Fenny closed her eyes with the hope that maybe this had all been a dream and now that she was lucid, she could force herself to wake up. Maybe she could convince the ground to finally swallow her. Maybe she could call upon the forces of spontaneous human combustion and just burst into flames. Anything would be better than dealing with the mess she’d gotten herself into this time. When it became apparent she was stuck there, she let out a huff of breath.

“What are you doing here, Brad?”

“Well you said you’d be back soon hours ago, what was I supposed to do?”

“Wait for me?”

“So you could screw around with this other guy you may or not be in love with?” Brad all but shrieked. “You think I didn’t know what was going on over here all this time? It certainly doesn’t take all day for you to pick up a couple suitcases.”

“Why does it matter to you what I do?”

“It matters because I thought we were in love,” Brad said coldly.

“Not that that’s ever stopped you from sleeping with other people,” Fenny snapped defensively.

“Well it didn’t stop you either!”

“At least I never tried to kill anybody,” Danny piped up.

“What the hell do you know about it?” Brad growled.

Paul emerged from the kitchen as he heard the cacophony of shouting. All three of them were screaming at each other, but Paul couldn’t decipher enough of it to understand any of the arguments being made, and highly doubted that those involved were entirely sure what the argument was about.

“Everybody shut up a minute!” Gina shrieked suddenly. All eyes turned instantly to her. “What is it we’re doing here, people?” she demanded.

“Getting worked up in another one of Fenny’s neurotic attempts to ruin her life and everyone else’s,” Paul mused.

Fenny let out a short shrill cry and tore down the hall into Danny’s bedroom, everybody else watching as she went.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Paul demanded as he stormed in after her.

“Racing in the Tour de France,” she huffed, her voice shaking with emotion as she threw her sketchbook and pencil back into her bag.

“Where do you think you’re going?”

“Anywhere. A hotel probably.”

“How the fuck is that gonna help?” Paul was getting tired of this pattern of Fenny’s.

“Well staying here to continue fucking everything up certainly isn’t helping.”

“It’s just gonna fuck things up more.”

“Paul, I don’t need this right now,” Fenny sobbed, collapsing on the end of the bed.

“Yes you fucking well do,” Paul growled. “I’m sick and tired of your spineless attitude. There’s a man out there that everyone who’s ever talked to you knows you’re in love with, but you’re too afraid to do anything about it. You’re terrified of commitment for some ungodly reason and so you won’t let yourself be with Sherwood, not completely, not the way you should be. So what do you do instead? You bounce back and forth between these fucking no-strings-attached, safe-from-getting-hurt relationships because you’re weak and you’re scared. All you end up doing is hurting everybody else, and it’s not fair to either of those men out there what you’re doing to them just because you’re fucked up. If you don’t stop doing this shit soon, then you’ll end up a miserable old cow forever because it looks like Brad’s getting just about as sick of your games as everyone else is. And you’d deserve it, too, for breaking Brad’s heart, so stop being such a spineless bitch and do something right for a change.”

Fenny snapped her jaw shut and looked down at the carpeting. She hated it when Paul was right. But in all honesty she didn’t have the first idea of what to do about it. Getting herself out of her own messes was not something she was good at. As much as she’d been avoiding admitting it to herself, she really was frightened by the idea of a commitment, but equally frightened by the idea of losing Brad forever. She rubbed her forehead with the back of her hand and nodded, admitting defeat. “What do you propose I do?”

“Jesus, you really are helpless aren’t you?” Paul huffed. Fenny’s scowl just deepened. With a roll of his eyes, he marched out of the bedroom, down the hall and into the living room where Danny was perched on the end of the coffee table, still wrapped in a blanket, while Brad leaned against the couch, their backs turned to each other. Both looked miserable and turned away as soon as he appeared in the room. “Alright,” Paul announced, causing both men to jump and Gina to poke her head around from the kitchen. He leveled a finger at Brad. “You, help Fen with her things, take her home, and make a fucking commitment for Christ’s sake. You,” he said, turning away from the slightly agog Brad to Danny, “put some pants on.” Paul headed towards Gina. “And you’re coming home with me to eat your dinner.”

“Yes sir,” Gina said, smiling a bit giddily as Paul took her by the hand and led her towards the front door.

“Go on,” Paul said, waving Brad and Danny off. With a quick nod, Brad sauntered down the hall and as soon as all eyes were turned away, Danny scooped his clothes up off the floor and stepped into his shorts.

“What was it that happened back there?” Gina asked in awe as they headed out towards her car. She had to admit, seeing Paul take charge like that had been a bit of a turn on — or it could have something to do with the fact that she’d tried to seduce him earlier and he hadn’t relented.

“I figured it was time to work out Fenny’s life for her before she managed to ruin it entirely,” Paul declared.

“Good for you,” Gina beamed. “What did you do exactly?”

“Told Fen to get a grip and make a commitment to Brad before she ends up a spinster. She decided she couldn’t do that herself, so I sent Sherwood in to get it started. Assuming Danny gets his clothes on before they leave and Fenny doesn’t fuck him on the way out, I think they may be ok.”

“For how long?” Gina mused as she slid behind the wheel.

“Depends on how long it takes Fenny to come up with something else stupid to do, really.”

“Right,” Gina chuckled. “So, your place I guess?”

“Best to leave the Yanks alone, don’t you think?”

“What, you don’t want to listen to them go at it like bunnies?”

“I’ve got better things to do with my time,” Paul smirked.

“Ooh, what’ve you got in mind?” Gina purred.

“Well you’ve got to eat your dinner,” he reminded her. “Maybe we could take a walk on the beach, it’s such a nice night, or curl up on the couch and watch a movie, maybe go out and get some ice cream…”

“Where does the kinky sex and booze come in?” Gina asked, genuinely perplexed as she took her eyes off the road long enough to look concernedly at him.

“It doesn’t have to, really,” Paul shrugged. “I’m contented just to be with you, we’ve spent so little time together, it’s been ages since we got to really just be together without having something else in the way.”

Gina slammed on the brakes at a traffic light. “Alright, who are you, and what have you done to my husband?”

“Come on, Genie, don’t be silly,” he chastised through a laugh.

Gina’s face fell to mock seriousness. “Okay, where’s the drugs, how many did you take? Do you need to get your stomach pumped, ‘cause I can take you to the hospital right now.”

“The light’s green,” Paul pointed out with a smile and Gina begrudgingly continued homeward.

Fenny looked up from her pacing as the door creaked open. Brad stepped inside a bit too nonchalantly. “Hi,” she gasped stupidly.

“Hi,” he replied. “You ready to go?”

“Go?”

“Back to Gina’s.”

“Oh. Right.” Fenny’s heart flip-flopped in her chest and she snapped her suitcase closed. Brad took it from the bed and grabbed her smaller bag from the dresser before turning to look pointedly at her. She nodded and grabbed her backpack from the floor. Following Brad down the hall, she suddenly realized she was going to be forced to say something to Danny, and she didn’t know what. Paul may have been right that she needed to be with Brad, but a certain part of her would regret not being able to stay with Danny, and she would always feel bad about how things had turned out.

Without a word, Brad went to the door of the apartment and opened it, standing in the doorway as Danny stood at the opposite end of the room, Fenny still hiding in the imagined sanctity of the corridor. She took a breath and began, in a quiet voice. “Look…”

“I know,” Danny interrupted gently. “I’m sorry too.”

“Yeah, but…”

“Maybe it would be best if you just went. But I want you to know that everything I said was true.”

“Me too,” she said, her voice catching in her throat.

He smiled warmly at her. “Bye Fenny.”

“Bye Danny.” She dropped her eyes to the floor and suddenly felt that she was walking away from something very big. But when she walked out the door and looked up to see Brad closing the door behind her, she knew it was worth it. Assuming they managed to work things through. The silence as they headed for the parking lot was cold and Fenny had to swallow the urge to just let out a primal scream to release the tension that was threatening to strangle her. Instead she slipped into the front seat of Brad’s rental car while he put her luggage in the trunk, fiddling with the zipper pulls on the backpack in her lap. She had a feeling the drive to Gina’s would be just as quiet and just as painful.

Danny lay slumped on the couch, trying to make sense of what had happened over the course of the last, what, had it really only been a week? He’d managed to fall in love with a woman who was first attached to his coworker, and then discovered her heart belonged to someone else entirely. He had known from the start he didn’t have a chance, not a real one, with Fenny, yet he’d fallen for her anyway. And he believed her when she had said she loved him, and had things gone a bit differently, he was almost certain he could have convinced her to stay with him.

But that didn’t matter because she had left with Brad, the man she would always love. Even if she had stayed with Danny, she never would have been contented, not without Brad. So he was glad that Fenny was where she should be, that she was happy. After all, he wasn’t selfish enough to expect a woman like Fenny to abandon a long and meaningful, if troubled, relationship for a man she’d met only days earlier.

Danny closed his eyes, trying to commit as much of Fenny to memory while at the same time trying hard not to think about her too much. He turned on the television to the local news to let his brain go numb for a while. Finding himself smiling for no real reason, he had the odd feeling that he’d be seeing more of Fenny. She was friends with Gina, after all, there was always the chance. Well, he thought to himself, at least he came away from the heartbreak with a very interesting story to tell, and it had been fun while it lasted; if he had it to over again, he probably would have done it all the same. Except for the being caught in the nude by Brad…

“So why’d you do it Fen?” Brad demanded as he dropped her suitcase on the floor next to the couch.

“Do what?” she asked, though she knew full well what he meant.

“Run off to Danny,” Brad spat as if the words left a bad taste in his mouth.

“I didn’t run off to him, I went to get my clothes.”

“Getting your clothes turns into fucking each other on a bed of popcorn? God, what happens when you go to Macy’s to buy a sweater, blowjobs on the dressing room attendants?”

“I didn’t mean for it to happen,” Fenny murmured.

“So you accidentally tore off his clothes and crawled on top of him, is that it?”

“I’m sorry,” she said defensively, “I’m a terrible human being and I’m confused and I’m scared and I don’t know what’s wrong with me, okay?”

“Yeah, well maybe ‘sorry’ just doesn’t cut it anymore, Fen,” Brad said, his voice beginning to take on a near hysterical quality as his voice grew louder. “I don’t know if apologizing for hopping in bed with some guy you really hardly know right after we’d spent the morning making love is really gonna work. And I’m guessing this wasn’t the first time this has happened, either, is it?”

“Like you can talk,” Fenny countered. “You’ve had two women since you got to Australia, too.”

“Yeah, I made two mistakes and hated myself for both instances. That’s two fucks I got, one of which I can’t even remember, thank god, as opposed to your countless romps with Andy and Danny.”

“I’ll have you know Andy hasn’t touched me since I got to Sydney.”

“Oh that makes it so much better then,” Brad sneered sarcastically. “I don’t blame him, anyway. He’d be getting used goods by then, right?”

“Oh grow up,” Fenny sneered. Paul would have killed them both if he’d been there to hear this conversation/screaming match. “Used goods is better than a sympathy shag for a mafia chick and going after your pal’s girlfriend because you’re both plastered. That’s always good thinking.”

“But if you remember, you were the first, deciding to fuck Greg Proops.”

“What the hell does it matter who did it first? If anyone’s to take most of the blame, I’d say it’d be the one who decided to secretly procreate.”

“Why bring up the same old thing all the time?!”

“Because it’s still pertinent!”

“You don’t think I regret that every day? Why bring it up just to hurt me?”

“Hurt you?!” Fenny shrieked. Almost without thinking, she reached down for the first thing she could grab and lobbed it at Brad. She threw like a girl at the best of times, and being on the verge of a breakdown certainly didn’t help, and it soared over Brad’s shoulder and hit the opposite wall with a dull thud. Brad bent down to retrieve the object and proffered it to Fenny. At one point it had been a highly stylized statuette of a giraffe, but its sudden attempt at flight had resulted in its neck snapping off at the shoulders, leaving an awkward body and a head that could only be described as phallic.

“Gina’ll kill you,” Brad said, trying not to chuckle. “You broke her giraffe.”

“It’s your fault,” Fenny countered, raising her eyebrows in amusement.

“My fault?”

“If you’d been three inches taller and standing a foot to your left, it would’ve hit you and not the wall.”

“And breaking me is better than breaking the giraffe, is it?” Brad sniggered.

“Well then I wouldn’t have to worry about gluing you back together, would I?”

“Is that your plan? Glue it?”

“Sure, rubber cement anyway. There’s some in my bag.”

“And you don’t think she’ll notice?”

“Not until we’re back in LA, and she’ll just blame Paul, which I can cope with,” Fenny chuckled as she opened her bag and pulled out her box of art supplies. “Right, I’ll take, um, the head then,” she giggled, “and you hold the other bit.” She grabbed the giraffe’s neck with one hand and unscrewed the rubber cement.

Brad watched carefully as she brushed some of the milky, gooey substance onto the end of the giraffe’s neck. “Do you know what that reminds me of?” he laughed.

“Yes, I think I do.”

“Next time we have a fight, do this and I won’t be able to not forgive you.”

“You’re a sick puppy,” she smiled as she held the giraffe’s neck to the rest of its body. “Next time?”

“Well with our track record I’m sure this isn’t the last of our irrational arguments,” he shrugged.

Fenny put her hand over Brad’s as she made an effort to keep the two pieces together. “So, that means that we’re…”

“Together?” he suggested with a smile.

“Again,” she mused.

“Still,” he assured her.

Fenny took the giraffe and placed it back on the end table where she’d found it and sat on the couch. Brad sat next to her and they looked at each other a bit uneasily. “I’m sorry,” Fenny breathed. “I’m astounded you even want to talk to me anymore.”

“Of course I do,” he beamed at her.

She took a deep breath. “Do you still love me, I mean honestly?”

“You know I do,” he assured her firmly. “I always will. I’d marry you right here if there was a priest or a judge or a raccoon with a license. I’ve always wanted to marry you, and I can’t think of anything you could do to make me change the way I feel for you.”

Fenny gazed at him, her voice watery. “God, I’ve been so terrible to you and here you are just putting up with me, you’re a fantastic human being and I don’t deserve you. I’m so sorry for everything I’ve ever done or ever will do and I love you even though I’m stupid and don’t show it the way I’m supposed to, I always end up fucking up because really I’m afraid at how much I love you, you’re just—”

“Fen?”

“What?”

“You’re babbling again.”

“Sorry,” she breathed.

“So we love each other?”

“More so than is probably healthy, yes,” Fenny smiled.

“Do you think we can try to work out a healthy relationship for a change? Me and you, together, no crazy people or boyfriends or sleeping with other people or self-destructive crises, just two people in love?”

“There’s nothing in this world I want more,” Fenny sighed, throwing her arms around Brad. As he pulled her closer to him, she melted against his body. This somehow felt right, this time it was for real, and she wasn’t planning to give it up again.