Chapter 19



The next morning Tina woke up to the sound of her alarm she quickly shut it off not wanting to wake up Jessica, last night had been rough for them, when Jessica accused Tina of still having feelings for ex- girlfriend, which Tina denied, insisting all she felt for Bette was contempt, and another feeling…a feeling of sympathy, when Jessica had asked Tina why? Tina could not explain why? It was just this feeling of sorrow for Bette she couldn’t explain something in Bette’s eyes.

“I don’t know” Tina had said a little too forcefully to Jessica Tina had felt instantly guilty, talking that way to Jessica after all Jessica had been nothing but understanding with Tina, they had an understanding and at that moment when she was having this conversation with Jessica she saw something she had never seen in Jessica before…jealousy…love??
Tina was confused she had spent all night tossing and turning, she had thought about Jessica all night she didn’t want to hurt Jessica it was never her intention to hurt Jessica, and worse of all she didn’t know if she could hurt Jessica, she had feelings for her young girlfriend she did, how strong or how deep, as silly as it sounded she really didn’t know.

Maybe it was a good thing she was making this move to California, she had not been fair to Jessica she should have not let their relationship go on this long, she knew she had been honest with Jessica, I guess it the long run it was inevitable that Jessica would want more.

‘Fuck! What was I thinking!’ Tina berated herself.

She quietly got up and made her way to the shower, she dressed in one of her power suits and pulled her hair up she didn’t have time to blow dry it, she needed to be at the lot in 45 minutes she hoped Shane was dresses and ready to go.

Tina walked over to the bed where Jessica was sprawled out asleep she leaned down and placed a kiss on her cheek.

“Bye babe” Jessica mumbled

“See you later gorgeous, call me later” Tina whispered

“K” was all Jessica said before she fell back asleep.

Tina smiled as she grabbed her bag and made her way to the living room. Shane was sitting on one of the bar stools drinking coffee and watching the morning news, she handed a cup of hot coffee Tina.

“Thanks Shane, you’re my life saver.”

“I figured you needed a real cup of coffee not one of things you buy at the fancy coffee store”

Tina took a sip.

“Yeah this will get me going, its strong enough to wake the dead” Tina teased taking another sip they sat in silence drinking their coffee and watching the news, when Tina noticed the time she quickly got up.

‘You ready?” Tina asked

“Yup” Shane said grabbing her keys

“Where are you taking me anyways” Shane asked as they walked out the door.

“You’ll see” Tina said

“I guess if it’s a surprise you better drive then” Shane said tossing the keys to Tina

Tina smiled.

“So, tell me about Jessica” Shane said

“What? What do you want to know?”

“I don’t’ know…stuff” Shane shrugged her shoulders…

“Like how long have you guys been together?

“What her favorite color?”

“Is she good in bed?”

“What her favorite food?”

“Do you love her?”


Tina gave Shane a sideways glance she knew Shane good enough to know she wanted to know if they were serious.

“Almost 7 months, blue, YES VERY(Tina winked), Italian, and I don’t know” Tina said rapidly


“Hmm” Shane said as she nodded

“Are you satisfied?” Tina asked

“No, why aren’t you in love with her?”

Tina remained quiet, she shrugged her shoulders


“I don’t know, she great, awesome as a matter of fact, we get along great, she treats me with respect, I love her family her friends, I don’t know I just don’t think I could ever love anyone…again”

“What about her, Her feelings?”

“I’ve been nothing but honest with her Shane right from the start, she knew about my reputation which by the way would blow yours out of the water” Tina smiled

Shane smiled back

“We agreed we wanted to be together have fun, she has school and her modeling they both keep her extremely busy, I’m busy at the studio, I travel a lot and we’ve been in a committed relationship, that works for us, I’m happy I’ve been as happy as I could be Shane, I have no regrets, the only regret I would ever have is hurting Jessica, that’s not something I want do, not somthing I set out to do.”


“What about your feelings for Bette?”

“What feelings”

“Come on TK I was there remember? When you fell apart, when you first moved to New York I saw firsthand how devastated you were how broken you were, you can’t tell me you just forget about the love you had for her, no matter how bad she hurt you”

Tina took a deep breath…

“Your right… its not something I can forget, you learn however, to move on learn how to bury that feeling deep inside, and yeah I admit seeing her yesterday brought it back to the surface a bit, but you get good at burying it away, pushing back, you have to, you need to just to feel normal again… you have to”

Shane nodded

Tina pulled up the lot she drove up to the security gate and showed them her ID, they smiled and directed her to her office.

“What is this?” Shane asked

“This is my new studio” Tina smiled

‘What?”

“Yup, I’m going to be running Focus Studios West, this is my baby” Tina smiled

“No fucking way” Shane said

Reality of Tina words hit Shane

“Wait does this mean you’re moving back?”

Tina nodded

“Yes, yes I am”

Shane took off her seat belt leaned over to Tina and hugged her.

“TK that’s great, have you told Kit, Al or Dana”

“Nope I wanted you to be the first to know, well I did tell Jessica”

Shane felt sad

“Is she ok with it?”

“Yeah, she understands”

“Come on lets go check out my new office”

Shane smiled as they walked in to the main building.

“I’m getting a staff together with in the next couple of weeks I should be ready to move back by the beginning of next month”

“Tina I am so happy for you man, nobody deserves this more than you. You have busted your ass for this”

“Thanks Shane I really appreciate your confidence because being here now, I just realized how scared shitless I am.” Tina chuckled
“You’ll do fine” Shane winked

“Listen there was another reason why I asked you to come with me”

“Yeah”

“I want to hire you, your great at what you do I need someone with your editing talent, I want you to think of maybe switching over to production one day”

Shane shook her head no

“No, no production I hate dealing with all that crap, of scripts, kissing ass, no not for me, Im more of a loner, editing in my own little room works for me.”

“Ok then you’ll head my editing department what do you say?”

“I say you’ve got yourself a deal”

Tina smiled

“Great, you know you’re my first official hire, well except for my assistant but she doesn’t count since she already works for me.” Tina smiled

“Is she cute?” Shane asked

“Very, but very straight and very married”

“I tried” Shane shrugged her shoulders

“”I’ll get some numbers for you, we can negotiate if you’re not satisfied with what I’m offering”

Shane smiled

“Look at you” Shane smiled

Tina winked

There was a knock on the door.

Tina looked at Shane, and shrugged her shoulders as far as Tina knew there wasn’t anybody in the office’s today.

“Come in”

“Hiya Tina”

“Oh Helena hi, come in, I didn’t think anyone was here today”

“No, I wasn’t supposed to be here, but I had a meeting with mummy today and decided to stop by when security told me you were in.”

“If you have a moment I’d like to show you around and we can check on the progress” Helena smiled

Shane saw something in Helena’s eyes that told her she was very interested in Tina.

“Oh Helena, let me introduced you to Shane McCutchen if she agrees to my offer she will head my editing department here at Focus Studios West”

“McCutchen…..Oh yes you’ve done some work for my studio in London, you’re very talented, I run the Foreign Film side of Focus studios”

They shook hands

“Thank You” Shane replied

“TK I’m going to head out, call me when you’re done and I’ll pick you up”

“Ok Shane thanks I’ll see ya later”

Shane walked out of the office and headed for her lunch with Bette.

“Ready?”

“Yeah let me grab my planner”



Chapter 20



Shane drove up to the planet where she saw Bette SAAB. She walked in the planet in search of her friend she saw her sitting at a back table looking at her laptop.

“Hey you”

“Shane” Bette smiled

“Have a seat”

“So, how are you holding up?
“I’m good Shane”

“You sure”

“Yup, I’m looking for office space for my new practice, so I’m keeping myself busy” Bette smiled

“Is that why you looked like you haven’t slept in days?”

Bette took a deep breath.

“That and seeing T…seeing Tina again”

“If it makes you feel any better she was pretty shook up as well.”

“I doubt it, it looks to me like she didn’t have any problems moving on with her life she’s very successful her love life doesn’t look to be suffering”

Bette paused

“Shane I need to talk to her”

“She’s agreed to see you, the when and where is totally up to you, you have to make he first move and call her.”

“Bette her number is still the same, she’ll be here until Monday”

“So is she here on business or on vacation with her twink” Bette said upset.

“Business, I guess, both I don’t know”

“What’s the deal Bette, you guys are not together anymore, and she had the right to move on, she’s successful and in a relationship she’s happy in, and believe me when I tell you it wasn’t easy for Tina to move on, just because she looks so well put together now it wasn’t always like that”

Shane took a deep breath.

“Look Bette I’m going to tell you something I never told anyone before.”

“You know better than anyone how Tina felt about you, she loved you, hell you probably the first person she ever loved, After you married Justin, she moved to New York I tried calling her she wouldn’t answer my calls wouldn’t even tell me where the hell she was where she was living nothing it was almost like she had to rid herself of anything that reminded her of you, including us, I found out through one of her work colleagues some girl I slept with a couple of times where she was I charmed the HR girl into giving me her address, I flew down there determined to knock some sense into her it was probably a month after you went insane and married Justin.”

“She was devastated to say the least I’ve never seen her so broken, she refused to talk about you, I mean I didn’t even find out until recently form Kit that she tried to stop you from marrying Justin and had asked you to marry her, well I hung out for a while until she picked herself up from where ever hole she was in and she began to function, she needed to get it together she was living out of boxes she didn’t eat didn’t sleep, she barely talked to me I was basically just sitting there watching her, I guess deep inside I realize now I was there with her because I feared she might hurt herself.”

Bette head shot up and looked at Shane a tear fell down her cheek.

“And then one day after about 2 weeks of watching her walk around like a zombie I wake up she’s all dressed in one of her ridiculously expensive power suits, looking all put together, briefcase in hand ready to go to work she kissed my cheek thanked me for being such a good friend walked out the door and that was that.”

“I was left speechless, I almost followed her to work I was so worried, she returned later that day, we talked like old times went out to dinner, hung out at a jazz club, I stayed a couple of days helped her unpack, I came home and that was it, we communicated every now and then through e-mails and text messages never talked for too long on the phone, never talked about anything other than just what was going on that day in our lives”

“It freaked me out seeing her just come out of her funk, almost as if you hadn’t existed, I went along with it because I knew she needed to what she needed to do to go on with her life, looking back now I realize that might not have been such a good thing.”

“Bette what do you want form her?” Shane asked

“I need to explain ,I want forgiveness, closure, maybe get to a place where we can at least be friends again” Bette shrugged her shoulders.

“I know I don’t deserve it, I just need to talk to her that’s it”

“I don’t know how much of an explanation TK would want or need, forgiveness it might be a good step to getting you guys back on track to becoming friends again, I agree you guys need to talk especially now.”


“Why now?” Bette asked

“Let’s just say TK is making life changes as well.”

Bette nodded her mind thinking of what possible Shane could have meant by life changes, she didn’t want to ask she was too afraid of the answer.

They sat around for another hour having lunch and talking, Shane enjoyed meeting with Bette like this it had been a while since they just hung out enjoying each other’s company.

Shane looked up and saw Jessica and Nikki Stevens enter the café, she prayed Jessica did not see her she didn’t want to make Bette uncomfortable.

Too late….

“Shit” Shane quietly said

Jessica walked over with Nikki.

“Hey Shane” Jessica said

“I thought you were with Tina”

“Hi Jessica I was, I met Bette for lunch I’m picking up TK later”

“Bette this is Jessica Harris”

“Jessica this is Bette Porter”

They shook hands

Jessica forced a smile.

“Hum…Shane, Bette this is my friend Nikki Stevens”

“Hi, nice to meet you both” Nikki waved

“Big fan of your movies” Bette said

“Umm you guys want to join us for coffee” Shane asked just being polite hoping Jessica would decline the offer.

“Sure” Nikki said immediately taking a seat next to Shane.

Jessica hesitated a second before taking a seat next to Bette

They began with small talk mainly Nikki asking Shane questions about her line of work and personal information, she was smitten with Shane to say the least.

“So Bette what do you do for a living” Jessica asked

Bette paused

“Bette works for the DA, she’s the Assistant District Attorney” Shane answered

“Really, wow that must be interesting?”

Bette shrugged her shoulders

“It can be, I’m quitting to open up my own office though”

“Really why’s that”

“You know I’m making some changes in my life.” Bette smiled

“Interesting”


They talked a bit longer, Bette found out she actually liked Jessica and Nikki they were both young beautiful and extremely successful but the fame and money did not seem to go to their heads, she could see why Tina was attracted to Jessica, they actually made a good match Bette thought.


Nikki looked at her empty cup of coffee.

“Shane, come with me to get a refill”

“Umm…” Shane looked at Bette to make sure she was ok with staying alone with Jessica

Bette motioned to Shane to go she would be fine.

“Ok come on” Shane and Nikki walked over to the counter.

Jessica got up and moved seats so she was sitting directly in front of Bette.

“So” Jessica said

“So” Bette answered

They both smiled at each other

“I think we should talk…” Jessica said