Fenny scoured the crowded room for the bubblegum colored fabric of Sam’s dress, knowing it would be hopeless to spot Andy’s suit in the sea of preened narcissists, and listened for his voice instead. “You don’t think they’d—”

“I wouldn’t put it past them,” Danny declared. He gestured to the bartender to hold their drinks as he took Fenny by the hand and led her through the crowd. They paused halfway up the stairs, where they had a good view of much of the ritzy home which belonged to one of the bigwigs of the company. “Do you see them?”

“No,” Fenny shrugged.

Danny turned and led her up to the landing. The second floor seemed to be completely devoid of people, and they began checking rooms. An empty office, a games room, an abandoned bedroom, a powder room. The master bedroom.

The beam of light from the hallway as the door opened fell on the bed and startled its madly groping occupants. Sam hastily jumped up and pulled her unzipped dress back up around herself as Andy slid off the bed and stumbled over his pants which were still around his ankles. The light flicked on and the pair found themselves gaping at their partners.

“Fenny!” Andy struggled with his trousers, embarrassment closing his throat.

“Dan, look,” Sam began, “it’s not what it looks like.”

“Oh, it’s not?” Danny hissed. “It looks like you snuck off to fuck a guy I work with the day after you dropped back into my life. If that’s not what it is, then what is it?”

“Um, well…” Sam began, looking to Andy for help as she struggled to keep her dress up, not daring to ask anyone to zip it up for her.

“Fen, baby, I’m so sorry,” Andy babbled, “it’s just Sam and I, we’ve known each other—”

“No, stop, just don’t,” Fenny commanded. “I don’t care. We’re over, Andrew.”

“But Fen…”

“No.” She had an ironic smile on her face, and it was like a weight had been lifted from her shoulders. “We’ve been over for ages. I’ve slept with two different men since the last time we had sex. And don’t look at me like that, you’ve got no right to go all indignant on me when you’ve got vile magenta lipstick smeared across your forehead.”

“You were serious?” Andy gasped as he pawed furiously at the skin on his forehead, “I mean about screwing Brad?”

“Dead serious.”

“God, don’t tell me the other one was Paul.”

“Of course not,” Fenny snapped, but didn’t give him an answer right away, not wanting to get Danny into trouble with his fiancée or with the company.

“It was me,” Danny piped up. “I was willing to give her a little attention, treat her like a human being.”

“You prick,” Sam shrieked.

“We weren’t even dating,” Danny argued. “You’re the two timer who sobbed that you loved me and then decided to rub uglies with this arsehole.”

“No worse than that whore of yours,” Sam countered, “sleeping with three men at a time.”

“Yeah, well screw you,” Fenny snapped. The whole situation was quickly deteriorating into an episode of Springer, and not even a good one. “Or screw each other, I don’t give a shit. I’ll have my things out of the hotel before you get back.”

“Fenny,” Andy whined, “please don’t do anything rash, can’t we discuss this?”

“What’s to discuss? I’m an embarrassment, you’re a dickhead, it’s rather obvious neither of us is happy, so I’m leaving.”

“I’ll take you to get your things,” Danny said, putting a hand on her back and leading her out of the room.

“Dan?” Sam peeped, and he reluctantly turned to face her. “I’m sorry.”

“Good,” he nodded, and together Fenny and Danny left the room.

“Fucking hypocrites!” Sam screeched after them.

Gina had read through the papers twice, looking for any sign that this was one of Paul’s cruel jokes, a hoax of some sort, that she was somehow confused and understanding it wrong. As she started through it the third time, her hands began trembling and she felt empty.

She found herself reaching for the phone and dialing Fenny, needing someone to talk to and unable to even think about talking to Paul yet. “Dammit,” she hissed when the mechanized voice declared that Fenny had turned her phone off. Her fingers dialed another number, and she held the phone shakily to her ear waiting for someone to pickup.

“Hello?”

“Thank god,” she sighed.

“Gina?”

“Greg,” she breathed.

“Do you know what time it is?” Greg demanded, voice gravelly with sleep and hushed, probably trying not to disturb his wife.

“Fuck, I’m sorry,” Gina half sobbed.

“No, no, that’s ok, what’s wrong?” He was starting to panic at the pain in her voice. It wasn’t like Gina to cry.

“God, I shouldn’t have called, I haven’t talked to you for ages, it’s wrong for me to just call up when I need a shoulder to cry on.”

“No, Gina, of course not, what’s happened?”

“Paul,” Gina blubbered, losing any semblance of control.

“What, is he alright, what’s wrong?” Greg gasped.

“Oh he’s fine,” Gina hissed. “I’ve been served with divorce papers, that’s all.”

“He what?!”

“I got them in the mail today. Irreconcilable differences, it says. Yeah, because he’s fucking the queen of the god damn bimbettes.”

“The fucking asshole,” Greg breathed. “Look, can you start from the beginning, I’m tired and confused.”

Gina took a deep breath. “I stayed in London for that job as entertainment editor because Paul told me I should. I got lonely and came back home and he’s living with Freya, this tofu-eating freak of nature arts journalist who works at my paper just to spite me and thinks we’re best friends. I’ve asked him to leave her, she doesn’t know I’m married to the arse, but he won’t leave her. We spent last night together, we made love and I thought we were getting somewhere, but he’s eating dinner with her right now, looking like two lovesick puppies and I came home and found divorce papers in the mail. He’s leaving me for that little skank.”

“I don’t believe it,” Greg sighed. “Have you talked to Paul yet?”

“Well, no. I mean, god, it wouldn’t do to call him up like this, would it?”

“No, I guess not,” he conceded. “But you will?”

“Why should I bother?” she demanded. “Our differences are irreconcilable.”

“Gina, you’ve done this whole divorce paper thing before. And if I couldn’t break you two up, neither can some floozy of Paul’s.” Gina gave a short wet laugh. “You two are perfect for each other, I’ve never seen any couple that’s happier than you two. And besides, who else would be able to put up with that psychotic and his self-destructive asinine behavior? He loves you just as much as you love him.”

“But why would he be so loving and acting like we’re still so perfect if he wants to leave me?” Gina pouted. “Fuck it, I really am just an easy lay to him.”

“Gina, stop,” Greg commanded, and he heard her pause to breathe. “Come on, you and Paul have been through worse than this. You’re turning into Fenny for fuck’s sake!”

Gina smiled in spite of herself. “God I wish you were here,” she breathed.

“No you don’t,” he assured her.

“Yes I do.”

“No, you don’t,” he laughed. “I’m glad to hear you can get yourself into trouble without me.”

“At least things made sense, kind of, when I got in trouble with you, and things were fun. I liked it better when I could blame you for my problems. Now I don’t know whose fault anything is.”

“Blame Fen,” Greg cackled.

“No, she’s got enough problems,” Gina shrugged.

“Really? Don’t tell me she’s there.”

“Yeah, she’s here, Brad’s here, so are the other two men she’s sleeping with.”

“What?!” Greg snickered.

“That’s a story for another day,” Gina smiled. “I’m sorry I woke you.”

“Don’t worry about it,” he yawned. “You feeling better?”

“Not really,” she admitted.

“Will you promise me you’ll talk to your hubby?”

“I promise,” she said reluctantly.

“Things’ll work out for you, pumpkin. I know they will.”

“And if not?”

“I’ll come down there and personally kick the little troll’s ass.”

“Thanks Speccy.”

“Anytime. Just, next time, try to make it a decent hour?”

“Yes sir, I’ll try and work my breakdowns around your schedule.”

“Thanks. Call me again sometime, when you’re not so fucked and I’m not half dead. I’d like to chat.”

“Me too.” There was a beat of silence. “I’m gonna go see Paul.”

“Give him hell. I’m gonna go back to sleep.”

“Night then.”

“Night.”

Gina hung up the phone and slumped back into the couch, preparing herself for seeing Paul, practicing speeches and wondering what the hell had happened.

Brad crept inside the apartment, grateful to find that Gina wasn’t there. The last thing he needed was for her to see the guilt on his face and demand an explanation. God, what was wrong with him? The obvious answer was he still had sand in his shorts, and that wasn’t helping anything, and the first thing he did was change into clean clothes that weren’t loaded down with half of Australia’s coastline and smelling of Ritza’s shampoo.

The television prattled on, some terrible game show, and Brad, not surprisingly, missed every word of it, no matter how much he wanted to distract himself. It had to be strawberries, didn’t it. He could still smell it, the strawberry shampoo, probably more subconsciously than any actual aroma.

Brad’s mind wandered back to that picnic the first time he’d actually met Ritza, the flirting, the teasing, the absurdity of the entire situation. It was the strawberries that had swayed him, convinced him that Ritza wasn’t the cold hearted bitch they all thought she was. And he’d been right about her. For a while. Without her help, they probably never would have all gotten out of Australia alive that second time around with the guys from the show. She’d shown herself to be a compassionate, loving, sensual woman, a woman he could and did fall in love with.

As much as he cared for Ritza, as much as he enjoyed the fond memories of her home in the country, those few months back home in LA, as much as he wanted to think about her in that rosy light, he couldn’t ignore her other side. The side that had been deceitful and conniving; the lies and the cheating paled in comparison. She’d kidnapped Fenny as some sick sort of revenge or threat, and not only injured her and their friends, but shot him. The memory of her icy eyes as she held the gun to Fenny’s head, the unadulterated fear in Fenny’s face, the pounding of his own heart as he realized the woman he loved was going to be shot by someone he was convinced by the look in her eye had no heart, then the blankness and the stabbing pain as the woman who claimed to be doing this all for love shot him.

And here he was falling into bed, or bathtub, as it were, with this woman again. Certainly she had changed, a prison term and a child certainly serving to mellow her out, and a healthy dose of genuine remorse convinced him that she truly had changed. But to be having sex with her again after all this time, it wasn’t right. He loved Fenny, nothing would ever change that. Even if she didn’t know who she wanted anymore.

Why in the hell was he feeling so guilty for his romp in the shower with Ritza? Fenny was at that moment probably in bed with, well, he hoped Danny, whoever he was. Anyone would be better than Andy. She and Brad weren’t even seeing each other, he had no reason to be jealous. Not that that stopped him. It was probably the jealousy that had spurned his invitation to Ritza. That and the memory of how good it had been with her.

As Brad stared at the television, his skin burned with the memory of Ritza’s hands across his body, and his heart swelled at the memory of Fenny’s soft words whispered into his chest as they fell asleep in each other’s arms the night before. He dropped his head in his hands as he let out a strangled sob of frustration. “That does it,” he said to no one in particular. “I’m growing a beard, finding a big stick and crawling into a cave and not coming out until someone makes my life make sense.” He paused to change the channel to a documentary on the naked mole rat before turning the television off. “On second thought, I’ll have ice cream instead.”

The ride to the hotel was short and silent. Fenny’s mind hummed a bit more pleasantly than she figured was normal after catching your boyfriend with another woman, but she was feeling liberated. No more self-obsessed, chauvinist Andy to cope with. She was worried about Danny, though. His face was carefully schooled, and she couldn’t tell what he was thinking as he drove through the city.

“So,” Fenny began as they stepped into the elevator in the lobby, “should I ask about Sam?”

“We were engaged for a while,” Danny shrugged as he leaned on the button for her floor. “Then she left me because I wasn’t ‘exotic enough,’ I think is how she put it. She wanted to travel the world, make a name for herself, I was weighing her down. So we broke it off and she left.”

“Did you love her?” Fenny asked quietly.

“Love’s a funny thing,” he smiled. “We were good together, seemed right for each other, had a lot in common. But now, looking back, I don’t think we ever had that connection, y’know, where your heart races and your body trembles and you ache to be near someone.” Fenny nodded carefully and opened the door to the hotel room. “What about you and Andy?”

“No, there was no trembling aches,” she sighed as she pulled out a suitcase and began haphazardly dropping things into it. “Makes me wonder why I was with him so long.”

“And Brad?”

she paused and smiled to herself. “Yeah, there’s always been the trembling and the racing heart and aching and weak knees and forgetting to breathe; all the symptoms.”

“And why aren’t you with him?” he asked as she disappeared into the bathroom to gather her things.

“I don’t think he’s entirely pleased about Andy, and I’m not entirely pleased that he’s friends with a woman who tried to kill me.”

“Excuse me?” he gasped.

She gave an amused smile and sat on the bed to halfheartedly fold her clothes. “Condensed version of the last few years of my life; the pertinent bits. I swear to you this is all true. This Aussie woman Ritza was somehow involved in first trying to kill and then saving the lives of most of the Whose Line cast, don’t ask me how, I’m still not sure myself. Brad shacked up with her in LA after we first broke up. He was gonna leave her for me, she got pregnant, claimed it was his, he found out it wasn’t and left her. Meanwhile, I was in Australia with Gina, Ritza and her sister kidnapped me, and Brad, Gina, Paul and Greg Proops went all over the country trying to save me. She shot Brad, nearly killed the rest of us. We got her in jail for a while, went back to the States, things went bad again, and now Ritza is somehow a good guy again and I’m supposed to like her.”

“You’re supposed to like her,” Danny echoed. “Brad likes her?”

Fenny shrugged. “He was in love with her. She’s got a kid, that makes her a decent human being in his eyes, and she’s apologized.” She sighed and rubbed her temple. “Really, I don’t want to talk about it. What I really want is to change out of this dress.” She kicked off her heels and dropped them into her bag and pulled her sneakers out from under the bed.

“Why bother changing?” he smirked. “I mean I’ll only take it off again.”

“My, aren’t we brazen tonight,” she grinned.

“Well I promised you a good time at the party, didn’t I?”

“Oh, I had a great time at the party,” she chuckled as she went back to her packing, deciding to leave the gown on.

“I felt so bad when you saw Sam, I wish there was some way I could’ve told you earlier…”

“Hey, it turned out for the best, didn’t it?”

“In some twisted manner of speaking, yes it did,” he smiled. “I mean, I get to take you home with me tonight.”

“You’d rather have me than Sam?” she asked, looking up as she closed her bags.

“We have a connection,” he smiled.

“We do,” she agreed, kissing him lightly as he took the larger suitcase from her.

“You don’t want these?” Danny asked, gesturing towards a pile of clothes on the bed.

“God no, that’s the stuff Andy’s been making me wear. If he’s so keen on it he can wear them himself.”

“Now that is a great bit of mental imagery,” Danny chuckled and shut the door behind him as they stepped into the hall.

“Genie,” Paul chirped as he opened the door and found her standing in the hall outside his apartment. “Great timing, Freya just left, something about they lost her article and her computer’s crashed or something?”

“Yeah, I know,” Gina hissed as she stormed inside.

A bit worried by the malice in her voice, Paul followed her sheepishly into the living room where she turned furiously and hit him in the chest with an envelope.

“What the fuck is this,” she demanded. “When were you gonna tell me, huh?” All of her initial shock and pain was being channeled as anger towards him. She didn’t need Greg, she’d kill the bastard herself.

Gina watched through narrowed eyes as Paul’s face went pale as he rifled through the papers. “Shit,” he mumbled to himself, pulling a hand over his face before looking up at her. “I’d forgotten about this.”

“Forgotten?” Gina demanded. “You forgot about filing for divorce?!”

“No, Genie, darling, look, wait,” he cooed, trying to calm her. “It’s not what it looks like…”

“So you’re saying they’re not divorce papers?” she asked threateningly.

“Well, yes, they are, but I don’t want to get a divorce.”

“Then why the fuck did you file for one?”

“Genie, it was a lonely night after I got back home and you were still in London, and I was confused and hurt and lost, because you weren’t with me. And I was drunk. Shit faced, nearly comatose, feeling sorry for myself drunk, and I did something I shouldn’t have done. God Gina, I don’t want a divorce, please, I’m sorry,” he babbled, noticing her visibly softening, “I didn’t do it to hurt you, I did it because I’m a dick.”

“What about Freya?” Gina queried cautiously.

“What, you thought this was about her?” Paul almost laughed. “No, this was before I’d even met Freya.”

Gina pouted at him. “So you’re not leaving me?”

“Never,” he assured her, dropping the envelope and its papers to the table and moving to put his arms around her.

“Then why are you with Freya?” she asked into his shoulder as she hugged him back.

“Please, Genie, I’ll deal with her. I promise. I don’t want her hurt because I fucked up.”

“And the papers?”

“Toss ‘em,” Paul said resolutely. “Right now. Ceremonial dumping in the bin.”

“Freya could find them,” Gina sighed as she pulled herself away from him. “I’ll take them home and deal with it,” she added as she leaned down to gather the sheets and return them to the envelope.

“You’re not leaving yet, are you?” he asked, seemingly horrified with the idea.

“Well,” she said coyly, “Freya should be gone for a while, Mandy agreed to keep her busy for me for a while.”

“Aah, so you were behind the mysterious disappearance,” he nodded as he took the envelope containing the horrid document and dropped it back on the table so he could put his arms around her again.

“Well, first I was worried about finding a place to ditch your body when I’d finished with you.”

Paul raised an eyebrow and looked at her sideways. “And now that you’re not gonna kill me?”

“I think I’m owed an apology,” Gina said resolutely.

“I’m so sorry, I’m an awful husband and a worse human being, I’m the scum in the gutter not worthy of—oh,” he grinned as she dropped a few kisses at the base of his neck. “Right, that kind of apology. Even better.”

“I thought so,” she managed before his lips met hers and they fell together onto the couch.