“Alice?” Alex questioned.

“I’m not dating Dana,” Alice assured Alex, trying to sound
relaxed. “She’s just having some problems and I’ve been letting her
crash here,” she continued.

“What kind of problems? How often?” Alex asked. She was relieved
to hear they weren’t dating but the energy between them was more than
she could ignore.

“You know what?” she interrupted Alice’s thoughts. “Let’s talk
about this later. Your friend seems upset. Call me. We’ll be okay if we
want to be,” she reasoned.

Alice looked at the woman in front of her gratefully. “Are you sure?” she asked.

Alex smiled, her eyebrows knit together, “You have more going on than I
do,’ she admitted. “I’m going home, but let’s talk soon.”

Alice walked her to the door; the easy feeling they had shared earlier was gone as they said an awkward goodnight.

“Dana,” Alice groaned after she heard the elevator signal Alex had left.

The blonde walked into her bedroom. “You can come out now,” she sighed.
Puzzled she looked around the vacant room, checking her closet and
looking into the bathroom off her bedroom. “Dana?” she called again,
more confused.

A thorough search of her apartment confirmed that Dana had gone.

“Great,” the blonde said aloud, exasperated.

Dana had been sleeping at Alice’s about 3 nights a week now for the
last couple months. Each time it was the same. She’d arrive late, right
around Alice’s bedtime, and go pretty much straight to sleep. She was
usually gone and the couch made up by the time Alice awoke.

They had fallen into an unspoken agreement not to talk to their friends
about the odd arrangement. Neither of them would really know how to
explain it anyway. Alice had satisfied herself that whatever Dana’s
issue was, it wasn’t her health. She had asked her on several occasions
if she was sick and the athlete had promised her she was fine. Her
success on the tennis court certainly would bear out that she was
physically fine.

Alice spent about ten minutes debating what to do before finally
deciding that neither one of them would sleep if she didn’t track down
the tennis player. ‘She wouldn’t have come here if she didn’t need to,’
Alice knew and she had seemed kind of unhappy about Alex being there.
‘If Dana left, she’s upset,’ the reporter concluded. She wondered when
she had begun caring so much about Dana’s happiness again.