“Oh, hey.” Bette dropped a piece of toast on the ground, distracted as the nude woman appeared.

“Hey.” Helena yawned and stretched, oblivious to the whole issue. “Wow you’re cooking…that’s…wonderful…” She zipped back into the bedroom, throwing on a robe and came back out to help. When she returned, Bette served omelets and toast with a goofy grin on her face. Never one to mock another person’s efforts in the kitchen, Helena refrained from checking to see if it was cooked. “This is fantastic.” She said instead, kissing Bette soundly on the lips.

The food, as it turned out, was cooked. Bette had surprised them both. Helena sighed happily as they ate, yet again, in silence. “You know…” She started. “We should…”

“I know.” Bette replied with a shrug. “Why hurry it though? Why rush to the inevitable?”

“We’ll treat it like a band-aid.” Helena suggested.

“Ok. Let’s just call her now.”

“Later.”

“I thought it was a band-aid.”

Helena sighed.

“Later…we’ll treat it like a band-aid…today at noon. Or tomorrow. This is all too exhausting. She’s going to kill me.” Helena was obviously talking about Tina, and the band-aid was obviously the act of telling the sometimes volatile blonde that even more complications had just entered her life.

“At least I’m not with Jodi any longer. That should make her happy. Then again, didn’t you say that our flirting made her laugh? But I guess…well you were with her…should I be jealous?…” Bette thought aloud. But then she thought about getting back together with Tina…she grew tired again.  And then her head began to hurt.

“Flirting, yes, fucking…well, I guess we’ll just see. Let’s just…let it all unfold.” Helena said with the act of avoidance underlying her words.

They avoided the topic for nearly three whole days.  Bette had enough work to do to keep herself occupied.  Still, images of her time with Helena stole enough time from her work life.  She often found herself too frazzled even to touch herself innocently as she showered in the morning much less to do anything more.  More than once, she found herself actually thudding her own head against the wall in frustration.   Helena had left her with the instruction that they let things cool down a bit, and that they not sleep together at all until they discussed things with Tina.

Tina in the meantime, could not stop thinking about Helena and Bette.  She thought about them at the office, when she drove to work, when she drove home from work.  She thought about Bette’s familiar smells and the feeling of her skin.  She thought about kissing her former partner just above her upper lip, which always curled in the cutest way when they made love.  She thought about Helena’s hands all over her, and she nearly caused an accident driving one day and thinking about Helena and Bette’s hands—together—on every part of her.

Helena was blissfully oblivious of it all.  She was too tired to think straight, and she was too busy job hunting.  Helene was a practical soul.  When she was away from her lovers, she focused on the job—whatever job—at hand.  But when she was with them, well…

That was why, in the end, it was Helena who invited Bette and Tina back to her place