Tina rises from her reclined position and walks toward Samantha, who is still holding her vase bouquet of flowers.  “Let me take this off your hands”.  Walking back towards her seat she says in wonderment, “These are absolutely beautiful”.  She can’t stop the smile from spreading across her face as she rests them down on the corner of her pine wooded desk.  For the first time in the past two days, she actually feels her body beginning to relax.  Not taking her eyes off of them, she says, “Thank you, Sam”.  Samantha sees the sparkle in Tina’s eyes and is grateful to the person who brought it back.  It had been missing for quite a while.  “I’ll leave it to you then” Samantha says as she walks out of the office and softly closes the door.

Tina retrieves the closed cherry red envelope with her name written on it, opens it to pull out a card decorated with miniature colorful birds and balloons and reads out loud for her ears only,  “Yesterday of thought of you.  Last night I dreamt of you.  This morning I fantasized about you.  Now I am feeling you and on each memorable occasion I never stop missing you.  I will call you later to confirm our dinner plans for tonight.  Bette”.

Instead of waiting for Bette to call her, Tina picks up the receiver and automatically dials Bette’s number.  On the third ring, she hears the sexiness of Bette’s voice as she repeats her usual banter, “Bette Porter speaking”.

“You really know how to make a girl feel special.  There beautiful, thank you”.

“Hey T.  This is a nice surprise.  How are you doing?”  Bette sighs her weariness into the phone.  “Do you really like them?  The color reminded me of your golden hair”.  Bette is so thrilled to hear Tina’s voice.  “I missed you”.

“I love them”.  Tina notes the tiredness of Bette’s voice and says, “Sounds like I’m not the only one tired.  Do you still want to have dinner tonight?”.  As sleep deprived as she felt, there was no way she was going to miss their date.  She hadn’t seen Tina in two days and not being in contact with her was finally taking it’s toll on her emotional state.  “Of course we’re still on for tonight.  Unless you rather not”, Bette added cautiously.

“As tired as I am, all that I have been waiting for is to see you.  I’ve missed you too.  If you don’t mind, I’m not in the mood for crowds tonight.  I would much prefer to have a quiet dinner at home with you.  What do you say?  We can order take out”.  The more she thought about it, Tina was warming up to the idea of having Bette in her home; her fortress of security.

“T, that sounds wonderful.  What time should I be at your place?”  Tina didn’t respond right away due to the fact that she just noted that Bette called her “T”.  Not once, but twice.  No one ever did that.  She liked it.  Bette’s personal nick name for her.

“7:00 sounds good.  What would like to eat?”. 

“How about Mexican?  Or Chinese?  Or could you just surprise me”.  Bette sub-consciously thought to herself, ‘Personally, I would rather eat you for dinner and than later on for dessert’.

“Okay.  Got a pen and paper?  You will need directions to my apartment”.

Bette and Tina talked for a while longer not wanting to let the other go.  Times like these were so rare for the past two days that they decided to take advantage of the opportunity while it lasted, which wasn’t long.  Both women were interrupted by the sound of someone knocking on their doors.

“Bette, I have go”.

“Yeah, so do I.  I’ll see you tonight”.

Surprisingly enough, after talking to each other for those few precious seconds, neither one of them felt tired anymore.  Actually, they were more energized than ever.

TBC