Carefully, she leaned over a dozing Tina, covered her face with soft pecks. Even though she felt so competely mad at herself, it didn’t mean she’d abruptly take her beloved out of her sweet dreams.

‘Ti…’ She muttered on Tina’s ear, petted the sleeping one’s beautiful blonde hair. ‘C’mon, baby, wake up.’

‘Ugh.’ The other woman groaned, turned away from Bette. ‘Five more minutes, please. Or, even better, five more hours.’ She said in a raucous voice.

‘Not even five more seconds, Tina Kennard.’ She mockingly scolded, beamed to herself. ‘It’s a quarter past seven already and, let me break up the news to you, you’re –’

‘A quarter past seven?!’ She exclaimed rather loudly, sat up instantly, panicked eyes searching for Bette’s reassuring ones.

‘Shh.’ Someone protested as a few women stirred in their sleep.

The blonde and the brunette turned toward the sound, saw Marina perched next to a still-slumbering Alba. They exchanged brief nods as means of "good morning" and T. mumbled ‘I’m sorry.’

‘You’re kidding me.’ Ms. Kennard faced her girlfriend, her mind reeling over the Flamenco performance at dawn and the Italian’s closeness to the teen.

‘I wish I was. It’s totally my fault, I’m so sorry. I slept up.’ Ms. Porter said, bitterly. ‘What time do you have to be at the workplace?’

‘At nine, but I wanted to arrive earlier and get used to the feel of the place and people.’ Tina hastily answered, wanted to end that conversation as soon as possible so as to grab a quick breakfast and go back to trying on clothes until something fit the occasion. Not necessarily in that order.

‘I know what you mean. Will you join us for lunch?’

‘There’s no way I’ll be able to get back here. We’ll be busy all morning and I don’t know when, not to metion, where, I’ll grab something to eat before digging into afternoon work. This charity thing is prety serious.’

‘I never implied that it wasn’t important or serious, T.’ Bette replied, slightly fazed. ‘I’m just worried about the fact that you don’t know Florence the way you do L.A. and I don’t want you to get lost in a foreign country.’

Tina considered her girlfriend’s words, sighed, realized she was more distressed than she had previously thought. ‘That was uncalled for on my part. Forgive me.’ She jumped to her feet, paced soundlessly around her sleeping bag. ‘I won’t get lost, I promise. I won’t leave the building by myself.’