……………………………………………….

ACROSS TOWN…

“It wasn’t exactly what she’d said, it was the way she’d said it. She was so uncompromising and controlling, I couldn’t believe how much of a turn on that was.” Tina laughed at herself.

“Can you blame her?” Alice and Tasha laughed together at the dazed and heated look Tina had on her face as she recalled that night. “Tee why don’t you just sleep in the guest room with Bette?”

“Because I know how much you hate going into his room Al, I wouldn’t want to add to your discomfort by making you guys stay in there.”

“I appreciate that, I really do but I think I’m ok, I’ve been dealing with my feelings from a whole new perspective so I think we’ll be ok. Besides, even if that were still the case, where were you going to have Bette sleep?”

“I hadn’t totally thought that part out yet. Just for a second I was thinking about having Bette stay at a hotel and I was going to alternate back and…” Tina looked across at the dead looks across the table, both Tasha and Alice were slightly shaking their heads at her. Tina had been worried about making everyone feel so at ease with this potentially bad idea of a trip that she’d forgotten small but important details. “But you’re ok with sleeping in there?”

Tasha looked over to her and she smiled, Alice had finally come to terms with Rick’s death. She’d dealt with it in therapy and released every emotion she had felt all over again, only this time she didn’t prematurely clip them back for the sake of anyone else. Like the partner that she’d always tried to be towards Alice, Tasha was right there through it all. She’d held her when she needed to cry and listened and interacted with Alice when she needed to talk and verbalize what she felt at that moment. Their marriage was getting a lot stronger because of it.

“Yea, I’m ok. You and Bette can have the guest bedroom and we’ll sleep in Rick’s room.”