“Ohhh screw you…” was Al´s response and looking back at a defeated me “I´ll always be here for you as well… I just…. I….” searching for a speech.

“Alice looking for words… woooowwww…. that is definately a first” said Dana with a sarcastic tone of voice, not weird in her when it came to tease Alice.

To which, with her usual expresion that seemed to come from the bottom of her soul, Al answered “screw you too!”

At that point we were all sharing a much needed laugh… except for Al of course.

“Yeah yeah yeah… laugh at my expenses…. but seriously…” and sounding as childish as Alice can sound… and that is a lot… she added “Beeeeeette”

“AAAAAliice…” I replied smiling…

“Ohhh come on! I mean… I just wish you would have told us, you know… shared at least a bit of this with us sooner… and on the verge of being selfish here… I don´t want you to go like that… it´s like… you come now and completely out of the blue you just…. throw all this new info on the table and it´s not so easy to digest you know…”

“I understand your point Al but…” I was searching for words when she interrupted me as usual.

“I mean I´m sort of happy for you that you finally decide to dedicate some time for yourself but you had to go and sell your companies?”

At that point a giggling Shane looked at me and said “I loved that “I´m sort of happy”… “

Looking back at Shane and lifting my eyebrows for a brief second “yeahhh me too…”

“Look Al I just had to… you know me… if I still had the companies, how would I ever consider seriously this time off?…. I know I could not stay away… completely at least… but now I don´t have anything to do or to focus on but…. myself” Emphasizing the but….

 "Besides… may I add that those companies belonged to my father on the first place… and now that he passed away as much as it hurts me to admit I don´t want to continue with the family tradition… I want something else…” 

I was frankly begining to be annoyed with all the explanation, so Shane as usual understood my increasing level of annoyance and trying to divert everyone´s attention from the previous heavy subject for at least a moment, giving me some time to breathe, she asked about Kit…