Gina woke slowly, her eyes squinting closed against the harsh intrusion of natural light. A hum escaped, almost unconsciously, as she felt Paul’s arms tighten around her and snuggled backwards into his chest. “Morning,” she mumbled, turning her head to see him smiling down at her.

“I think you’ll find it’s afternoon,” he declared. “And rather far into it.”

“Oh.” She checked the watch on Paul’s arm to find it was almost two o’clock. “I should probably be at work.”

“Why?” Paul pouted, kissing the back of her neck before she rolled over to face him, causing him to devote his attention instead to her collarbone.

“Because that’s what’s done, you go to work to earn your money.”

“They won’t miss you,” he assured her. “Not as much as I will.”

“Paul?”

“Yes Genie?”

“That was one of the lamest lines I think I’ve ever heard,” she giggled up at him. “Incredibly sweet, but very lame.” She reached up and they shared a quick but intense kiss. “If I don’t get out of this bed soon I might never pull myself away,” she smiled.

“And this is a bad thing why?”

“I’ve got things to do, hon. Besides, I have an ulterior motive,” Gina declared. “I think I should sort out Freya, smooth things over.”

“Really?” Paul asked. That was the last thing he’d expected of Gina. “That’s sweet of you.”

“Well if I’m going to have to work with the woman, we might as well work out how to be civil. Besides, she looked pretty crushed when she left, I don’t want her doing anything rash.”

“Like what?”

“Oh, moving to Columbia, blowing up the office, stalking you, throwing herself off the nearest tall building….” Gina slid out of bed and pulled her pants on, Paul pouting all the while. “I’ll be back soon, I promise.”

“And I’ll be waiting for you right here,” he assured her, grabbing her by the hand and pulling her towards him in another kiss that almost made Gina tear off her clothes again and jump into Paul’s lap.

“I’ll be quick,” she murmured into Paul’s lips before pulling away. “And I expect to see you right there when I get back. Don’t even think about putting on any pants,” she laughed.

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he grinned. “Genie,” he called as she headed out of the room. She paused and turned to him, eyebrows raised expectantly. “I really do love you,” he breathed.

“I know,” she smiled. “I love you too.”

“So, what was that all about?” Brad asked from the bed as Fenny sauntered back into the room. “What did Danny want?”

“Oh, um, he wanted to check up on me. I guess Andy’s been a real ass the past couple days, and I hadn’t talked to Danny in a while, so….” She shrugged.

“Should I be worried about Danny?” Brad asked.

“No, I don’t think so,” Fenny said, sitting next to him on the bed but paying more attention to the hem of the shirt she was wearing than to Brad. “I’d be more worried about Andy. He’s not a man who takes rejection well.”

“I’m not worried about Andy,” Brad declared, “because I know you’re not in love with him. I’ve known that since I first met the creep. But Danny, him I’m not so sure about.” He watched as Fenny pushed her glasses further up her nose, but that was the end of her reaction. “We both know he loves you. And granted, he told me to tell you about Freya, but I can’t help but feel that he wanted to push us apart so he’d have a better shot with you.”

“Don’t be stupid, Brad,” Fenny chastised. “Danny wants me to be happy, that’s what he’s always said.”

“And are you?”

“Yes,” she breathed, finally looking up at him.

“Because of me or him?”

She paused for what seemed to Brad to be entirely too long before dropping a hand onto his thigh. “It’s you I’ve spent the last couple days with, isn’t it?” They smiled coyly at each other. “I really appreciate the way you hunted me down,” she said. “Again.”

Brad frowned a bit, wondering whom she’d be with if he hadn’t gone to find her. He blinked, deciding he didn’t need to think like that – it was that sort of thinking that had caused all the problems in the past, and they were trying to work through all that. The important thing was that he and Fenny were together and that was really all that mattered. “The things we do for love, huh?” he smiled.

Fenny gave a light chuckle, wishing Danny would get out of her mind. The look on his face when she’d left had torn at her heart. Suddenly she felt very empathetic towards Gina; this must have been how she had felt when she was juggling Greg and Paul. Granted Fenny’s situation didn’t involve any wedding rings, but she hoped things would work out as well as they had for Gina.

“Think we should get out of bed eventually?” Fenny mused.

“Why bother?” Brad grinned.

“I’m gonna have to go and hunt down my clothes.”

“Why bother?” he laughed.

“Because I don’t believe in your 4-way underwear rule,” she said, batting his shoulder. “You should consider yourself lucky that I’m willing to go near those things now that I’ve found that out.”

“Even the red ones?” Brad asked with an eyebrow raised.

“Damn, you know my weakness,” she said, slipping out of bed.

“Where are you going?”

“I told you, I’m gonna go get my things.”

“Where are your things?”

Fenny was silent as she pulled on her own shirt. “Danny’s.”

“Fen,” he whined.

“I had nowhere else to go after I left Andy,” she argued.

“What about another hotel?” Brad countered.

“I stayed with him one night,” Fenny declared, then wished she hadn’t, the memory of that night washing unwanted over her. Brad glared at her. “I won’t be long, I promise.”

“I’ll come with you,” he perked.

“I don’t think that’s a very good idea,” Fenny said sadly. “One of you is bound to try to kill the other, and I don’t want to see it.”

“He already threatened me,” Brad mumbled.

“And there’s no need for you to reciprocate the gesture, is there?”

“Fine,” he huffed. “I’ve got some things to do anyway.”

“Good,” Fenny nodded. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“I’ll see you then,” Brad said, not moving to kiss her goodbye as she’d expected. She silently slipped out of the room, grabbed her bag, and headed towards Danny’s.

“Freya?” Gina called softly as she approached Freya’s office.

“What do you want?” Freya hissed.

“A civil conversation?” Gina suggested.

“Not with you,” Freya grumbled. “I could quite happily go the rest of my life without having to look at you again. How could you, letting me tell you the things I did, pretending that we were friends, saying—”

“I’m more than happy to argue this out with you,” Gina interrupted, “but how about we go somewhere else and do it, okay? I mean you’re going to have to look at me eventually, we work together, and we’re gonna have to work with the people who’ll hear you yell at me, and I think it would be best for all of us if we did this somewhere else.”

Freya folded her arms across her chest defiantly but refused to answer.

“Come on Freya,” Gina sighed. “I’m sorry for what happened, I really am. Come on, I’ll buy you a drink to make it up to you.” Freya scowled up at her. “It’s a start, isn’t it?”

“Fine, let’s go,” Freya sighed. Gina nodded and they made their way towards the café in silence, neither quite sure what to say to the other, neither quite sure where this was leading. “So,” Freya said as they sat across from each other at a small table.

“I really am sorry that it all happened like it did,” Gina said. “Everyone went about it poorly. Paul should have told you he was married before it got out of hand.”

“You could have told me you were married,” Freya grumbled.

“Paul asked me not to,” Gina shrugged.

“But you let me believe that he loved me, you made me look pretty stupid, telling you all the things I did. I bet you were getting a good laugh out of it.”

“Of course not,” Gina soothed. “But it wouldn’t have been fair for me to have crushed you just because Paul was being a prick.”

“Yeah, well I’m pretty crushed now.”

“Don’t be. You can do so much better than Paul,” she assured Freya.

“Like hell,” she pouted.

“Why would you want a guy like Paul who lied to you by not telling you he was married?”

“Because I love him,” Freya whimpered.

“Are you sure about that?” Gina asked pointedly.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean really, look at him. He’s short, he drinks too much, he doesn’t like vegetarian food, he’s really a bastard in every sense of the—” She was interrupted by the sound of her phone ringing. “Could you just hang on for a minute,” Gina said, stepping away from the table as soon as she saw who was calling her. Freya nodded morosely and Gina answered the phone in a distant corner of the café.

“You could not have chosen a worse time for this, Paul,” she sighed.

“I just wanted to see how you were doing,” he cooed into the phone, seemingly oblivious to her annoyance.

“How I’m doing? I’m not doing a certificate class in origami?”

“Can you get a certificate in origami?”

“Don’t be a fuckwit.”

“You sound tense, what’s wrong baby?”

“What’s wrong?” Gina looked at her phone like it’d just screamed obscenities in her ear. “I’m trying to tidy up the mess you made with Freya. Right now she’s on the brink of another set of tears.”

“That’s a shame, I’m sure you’ll sort it out.”

Gina realized after a few seconds her mouth was hanging open. “It’s not my problem to sort out.”

“Then why are you doing it?”

“Because, for some insane reason I’m a nice person.”

“Aw, and that’s why I married you. You’ve got that magnanimous spirit that I just don’t have.”

“Paul, did you take an ‘E’ recently?”

“No. I did bake a cake though, and I’m still not wearing any pants.”

“Right,” Gina breathed. “I have to go now, you have a lie down.”

“Okay baby, love you.”

“Yeah, you too.” Gina ended the call and then looked back over at Freya who appeared to have finally descended into tears again. This was going to take some careful talking.

“Fenny,” Danny perked as she appeared outside his front door. “I, um, wasn’t expecting you.” He stepped aside and let her in. She flushed at the sight of him in his tiny little running shorts again.

“I’m sorry, were you going out?”

“Oh, I was thinking of going out for a run, clear my head,” he said sadly.

“I’m so sorry,” Fenny gushed as she collapsed on his couch. “I wish there was something I could say, some excuse, or some way to explain, but I have no idea what’s going on anymore.”

“What’s to explain?” he shrugged as he sat next to her. “You’re in love with Brad. I’ve known that from the get go. You’ve never been mine to have, so I shouldn’t be complaining.”

Fenny nodded morosely. “It would’ve been nice though, wouldn’t it? Us being together?”

“It was great while it lasted,” he agreed with a sardonic chuckle.

“I got your message, on my phone,” she said softly, not knowing why she’d felt compelled to say it or how to follow up on it.

“Look, I reckon you must’ve come here for your things, right?” He leapt up from the couch and all but sprinted into his bedroom. “Let me just grab them for you, Brad’s probably waiting on you.”

Fenny followed to find him gathering her few belongings from around the room and dropping them into her suitcase. She took to chewing on her bottom lip in an attempt to block out her feelings for him. She’d just crawled out of Brad’s bed, the last thing in the world she needed to do was crawl into Danny’s. Granted, that was exactly what she wanted to do, but she didn’t need the confusion that would follow. It occurred to her, as he pulled the bag off the bed and settled it on the floor, that the bed was now free, before she mentally kicked herself. The threat of confusion, complications, and self-hatred had never stopped her before, and she wasn’t really expecting to change her ways quite yet.

Danny let his gaze lock with hers as he stood across the room from her, flushed and a bit out of breath, not from the rushed packing, but because of Fenny’s mere presence. This could very well be the last he’d see of her, the woman he loved was heading back to her boyfriend, and there was little he could do to stop her. He wouldn’t stop her — she wanted Brad, and he didn’t want to keep her from that. But he didn’t want to let her go either.

Danny stepped forward to give her a friendly goodbye kiss, but as soon as he dipped his head, a spark charged the room and they clutched at each other. Fenny’s fingernails scraped lightly across his back as her hands worked towards the waistband of his shorts. His hands worked frantically against the buttons of her shirt, and together they stumbled towards the bed, carefully navigating around her luggage even as they refused to break their earth-shattering kiss to watch their steps.

“Are you sure about this?” Danny gasped as they fell onto the bed.

“No, but I don’t care,” Fenny panted in reply, pulling him down on top of her and letting her fingers of one hand glide over the silky material covering his rear again.

That was all the encouragement he needed, and he captured her in another kiss while he undid the fly of her jeans. As soon as he pulled away to leave a trail of kisses across her shoulders, she let her hand wander through his hair. “God I love you,” she breathed.

He jerked his head up to look into her eyes, but could only read sincerity in them. His heart rate instantaneously doubled as he leaned in for another kiss.

“So how long have you and Paul been together?” Freya asked as she sipped her third non-fat, soy, and skinny latte.

“Long enough to know what a goit he is,” Gina replied as she toyed with her hot chocolate.

“I can’t believe he’d do this to me, he said he loved me.”

“Men will say anything for a blowjob, it’s common knowledge.”

“Paul’s not like that though, is he?”

Gina choked on her hot chocolate and had to give herself several moments to breathe normally again. “Trust me, Paul is the most like that of any man I’ve ever met.”

“Well he never showed that side to me.”

“This goes back to my blowjob theory.”

“Pig,” Freya hissed. “Gina, this might sound completely weird, but I’d hate to think because of the way Paul has treated us both that we couldn’t be friends anymore.”

Gina gave Freya a watery smile as the phrase We were friends? invaded her thoughts. “Well, we work together, how can we not be friends?” she said in what she saw as a convincing tone.

“I mean it’s not your fault that that bastard chose to deceive me, right?”

“No, all him,” Gina nodded.

Freya grabbed another floral hankie from her bag as she began to bawl again. “It’s so great having a friend like you,” she declared.

“Yeah, best buddies right,” Gina muttered as she gave Freya a sardonic smile.

Brad sat pouting in bed long after Fenny had gone. He was righteously pissed that Fenny had up and left, and to see Danny of all people. Just when things seemed to be going so well, Fenny had to go and…do what she always did. The woman was certainly not content unless her life was a shambles, that much was obvious, and she seemed to take everyone down with her every time.

“Well fuck that,” Brad muttered to himself as he hurriedly got dressed. “If Fen can go schmooze with Danny, I can go see Ritza.” After all, he hadn’t so much as spoken to Ritza since he’d rather unceremoniously screwed her senseless and quickly abandoned her. It was definitely time to apologize.

“Hi Genie,” Paul chirped into the phone.

“Hi Paul,” she sighed.

“What’re you doing?”

“Working.”

“Good.”

“What’re you doing?”

“Waiting for you to come home.”

“Are you sure there are no illegal substances involved?”

“Of course not,” he huffed. “Why would you suggest that?”

“You don’t seem to be yourself today.”

“I’m in a good mood.”

“Like I said, you don’t seem to be yourself today,” she laughed.

“When will you come home?”

“Like I told you the last, what, four hundred times you called me, I’ll be home as soon as I can.”

“I’ve only called you five times.”

“And the once at the café?”

“Six then. I miss you, Genie.”

She couldn’t help but laugh. “Okay fine, I miss you too darling, but the thing is, the more you call, the more distracted I’m going to be, and the longer it’s gonna be before I get home.”

“Oh, right. Hadn’t thought of that.”

“So I’ll see you when I get back, alright?”

“Hurry?”

“Are you still not wearing your pants?”

“No pants as far as the eye can see.”

“Then I’ll hurry.”

“Thank you.”

“Goodbye Paul.”

“Bye Genie.”

Rolling her eyes, Gina turned her cell phone off before putting it back into her bag. She took her office phone off the hook for good measure, bound and determined to get some work done for a change.

Brad was completely at a loss of what to say as he stood on Ritza’s doorstep. He felt like such a bastard for ignoring her the way he had. The door swung open and Brad gawked at her. “Um, hi,” he peeped.

“Oh. Brad. I didn’t expect to see you,” Ritza said, a bit phased herself.

“Yeah. Um, look…”

“Come on in,” she interrupted, and led him into her home.

Brad nodded, followed her inside, and sat a bit uncomfortably on the couch for a moment or two. “Where’s Gus?” he asked eventually, trying to make small talk.

“Playing with a friend up the road,” she nodded.

“Oh, good. How’s he doing?”

“Just fine, thanks.”

That was as far as Brad could go with the small talk before resorting to a discussion on the weather, which wasn’t very fascinating anyway. He’d been hoping for Gus to ease the tension a bit, but discovering they were alone seemed to only escalate the uneasy feeling in the room. “I’m sorry about last time,” Brad blurted suddenly.

“Don’t worry about it,” Ritza said with the tiniest hint of laughter in her voice.

“I am,” he sighed. “I just, I can’t help but feel I used you and then just dropped you when I was done. That’s not what I meant to do, I hope you don’t think that’s what I was, y’know, thinking.”

“Of course not Brad,” she cooed, resting her hand over his. “If anything I was using you. It’s just been so long since anyone’s even looked at me the way you did. It was a moment of weakness for both of us. I don’t think either of us really expected it to happen, and I don’t really expect it to happen again.”

“No, you’re right,” he nodded almost glumly.

“I’ve just assumed that you’re back with Fenny and that’s why I haven’t heard from you for a while.”

“Yeah,” Brad agreed a bit unenthusiastically.

“What, is something wrong?” she asked, obviously concerned.

“Hmm? Oh, no, nothing really.” Just Fenny being Fenny, he thought to himself. He should have been used to her by that point, but was still bothered by her brushing him off to go see Danny. Coming to see Ritza had started out as a sort of revenge; if Fenny could go see one of her lovers, he’d go see one of his. Now it was looking like a bad idea, though, as silence descended on them and they just looked at each other. Things really had been good between them, really good.

Ritza smiled at him and his resolve came dangerously close to melting. “I, um, I should go,” he announced, jumping up off the couch.

“Yeah, alright,” she agreed. “Fenny’s probably waiting.”

“If I’m lucky,” he chuckled dryly. “So, um, I’ll see you around?”

“I hope so,” she smiled as she opened the front door for him.

“Tell Gus I said hi.”

“Of course.”

“Bye.”

“Bye.” She watched as he headed for his rental car and closed the door as he pulled away from the curb. She swallowed and took a deep breath, willing her heart to slow down.