Sorry for the huge wait. There's really no excuse. Thank you to everyone who's left a nice review, it's really meant a lot. And texasgirl especially :)

"Fuck me, this is urgh..." I moan, stretching out my sore arms, and putting down the heavy box.

"You're a Fitch, Emily! Buck up!"

I send Effy a scathing look, "I don't see you getting off your arse to help."

"I told you, I, uh, pulled a muscle. It really hurts." I can see her smirk and, for once, it's sort of like a normal person's smirk—teasing me.

"Oh yeah, how did you do that?" I ask, hand on my hip.

"Having sex with your sister. Lots and lots of sex. With Katie. Your sister."

"I'm gonna strangle you, you know that right?"

"C'mon, Em, put your back into it!"

Before I can throw down and kill her, I feel a hand grab mine and spin me around. "She's messing around, don't let it get to you." I see Effy smile at the figure behind me, clearly having heard.

"But she's being a lazy bum! I mean seriously, why can't she ev-" I'm cut off by Naomi kissing me, and I suspect she's just doing it to shut me up.

"Remember when I helped you, huh?" Effy yells as we walk up the stairs.

It's Katie and Effy's anniversary...of something. I'm not sure what because they haven't been married for a year yet, and Effy keeps referring to it as the 'best kind of anniversary'. Naomi told me that I probably wouldn't care too much, so I'm assuming it's something sexual in nature. And after years and years of oversharing, Katie keeps pretty quiet about her relationship with Effy.

'Ems, it was well good to talk to you about my loser boyfriends, but I feel like I would be betraying my wife by telling you the intimate details of our life. It's a deeper thing, y'know?'

'Yeah, Kay, I really liked hearing about your escapades. Don't know what I would have done in college if I hadn't known you could put on a condom with your teeth. Scratch that—I was actually reassured to hear that. Made me less worried about you hanging around with those disease ridden wankers."

And while Effy and I have surprisingly formed a friendship, getting anything out of her is like pulling teeth. Whenever I bring up anything, she turns it around on me.

So Naomi and I are here to help her prepare a surprise for Katie. Somehow this involved me moving a lot of stuff out of their enormous closet space. Very heavy stuff, I might add. I suppose that might be the surprise—more room for Katie's shit. I have vivid memories of our closet vomiting out leopard print atrocities, and then these weird old lady clothes she took to wearing.

Effy's used various excuses for her non-participance in the manual labor throughout the day. First it was that she was hungover. Then she claimed fatigue, flu-like symptoms, drug withdrawal, and finally overexertion and pulling a muscle. I suppose it's an Effy style joke, and I'm glad she feels comfortable enough around me to pull her head from her arse and not be so fucking serious all the time. Unfortunately, this means she and Katie often gang up on me, and Naomi is never around to defend me. And giving her enjoyment with teasing me, I doubt she'd be much of an asset.

She's been really busy recently, with work. We acquired a small competitor and everything went to shit. Their infrastructure turned out to be as flimsy as a straw house and it seemed like the only employees we retained were the absolute worst of the worse. It sucks. Naomi is constantly having personally intervene when one of the new crew fucks up. So we spend what little time she manages to get free together, and I know it's not that she's been ignoring me or blowing me off. Well she might sometimes at work, but since I can't deny that Naomi is a lot less productive when I'm around, I suppose it's for the best. Guess I'm just too sexy for my own good.

"So Effy wants us to fuck off soon," Naomi tells me, circling her arms around my waist and putting her head on my shoulder. "So I was thinking we could, uh, go have dinner at mine."

I twist around so I'm facing her. "We could go back to yours, huh? What about my place?" I ask, cocking an eyebrow. We never really go to my shitty flat, Naomi's is just so much nicer. Somehow I suspect that she won't really care today, being that this is most likely a booty call.

"Mine," she interjects quickly. "I mean, that's fine too. We can, uh, go to yours."

"Just for dinner?" I say, trying to keep a serious face.

"Yeah. A nice meal, right?"

"You want sex. True?"

"Well...uh, no. I mean, if it leads there then so be it, but that's not my, erm, goal. I wanna spend time with you. I don't care what we do, you know that. I mean, I obviously love sex...with you, of course. To save of both the time I'm going to spend rambling here, can we just leave?"

I peck her on the lips, "I'd love to. Should we get some take-away?"

"No..no, I have some food at home we can eat."

She then gives me a sugary smile and hustles me to the door.

"Have fun!" I yell to Effy, "Tell Katie I said hi."

Effy smiles gratefully and shouts back to me, "Thanks, little Fitch. Now for the love of God, can you please not cause Naomi to be a zombie tomorrow at work! I hate it when she's exhausted and mooning over you. 'Effy, she's perfect', 'Jesus, Eff, the thing she does with her t-"

"Fuck off," Naomi interrupts somewhat harshly with a characteristic scowl, helping me into my coat.

"It's sickening really."

I glance at a quickly reddening Naomi, "Shut it, Effy, or else I'm going tell Katie about that time when I was helping you and y'know. You were drunk, I had stayed over..."

Effy's face turns white and she bites her lip apprehensively. Yeah, I know you don't want that to get out. A few weeks ago, Katie invited me over to theirs for dinner. She was called away by a work emergency, and for some reason I decided to wait around. Effy was drinking with Panda and came in shit-faced at around 7 or so. I helped her get into her pajamas, and in her confused and hazy state, she flipped me onto the bed and tried to kiss me. After I managed to throw her off and yell, she realized her mistake and begged me never to tell anyone.

I blow Effy a kiss as I grab Naomi's scarf and pull her through the door.

Naomi keeps smiling at me as we head over to hers. It's slightly unnerving. "What's up?"

"Oh, nothing. Just getting to spend some quality time with my girlfriend."

"Yeah... Nothing's wrong, right?"

"No. No, it's not that. I just, well I've got something important to talk about once we got home."

A/N: I'm sorry for the prolonged absence. I was sick and unmotivated..

I hope you guys are still interested in the story.

Anyone have a suggestion of what the discussion is gonna be about? I haven't really decided.

As always, I love reviews!