Fenny wandered down the hall and wrinkled her nose a bit at the smell wafting from the kitchen. “What are you cooking?”

“Fish,” Gina declared, stepping away from cutting up vegetables.

“Oh.”

“What, you don’t like my fish?”

“I don’t eat anything with gills,” Fenny declared. “It’s a moral issue. I think it’s icky.”

“It doesn’t have gills anymore,” Gina shrugged.

“No, Brad and I will go out and get some dinner on our own,” Fenny said as Brad sauntered into the kitchen, apparently trying to shake water out of his ear. “You and Pauly can have a nice dinner in for a change.” She gave Gina a pointed look that harkened back to their earlier discussion.

“No we can’t, he’s gone out with Mikey.”

“Oh. Then we’ll stay and keep you company, I’ll fix myself a sandwich.”

“Huh?” Brad asked, still bobbing his head stupidly.

“There’s hydrogen peroxide in the bathroom, darling,” Fenny said, pushing him back down the hall.

“I don’t want to know what you two did in the shower to get that much water in his ears.”

“No, you really don’t,” Fenny smiled wickedly. “So do you need help fixing dinner?”

“No, go out, be a tourist, enjoy some time with your husband without his kid or me and Paul annoying you, you deserve it.” She gave Fenny a similarly pointed look as Brad yelled from down the hall.

“Fen, I can’t do it, the stuff’s dribbling down my neck!”

“Are all men this helpless or is it just ours?” Fenny chuckled.

“I heard that,” he snapped. “Well I think I did.”

“You’re sure about that, us going out?”

“Yeah, I’m sick of the two of you,” Gina teased. “You can even take my car if you promise to drive on the right side of the road.”

“Thanks, but I was thinking maybe we’d catch a cab into town and rent a car if we’re going to hang out for a while,” Fenny perked as she headed towards the bathroom. “But first to make sure my husband hasn’t flushed out his brain.”

“Isn’t it a bit late for that?”

Fenny stuck her tongue out and disappeared into the hallway and moved toward the sound of Brad’s whimpering.

Gina was halfway through fixing herself a lovely meal, feeling a bit foolish for preparing all that food when she was only feeding herself, but she’d already started cooking when Fenny and Brad had bailed out, so she hadn’t had much of a choice to do otherwise. She’d save herself cooking another meal and just reheat leftovers for Paul.

As her thoughts wandered to Paul and how drunk he was going to be when he got home, the phone rang.

“Hi Gina. Please tell me Paul is still there,” Danny said, sounding a bit curious.

“Um, no. Why, did you find something kinky in his apartment you want to borrow? I’m sure he wouldn’t mind if you wanted a perve through his porn collection.”

“He’s got a porn collection?” Danny asked.

“He’s a man isn’t he?”

“Well—wait a sec, I got sidetracked. So Paul’s not there?”

“No, he went to dinner with Mikey. Why?”

“Mikey?”

“Yes, close personal friend of his, I’m sure you’ve heard of him.”

“Well if he’s out with Mikey I guess that’s okay.”

“What are you on about, Daniel?” Gina demanded, tired of talking in circles.

“Freya was bragging about how she’s got Paul coming over to her place for dinner and her plans to do raunchy things to him. But if he’s with Mikey, that just proves that Freya really is as psychotic as we all thought she was.”

Gina frowned at herself. “God I hate that woman,” she growled.

“I’m sure she’s full of shit,” Danny soothed.

“Yeah, of course she is, when isn’t she?” Gina sighed.

“Well I just, you know, thought I’d call and make sure.”

“Thanks Dan. And before you ask, Fen isn’t here either, she and Brad went out.”

“I wasn’t going to ask,” he said indignantly.

“Uh huh,” Gina smiled. “Well I’ve gotta go, my dinner’s almost ready.”

“Okay. See you tomorrow then,” he smiled.

“Yeah, I can’t wait, more time with the psycho. Bye Dan.”

“Bye.”

Gina hung up the phone and wandered back into the kitchen to check on the fish, frowning to herself. No, if there was anything Paul wouldn’t do it was voluntarily spend time with Freya. She hoped.

Gina didn’t let herself think about Freya. After all, Freya had thought she’d won Paul over several times, only to find herself still lonely and looking stupid. As she finished dinner and started putting away leftovers, the phone rang again, and as she answered it she was expecting it to be drunken Paul or lost Fenny.

“Hi Gina.”

She was startled to hear Mikey’s voice. “If you’re calling to have me bail you two out, you’re out of luck, I’ve still got dinner dishes to do.”

He gave a hearty chuckle. “No, I just wondered if Monkey Boy was around so I could ask him about tomorrow’s run through?”

“Um, no,” Gina frowned, “Paul’s not here. I thought you and he had plans for tonight?”

“Nope, at least none I was aware of. Why, lost your husband?” Mikey laughed.

“No, I think I’ve got a good idea of where he is.”

“Any idea when he’ll be back?”

“I really don’t know,” she sighed. “I’ll tell him you called?”

“Thanks Gina. It’s not too important, it can wait if he decides to stay out ’til dawn like he does. And don’t let him forget he’s absolutely got to be on time for the final run through tomorrow.”

“Yeah, fine,” Gina nodded. She’d given up really listening to Mikey as soon as she found out he wasn’t with Paul. He’d lied to her. He couldn’t possibly be with Freya. But what other explanation was there?

“I’ll talk to you later then, yeah?”

“Yeah, fine,” Gina repeated and hung up the phone, at a loss for what to do, how to feel, or what to think. She opted for none of the above and flumped in front of the television to wait for Paul to come home.

Paul sat on Freya’s couch with a glass of wine in one hand and the remote control in the other, flipping idly through channels but not really paying any attention. It was strange being in Freya’s apartment, not just because he still wasn’t sure why he’d accepted her invitation, and not just because the furniture was still arranged eerily like his own. She was actually acting like an almost normal human being. At dinner she hadn’t served him an ounce of tofu or soy, and she’d not complained as he’d sculled down several glasses of the wine she’d offered him. Conversation was light and friendly with no pretensions or manipulations. He couldn’t decide if Freya was up to no good or if he’d walked into a parallel dimension where she’d actually become sane.

He could hear her tinkering away in the kitchen, putting up leftovers and washing the dishes, and it was almost as if they were back to when his life had been simpler, just him and Freya, no wife’s ex-boyfriends or screwed up Americans or home renovations or possum attacks.

Paul decided he had had enough wine and placed his glass on the table and settled on a sports program he could ignore as he leaned back and closed his eyes briefly. The combination of picnicking, rehearsing, and a belly full of wine and food threatened to lull him into a much-needed sleep.

Just as he was beginning to doze off, Freya sat next to him, very close, and slid a hand over his chest. He smiled and let out a pleased sigh, opening his eyes briefly to see her smiling seductively down at him. He closed his eyes again as she leaned in for a kiss, carefully coaxing him to deepen the kiss as he responded.

He felt her fingers in his hair and a hand lightly touching his neck, and his hands moved round her body to pull her closer. She took that as an invitation and soon practically crawled into his lap, kissing him feverishly and moving her hands down to slowly try to help him remove his shirt. She moaned and gasped into his mouth and he gave a breathy sigh in response, but in his ears it sounded submissive, and he realized he was giving in to her.

Paul pulled away and Freya went to work on his neck and what little of his chest she could get to, and he realized that he didn’t even want this. He didn’t feel anything for Freya, he seemed to be kissing her out of habit. Maybe part of it was wanting to get back at Gina for Giles, but more than likely it was just the fact he was in a familiar situation, one he’d found himself in countless times during a comfortable but really meaningless part of his life, and he was falling into drab routine. That or he’d had too much wine. Either way, Gina was likely to kill him when he got home.

“Dammit,” Paul gasped and slid out from under Freya, letting her sprawl dejectedly on her couch. “I shouldn’t have come here,” he gasped, suddenly a bit frightened he’d gotten into that position at all. He really was self-destructing his marriage. “I’ve got to go.”

He didn’t even see Freya as she pouted alluringly and prepared her argument to entice him to stay. He bolted out the front door and down into the street, debating between finding himself a ride home or saving himself the time and just digging himself a shallow grave and crawling into it.

Gina was watching a rerun of a home improvement program for the third time, simply because she couldn’t be bothered to change the channel. A key slid into the front door and she paused, unsure if she would rather it be Paul or Fenny and Brad. Paul slunk into the house, head down and gait nervous. She looked up from the television and he stood in the doorway. “Paul,” she announced. “Mikey called, said he had something to talk to you about tomorrow—”

“I didn’t fuck her,” he declared suddenly, his voice abnormally quiet and thick. “I’m so sorry, I don’t know why I even agreed to go over there, and Freya was just being so damn normal and she cooked me meat and gave me wine that wasn’t made of weeds. Maybe it was spiked, ‘cause I kept thinking about how different things used to be and how much I’d miss Troy if I’d never gotten dragged through Scotland like we did.” He sniffed and Gina looked at him carefully. Was he crying? “I was tired and almost asleep on the couch, and before I knew it she was kissing me and, y’know, it wasn’t bad but it was like kissing my sister, right, so I—”

“And kissing your sister isn’t bad?” Gina asked, smiling weakly in spite of herself.

“I’m trying to apologize here, and I’m not very good at it, I’m sorry,” he grumbled, rubbing at his eyes but still not looking at her. “She was kissing me and I realized I didn’t feel anything for her, I never would because there’s you.” Gina’s heart nearly broke as he glanced up at her, looking miserable and guilty. “And now you’re pissed because I went off to Freya just like you were always afraid I would and I never meant to, and you have every right to not believe me when I tell you I didn’t do anything with Freya and then I’d just die because I love you and I didn’t want any of this to happen but I’m an idiot, you keep telling me that and you’re right, you’re always right, so if you tell me to get out I will. Then Fen’ll hunt me down and hurt me and I’ll never get rid of Freya now which is just fucking great because she’s the reason my life is always fucked. Well her and all those people who want us dead and keep making us sell drugs but we even found a way to get rid of Don, Freya’s just like this parasite that just latches onto your intestinal wall—”

“Paul?”

“Yeah, I’m leaving,” he sulked, dropping his head again and moving towards the front door as he pawed at the tears on his face.

“No, come back,” Gina breathed, grabbing his hand and pulling her towards him.

“Are you going to hurt me, because you’d have every right to kick me in the balls right now.”

The genuine look of loss and heartbreak in his eyes was enough to melt the last vestiges of anger she’d held against him, and she wrapped him up in a tight hug. “I want to be mad at you,” Gina said softly, swallowing a lump in her own throat at the sweetness of Paul’s apology. “But you’re too fucking pathetic to hate.”

“Hey?” he gasped.

“Thank you for telling me, and I believe you when you say you only kissed her and I have no choice but to forgive you for that one stupid little mistake.” She gave him a quick peck to drive her point home as she disentangled herself from him. “Did you mean all that?”

“All what?”

“That you love me and you wouldn’t want anyone else and you’d let me kick you if I wanted to?”

“Do you want to?”

“No, not anymore.”

“Then I meant it,” he nodded.

“Thanks,” she breathed. “The only thing I’m disappointed about is the fact that you had to go all soft and squishy and cry on me.”

“I did no such thing,” Paul declared wetly, wiping both eyes with the heel of his hands.

“I mean it was sweet and a little pathetic and it made my heart beat like crazy, but I was kind of building up to a big nasty fight and rampant makeup sex,” she said coyly.

He shrugged casually. “We could pretend we had a big fight and threw things at each other and threatened another divorce and then skip right to page 17 of the Kama Sutra book,” he suggested.

“Don’t know if it’s the same without the passion and adrenaline, but it’s worth a shot,” Gina grinned, taking him by the hand and leading him into the bedroom.

Fenny and Brad slipped into the house quietly, Fenny poised and listening. “What’re we listening for?” Brad whispered.

“Gina and Paul.”

“It’s probably safe to say they’re here, it’s their place after all.”

“I know that,” Fenny grumbled. “But I want to know if they’ve made up yet.”

“Was there a fight I missed?”

“With them there’s no telling. But I think they may have had some things to talk out.”

“Oh.”

Fenny leaned towards the master bedroom and listened carefully. She heard pages turning and a strange animal squealing noise from Paul. “They’ve made up,” she perked, dragging Brad into their bedroom.

“How can you tell?”

“They’re playing with their Kama Sutra book.”

Brad’s eyes went wide as she closed the door and pulled off her shirt. “Think we could borrow that?”

Fenny smiled and gave him a quick kiss as she undid her jeans. “Some other time. Come on, let’s get to bed, I’m exhausted.”

“But you’ve got me thinking kinky Kama Sutra stuff,” he pouted as he undressed and she pulled on her pajamas.

“Good night, Brad,” she grinned, sliding under the covers and waiting for him to join her on their makeshift bed, snuggling against him when he did, and they both quickly drifted off to sleep.

Gina and Paul lay snuggled together under the covers of their bed. “I think I tore a ligament,” she declared tiredly.

“I think I need a spinal alignment,” he grunted as he shifted his back.

“It was good though.” She settled her head on his shoulder and kissed his chest. “I’ll have to thank Mum for the book next time I talk to her.”

“Do you really have to bring that up?”

“Don’t see why not.” She would have argued her point further but she was too sleepy and warm and contented to get her mind around anything but the sound of Paul’s heart beating under her cheek.

“So are we cool now?” he asked after a moment.

“Yeah,” Gina smiled lazily. “So long as no more ex-lovers show up at the door.”

“Mm, good.” He smiled to himself and kissed her forehead as he held her tighter and listened to her breathing as she fell asleep.

Brad woke with a groan and moved to snuggle into Fenny, but got an armload of blankets instead. He let out a questioning grunt, not yet coherent enough for words, and forced his eyes open enough to cast about the room.

“Morning honey,” Fenny chirped. He turned to see her in her pulling on a t-shirt.

“Where’re you going?” he mumbled.

“Out,” she shrugged.

“Do I get to go with you?”

“I thought you were hacking through the back yard still.”

“Yeah, but I wanted to spend the day with you.”

Fenny crawled on the bed and lay next to Brad, who had closed his eyes and wasn’t fighting sleep very hard, but still draped an arm around her. “I want to take a trip to a gallery or two, and I know you’d hate that.”

“I wouldn’t hate it.”

Fenny smiled and gave him a quick kiss. “Yes you would.” He opened one eye as she slipped back off the bed and pulled on a pair of jeans.

“I don’t know when I’ll be back, so don’t hurt yourself, watch out for venomous snakes and spiders, and try not to disturb Gina and Paul who’ll probably spend as much of their time in bed as they can until Paul remembers he’s got work to do.”

“I like that idea,” Brad murmured sleepily.

“Bye sweetie.” Another quick peck on his cheek and she disappeared from the room.

Danny was halfway through a bowl of cereal and the morning news when a knock sounded at the door. Grumbling to himself, he marched to the door, not in the mood for whatever would be waiting for him. Between Fenny’s heart wrenching disappearing act and Freya’s startling declaration, he hadn’t gotten a very good night’s sleep and would much rather have just sat on the couch until time to go to work and see what new tricks Freya had up her sleeve.

But he dragged himself to the door and threw it open, and nearly dropped his bowl of corn flakes when Fenny looked up at him.

“Hi,” he gasped stupidly.

She smiled in response.

“Um, yeah, come on in, I’ll just, yeah.” He dashed into the kitchen to deal with the remnants of breakfast and wished he’d put on something other than his old jeans and faded t-shirt, before realizing she’d seen him in far less than that and his choice of wardrobe hardly mattered. He blushed as he heard the front door close and he dashed back into the living room.

Danny almost crashed into Fenny as she was headed for the kitchen, and when he stopped inches away from her, she reached up and pulled him into a kiss that actually sent his head swimming from the surprise and intensity. With one hand tangled in her hair and the other around her waist trying to find its way to the flesh at the small of her back, he backed her towards the couch, where she lay and pulled him down on top of her again.

“I really wanted to do this on the beach,” she mumbled against his lips.

“Why didn’t you?” He diverted his attention to her neck and she took in a sharp breath before answering.

“Apart from the laws against public nudity and being laughed at by the volleyball team? Because I’m spineless and confused and terrible at spur of the moment decisions.”

“I don’t care. You came around.”

“Yes I did.”

“All I could think of through my report last night was doing this,” he declared, trailing kisses across her stomach as he undid the fly of her jeans. “Made it hard to discuss cricket scores.”

“I feel I should make a joke about making things hard,” Fenny breathed, “but I’m too occupied with the idea of you falling off the couch when you take your pants off.”

“Maybe we should move to the bedroom then.” Danny sat up, pulled off his shirt and swept Fenny into her arms. She giggled as he carried her down the hall, dropping kisses everywhere she could reach.

Brad was poking around in some weeds that needed pulling or maybe taken to with a hacksaw, but thanks to Fenny, he now had images of all sorts of poisonous critters crawling around trying to eat him, and it was a bit more difficult for him to stick his hands into foliage than it had been the day before.

After about twenty minutes of arguing with the weeds in a vague attempt to convince them to help him out a bit and let go of the dirt, he became aware of voices and was a bit worried he’d woken Gina and Paul, and the last thing in the world he wanted was grumpy McDermotts. But as he paused he realized that the noise was coming from the neighbors’ yard. His curiosity got the better of him, and he moved across the yard to peek over the fence.

“Oh Brad,” Vicki chirped, “we were just talking about you.”

He flinched as he noticed the back yard was inordinately filled with her female friends. “Um, hi?”

“It’s really so convenient you’re here, this is our, our garden club,” said hurriedly, “and we were just wondering how you’ve been managing to get rid of those terrible weeds over there.”

“Oh, um, yeah, asking nicely helps, the sort of ‘be one with the weed’ theory.” He smiled cheekily at them but his face dropped when he realized they weren’t with him at all. “Mainly brute force, just pull really hard and hope you don’t end up falling on your ass.”

A few of the women giggled at him. “Would you just, you know, show us your technique?” Vicki asked with a heavily applied innocent tone in her voice.

“Sure,” Brad chirped, and the women gathered at the fence. He was relatively certain they weren’t really after gardening advice, and he wasn’t sure he was entirely comfortable with the idea of being fawned over by a group of horny housewives. But hey, if his wife was going to go drool over some stupid sculptures instead of him, he might as well let some other poor women watch him get dirty. Bit of an ego boost anyway.

He swiped the dirt off his hands onto his jeans, leaned down next to a weed, silently asked it nicely to cooperate, and pulled. And promptly landed flat on his ass.

Danny was sprawled across Fenny’s chest and she ran her fingers through his pleasantly disheveled hair. “I’ve missed you,” he said softly.

“I’ve missed you too,” she breathed, and he shifted to look up at her.

“You’re just saying that,” he teased.

“I’ve thought about you like this whenever Lilly destroyed my home and my sanity, how I might have had you here, well not here in Paul’s bed, ‘cause that’s – well, I’m choosing not to think about that,” she smirked, “but you here instead of my marginally horrendous life back in LA, and how it probably would’ve been good to be with you. Really good.”

“You really think about that?” Danny gasped.

“Of course I do,” she breathed. “If I said I still love you, would that make me a terrible, immoral monster of a human being?”

“You’re asking the wrong person. It makes me insanely happy, but I get the feeling your husband wouldn’t approve.”

“I wouldn’t keep coming to you like this if I didn’t still feel something for you.”

“But you still feel something for Brad, too.”

“Yeah.” There was a long pause as she traced spirals on his arm with her fingernail. “If you hadn’t met me, and you still found Andy and Sam cheating, would you have left her?”

“Honestly?” Fenny nodded. “Probably not. I thought she was the one, or at least the best I was going to get, and I probably would’ve settled for her. But at the risk of sounding like a weepy romance novel, you made me realize there was more.”

She smiled weakly at him and pulled him up for a kiss that progressed from sweet to needy quite quickly. “We’re going to have to stop this eventually,” she gasped.

“Why?” he asked absently.

“You’ve got work, right? And at the rate we’re going, I don’t think either of us will be able to walk to our cars.”

“I’ll call in sick. Oversexed, that counts, right?”

“Sounds like a challenge to me,” Fenny smiled before gingerly crawling over him and capturing his mouth.