Alice and smiling.

“Alright then, I respect that,” She replied finally. “However, I need to ask you a favour, you know, to finally get over you, close this chapter of my life.. Blah blah.”

“What’s the favour?” Alice asked wearily.

“One kiss,” Gabby replied simply. “You know for closure.”

What exactly made Alice agree to that kiss she didn’t know. She was certain that she felt nothing for Gabby anymore. In fact Gabby’s confession had only strengthen in Alice’s mind the love she had for Dana. There was no doubt about it, Alice Pieszecke loved one woman, and one woman only and it was probably going to be like that for the rest of her life.

“Alright,” Alice said quietly, putting down her glass and standing up. “But this is it Gabby it’s simply for closure. And this kiss is kept quiet, you hear me?”

“Oh damn Alice, and here I was thinking I’d page LA Times the minute we finished,” Gabby replied sarcastically before getting up herself and moving over to Alice, stopping only mere centimeters away from Alice’s mouth. “You ready Alice? Our last ever kiss.”

Gabby moved in slowly, and as her lips caught Alice’s bottom lip, she brought her hand up to the back of Alice’s head, pulling her into the kiss as her tongue slowly moved into Alice’s mouth. Alice brought her arms around Gabby’s shoulders as she too allowed her tongue to wander, grazing over Gabby’s lips and into her mouth all the while thinking of Dana. Suddenly Gabby broke it off, and stepped back to look at Alice, a satisfied and friendly smile covering her face.

“Ok, I’m done completely over you,” she exclaimed before sitting down once more and pouring more champagne into her and Alice’s glasses. “So now that that’s done, tell me about this love of your life.”

Alice stood still for a moment, confused over the bizarre way Gabby had acted to the situation, but after looking at Gabby’s face, Alice realised that her ex was, probably most definitely, over her and was now no longer Gabby the ex but Gabby, her friend. And with that, Alice sat back down and began to talk.

Meanwhile in the bushes four stories below the verandah Alice and Gabby were sitting on, a man pulled out the digital camera he had just used and inspected the photos. They were good and would fetch a fine price back home in LA.

Carefully placing the camera back into the case, the man made his way back to the rental car he had borrowed, slowly as to not make himself known to the two women he had just photographed.