Paul and Brad wandered into the furniture store and promptly found the mattresses. Brad gratefully flumped down on the first one he saw, enjoying a bit of rest in a comfortable position after countless hours in a plane and chasing Paul round his apartment. “We’re supposed to be attaching one of these things to Gina’s car, huh?” he asked as Paul flumped down next to him.

“We’ve done it before,” Paul declared, sitting up on his elbows. “It’s amazing how the other cars on the road avoid a Beetle with a mattress on it. Well, when they’re not cursing you.”

“Which one are you gonna get?”

“I dunno, whatever you and Fen’ll like.” Paul moved to the next bed and bounced on it to test it out.

“You’re really gonna buy a whole mattress for us?” Brad gushed.

“You’ll probably be the only people to use it. Lots of people are too afraid of me to spend a whole night in our house, and every time you screw up, Fen comes to visit, so does she like a soft or firm mattress?”

“Bouncy ones,” Brad shrugged as he got off the model mattress, convinced it was too comfortable and he’d fall asleep if he stayed sprawled on it a moment more.

“You sure that’s not you?” Paul asked, clutching at the mattress as Brad leapt onto it and sent him bouncing across it. “I see you now in fuzzy footsie pajamas jumping up and down on the bed while Lilly tells you to stop it and get to sleep.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Brad huffed. “You slip off the comforter in footsie pjs, that’s what the pink bunny slippers are for, better grip.”

“We’re not friends anymore,” Paul chuckled as he got off the bed.

“…the class has been pretty good, once you work past the voyeuristic old women and the guy who’s taken to replacing genitals with a poorly rendered third hand, which is just really freaky. I get some drawing in and I get to do something slightly more worthwhile with my time than sucker people into wanting to see really bad movies.”

“Well figure drawing’s certainly something you’re good at,” Danny smirked, “I know from experience.”

Gina rolled her eyes at the pair; this was getting ridiculous. The idle conversation, catching up on their new jobs and Danny’s encounter with Freya and Fenny’s trip over was just there to keep them busy so they wouldn’t have time to imagine each other naked.

Just mentioning Danny’s name to Fenny would send her hormones racing so rampant you could practically hear them, and vice versa. It was amazing they’d been in the same room for as long as they had without saying or doing something stupid. But if the sexual tension that swamped the room so thickly that Gina had a hard time breathing through it was anything to go by, it wouldn’t be long.

“I’d tell you two to just fuck and get it out of your systems,” Gina announced suddenly, “but I don’t need that in my bed and Paul and Brad haven’t got back with the mattress for the spare room yet.” Fenny blushed furiously and turned her eyes down to study the inside of her mug. “Speaking of which, I wonder if they’ve been arrested for drunk driving and wielding a deadly mattress yet.” She got up and headed for the phone in the dining room.

“Maybe you should call?” Danny suggested.

“Thanks for that, Daniel,” she huffed and dialed Paul’s number. Fenny cocked her head curiously a moment before wandering down the hall. “Come on, Paul, I don’t want to have to bail you and Sherwood out of jail again,” Gina sighed.

The ringing stopped. “Is there a reason Paul keeps his cell phone in the bathroom between his aftershave and an unopened box of condoms?” a distinctly feminine voice sounded in Gina’s ear.

“Fen!” she yelled down the hall. She appeared and handed Gina Paul’s mobile phone. “He’s such an idiot. Will you call your husband and find out what’s taking them so long?”

Fenny shrugged and took the phone from her and quickly dialed Brad’s number. “Hi Fen, how’re you?” he chirped as he answered.

“We’re wondering where you are. You found Dan’s beer, didn’t you?”

“Paul and I only had a couple. Each.”

“Good for you. How long—” She paused at the sound of a third voice which, though muffled, sounded like the all too familiar timbre of a security guard intervening in the Exciting Adventures of Paul and Brad. “What are you doing?”

“Watching Paul test out bunk beds.”

Fenny closed her eyes and tried to keep from smiling. “And why would Paul be testing out bunk beds?”

“For Christ’s sake,” Gina sighed as Danny giggled at them.

“Cause he’s Paul?” Brad guessed. “He likes to climb stuff.”

“Where are you and how far away are the police at this point?”

“Some furniture store, Paul’s gonna buy us a new mattress ‘cause we didn’t want to carry his down the stairs and it’s got too many of his chromosomes embedded in it for me to be comfortable sleeping on it.”

“Of course. Well will you hurry up and get back? I’d like to put the mattress to use.” Gina raised an eyebrow at her and Fenny threw a roll of masking tape, nicking her shoulder. Gina scowled and Danny snickered until Fenny menacingly held up a paintbrush. “I’m exhausted after that plane trip and I’d like to sleep off some of this jet lag.”

“Aww, alright honey, what kind of mattress do you want?”

“The first one you can find before Paul injures himself or someone else. And if you hurry up, we might be able to con Dan into staying long enough to help you poor guys bring it in the house?” She looked questioningly at Danny.

“Sure,” he shrugged.

“Danny’s there?” Brad asked.

“Yup.”

“Come on monkey boy, grab a mattress and let’s get going.”

Fenny heard a muffled thud and Paul’s voice: “You, ugly little man with the bad tie, what’s the least overpriced mattress I can tie to the top of a Beetle?”

“Brad, please,” Fenny said firmly, “be good, and don’t let Paul do anything stupid?”

“Promise, sweetheart.” And with that the phone was clicked off, and Fenny tried very hard to ignore the argument she’d heard breaking out in the background about three day delivery charges.

“They’re on their way,” Fenny sighed, handing the phone back.

“Why don’t we know any vaguely intelligent men?” Gina asked.

Danny cleared his throat and raised a hand.

“This coming from a guy who got himself a black eye playing football,” Gina countered.

“I like playing footy,” he pouted.

“A bunch of grown men wearing shorts and chasing after a little ball…” The image of Danny in his tight shorts washed through Fenny’s mind. “I’ll go make up another pot of tea,” she breathed and scurried out of the room.

Greg wiped his glasses on the hem of his shirt as he wandered up to Fenny and Brad’s apartment, braced for an onslaught from the kid, the cat or the couple. There was a taping later that night and while Brad wasn’t performing, Greg wanted to invite him to come drinking with them afterwards. It was a weekend, Fen had the night off, and she could probably be talked into watching Lilly if both he and Brad ganged up on her with the whining and pleading. He knocked on the door and waited, shifting his weight to the other foot before impatiently knocking again.

He scowled at the door knob for a moment. Fenny and Brad had had problems lately. Brad had pulled out of a couple tapings. He’d mentioned sending Lilly out of town. No one was answering the door. “For god’s sake, they’ve done it again,” he groaned, dropping his head on the doorframe.

The door opened behind him and he turned swiftly to see the neighbor standing in the hall looking questioningly at him. “Something wrong?”

Inside the apartment Jaguar gave him a disapproving look and went back to licking his paw indignantly. “Fen and Brad went to Australia didn’t they?”

“Yeah,” Jenna smiled, “how’d you guess?”

“Just lucky, I suppose,” Greg shrugged. “Thanks.” And with that he wandered off back down the hall. “No way I’m going to Oz to rescue them if they get themselves kidnapped again,” he muttered to himself. “No way in hell.”

“Body beats, I stain my sheets, I don’t even know why, My girlfriend, she’s at the end, she is starting to cry. ”

Singing was heard clearly from the front yard and Gina and Fenny shared a knowing look. “Don’t suppose the boys are home yet, do you?” Gina asked.

The front door opened and Paul and Brad wandered in, still singing together. “Let me go on, like a blister in the sun.”

“Hi Genie,” Paul chirped. “We’ve got a mattress.”

“What happened to the one in your apartment?” she asked, following him and Brad out to the driveway where the new, plastic-covered mattress was precariously attached to the roof of her car.

“It looked heavy,” he shrugged.

“Gina can wrestle a gun off a heavy, but the pair of you can’t push a mattress down some stairs,” Fenny tutted. “Sad really.”

Brad worked at untying the knots in the ropes while Paul and Danny disentangled the maze of ropes from around the car and mattress. Gina and Fenny stood watching with their arms folded across their chests, waiting for the swearing to begin.

“Scott, would you look at this?”

“You’ve got to stop spying on the neighbors like this Vicki.”

“But they’ve another bloke with them, and they just unloaded a mattress on the lawn, you don’t suppose…”

“Shit, aaah!” Brad squealed as the mattress threatened to knock him over. Getting the mattress vertical was turning out to be a bigger challenge than any of them seemed to have expected, even after they’d taken off the protective plastic covering that was impossible to grip onto.

“You’re sure you and Sherwood can’t just stay on the floor?” Paul grunted at Fenny.

“Look, if you turn it this way, and then hold it there…no, the other bit,” Danny ordered.

“I don’t think I can watch this,” Fenny sighed and headed into the house.

“You can get the first aid kit ready then, I’m going to go laugh at the guys.”

With a smile, Fenny grabbed the bags that had been left in the hallway and moved them into the spare room, making sure the path was clear for the three incompetents with the mattress. She ended up guiding them through the house with Gina following behind giving advice and laughing whenever someone got pinned to a wall.

They managed to get the mattress in the center of the room, where the three men collapsed unceremoniously onto it. “Thanks guys,” Gina smiled.

“I think I slipped a disc,” Danny announced.

“Is it possible to slip your entire spine?” Brad asked.

“I hurt,” Paul groaned.

“Everyone up,” Fenny demanded, “I need to make the bed.”

“I thought it was Gina’s job to be the one anal about neatness,” Paul said, but scrambled off anyway.

“Usually it is, but I really need a nap.”

“Me too,” Brad agreed.

“Well, guess I’ll leave you guys to get settled,” Danny nodded and crawled off the bed. “I’ll see you guys around, yeah?”

“I hope so,” Fenny smiled. Brad grabbed a sheet from the pile in the corner and hurriedly unfolded it.

The others left the couple to do up their bed and finally get a well-needed nap in. Fenny and Brad stifled yawns as they spread out the sheets and blankets, and as they finally got the pillows on the bed, they heard the front door close and Danny’s car drive off. Brad couldn’t suppress a relieved sigh.

“I wish you would make more of an effort to be nice to Dan,” she declared. “I mean after all, he’s saved our asses on several occasions.”

“He’s also kicked mine and seen yours naked, which I really have a problem with.”

“Greg’s seen me naked too, and you’ve coped with that.”

“He hasn’t declared his undying love for you.”

“Brad, that was ages ago,” she soothed as she stepped out of her jeans and placed her glasses on the floor.

“No, it was six weeks ago,” he pointed out, pulling off his shirt.

“It doesn’t matter when it was.” They crawled under the covers together and snuggled close. “I love you, and I’ve got the ring and the cute little monkey to prove it.” His hand moved to stroke where he knew the tattoo would be. “And while the jealousy thing is kind of endearing, I’d like it if you were nice to,” she paused to let out a sleepy yawn, “my friend.”

“Sorry Fen, I’ll try.” He kissed her cheek and she let out a pleased hum before they both drifted quickly into an exhausted sleep.

Gina found Paul sitting at the dining room table scribbling something into his sketch pad. He looked up as she came into the room and smiled at her before going back to his scribbling.

“Paul? Can we talk?” she asked as she sat next to him.

He looked up at her, eyes wide as he closed his book. “I don’t like things that start out with ‘can we talk.’ That’s usually a sign that I’ve done something to get me into trouble and I didn’t realize it at the time.”

“No, you haven’t done anything. Not that I know of anyway.” She tried to give him a playful smile but he just looked at her blankly.

“This is about you going out this morning, isn’t it.”

“Um, yeah, actually.” She nodded and turned her eyes to the table. “Giles called. He wanted to talk things through, I felt kind of bad for yelling at him, it’s not his fault he’s deluded. So I went to meet him for breakfast, to tell him again that I’m deeply in love with you and there’s nothing anyone could do to tear me away from you.”

“But,” Paul prompted.

“But,” Gina nodded. “I kissed him.”

“You what?” he gasped.

“I don’t know why it happened, he was just being sweet and pathetic and it just happened. We didn’t do anything, it was just a simple, stupid kiss.”

“It’s not just a kiss when a guy you spent god knows how long banging back in England shows up and proposes to you.”

“It was just a kiss, Paul,” she assured him. “I’d convinced him it was over between him and me, and then after, well after the kiss, I ran out of the park without so much as a word to Giles.”

“You convinced him he didn’t have a chance with you and then you kissed him? What the fuck does that mean, Gina?” he demanded.

“I never said it was a good idea!”

“So now what happens?” he huffed, folding his arms across his chest and glaring at her.

“I hope Giles goes back to London, I really do.”

“What, so you won’t be tempted to let him stick his tongue down your throat again?”

“No,” she sighed. “Because we don’t need another Freya in our life.”

“And here we go again,” he growled, getting up from his chair, “everything’s always about Freya, isn’t it?”

“No, it’s — I don’t know what it’s about. But it’s not like I gave him a blowjob or anything.”

“So what, because I screwed up once ages ago that gives you the right to do whatever stupid things you want for the rest of our marriage? You break a marriage vow and somehow the argument moves right back to me and Freya, nothing’s ever your fault because I’m an arse, right? It’s just not fucking fair.”

“All I said is that I don’t want Giles following me around and doing anything he can to get me into bed the way that Freya’s been stalking you for the last couple years, you’re the one that turned it into an argument about your infidelities.”

“Well we’re turning it back into an argument about yours.”

“Good.” Gina took a breath, trying to regroup. “It was one kiss, that’s all it ever will be. I love you, I only told you because I thought we had an open, trusting relationship, and I thought you had a right to know that I’m only human and I fucked up. I thought you’d be mature enough to work past it, but obviously not.”

“Oh, and I’m the commitment-phobic one in the relationship, huh?” Paul snapped.

“What does that mean?” Gina barked back.

“Sure I messed things up, but you’re the one going off and groping some prick that wants to marry you. If you were really working as hard for this marriage as you keep telling me to, you’d stop with the Giles thing, wouldn’t you!”

“This is stupid,” Gina exclaimed. “Fen and Brad are here, we’re supposed to be having a good time with our closest friends, and you’re getting pissed off about the most trivial little things. If you were as dedicated to us as you make yourself out to be, you’d move past my one mistake and just get over it.”

“Yeah, like you’ve gotten over Freya, huh?”

“I’m not having this argument again,” Gina grumbled.

“Yeah, well neither am I,” Paul huffed.

“Good.”

“Good.”

They glared at each other for a minute before she headed off to the kitchen and he flumped himself back down at the table with his sketchbook.

“Fen?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you hear yelling?”

“Gina’s telling Paul she kissed this English guy in beige pants that wants to marry her.”

“Is she gonna do it?”

“What?”

“Marry the beige pants?”

“Brad?”

“Yeah?”

“Shut up and sleep.”