Sluggishly, she sat up and tried to get her bearings. Reese rolled out of the bed and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Seeing the man in the bed next to her, Reese immediately checked for her pants. Thankfully, they were still buttoned as tightly as she had left them. After what she pulled with Don B. and company, she no longer trusted herself. Reese rolled out of the bed as carefully as she could and gathered her shoes. Before she had even placed the second one on, Rhonda was already halfway out the door. Taking one last look at the two sleeping men, Reese slipped out the door behind Rhonda, hoping she hadn’t done anything too grimy to the men.

Marlene’s rest was broken by the sound of her cell ringing. She had meant to turn the ringer off when she came in that morning, but had been so tired she fell out as soon as she came in. The cell phone finally stopped, only to have the house phone pick up where it left off. Fearing that it might be an emergency, she picked up.

“Hello?” Marlene rasped into the phone.

“Girl, I know you ain’t still sleep?” Audrey asked, sounding way too bright-eyed.

“Yes, I’m still sleeping. That’s what normal people do on weekends. What do you want, Audrey?”

“I wanna know what happened to you last night,” Audrey said suspiciously. “One minute you’re over in the corner running your mouth and the next minute you vanished on me. What’s up with that?”

Marlene was fully awake now. “Oh, I was tired, so I left.”

“Without telling me?”

“I hit you on your BlackBerry.”

“Yeah, and I hit you back, but you didn’t respond.”

“I was probably already asleep, Audrey. You know I don’t keep late hours.”

“Umm-hmm.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Marlene asked defensively.

“Nothing. I just wondered if you and Vincent disappearing at the same time was some type of freak coincidence or not.”

“Audrey, I don’t know what you’re insinuating, but I don’t like it.”

“Marlene, I’m not insinuating anything. Call it deductive reasoning,” Audrey said, trying to be clever. “You and Vincent Gold spend the whole night examining each other’s tonsils, then you both happen to vanish at the same time. Something you wanna tell me, Mar?”

“Oh, no you ain’t! Audrey, I know you ain’t trying to say me and Vince did something.”

“I haven’t said anything, Marlene. I’m just saying, if I finally got to jump the bones of somebody I had a crush on, I’d confide it in my best friend.”

“Audrey, I do not have a crush on Vince.”

“But you didn’t deny fucking him,” Audrey pointed out.

“Audrey, you know damn well this pussy has Paul’s name on it,” Marlene assured her.