The days and weeks spanned fast. Alice and Dana found that there was hard to get the whole gang together in one room at once. They had not contemplated over the lack of family time over the last eight months or so; the friendship had changed from being the hub of everyone’s lives, into something a lot more casual and well, distant. In the beginning of their romantic relationship they had lived in their own bubble of love, but they were slowly awaking from their hibernation to find that their friends were now to busy for them. Shane and Carmen seemed to have vanished from the face of the earth and Bette and Tina looked hollow eyed and tired every time they saw them. Angelica had the colic every night and screamed them into severe insomnia, which made them grumpy, snapping at both each other and everyone else.

Crawling back in to this reality, Dana missed Alice even more than before. Missed the friendship between them. Friend and lover were so very different. Dana could not put her finger on the real issue, she just stated to herself once again that they were not able to speak to each other like they used to. There was the new distance she noticed between them that made her go searching for a friend. And since Shane was busy with her first ever relationship Dana knew there was no other person than Lara she could turn to. The chef turned out to be more than willing to accept Dana’s offer of a real friendship and they started hanging out now and then, mostly at the Planet. They had the occasional dinner, and Dana learned to overlook the fact that Lara still seemed interested in her. It made her a little uncomfortable when she first realized how the other woman felt, but then she just decided to let it go. The tennis player felt certain enough in her love for Alice she could just brush Lara’s small flirtatious comments and glances right off. To her great relief Alice did not seem to mind her girlfriend’s budding friendship with her ex at all. Dana was happy Alice had overcome her insecurities about Lara. In fact, the journalist was working eagerly on her different articles and her radio show and did not even seem to have time for insecurities anymore.