"Quinn!" Mercedes flung her front door wide as soon as she saw it was her friend and immediately pulled her into a hug. "What are you doing here?"

"Am I not allowed to pop by and see my best friend and my little sugar-plum?"

"You know you're always welcome Quinny!"

The blond was already inside and wearing her slippers before they finished their interchange. "So how's you?"

"I'm fine. It was a busy day getting a few things for Chey then George popped round. He only just left actually."

Quinn shot her a concerned look. "And are you okay?"

"I'll be just fine…" She side eyed her friend, immediately guessing the reason for her visit, "And judging by the question I'm thinking along the lines that maybe George asked you to come by to make sure that I was alright?"

Quinn's reply was a smirk. "Maybe. But I can see you're just fine." She cast her eyes around her, "but before we get to chatting I need to go see my baby. Where is she?"

"In the lounge chatting to Sam."

''Already? He's only been gone a couple of days!"

"What can I say? She misses him."

"Only her?" The smirk got wider and Mercedes shot her a look that told her to quit while she was ahead so she reached into her bag. "I brought wine. I figured if you stick it in the freezer it should be chilled enough by the time Chey's in bed. You may have serious amounts of money now, but there'll never be enough money on this earth to buy us class and I'm proud of that fact."

"Speak for yourself! Don't make me school you on the fact that I have more class in my middle finger than you have in the whole of your skinny ass!" There were very few things in life Mercedes loved more than banter with her best friend and they could trade insults like the best of them.

"Ooh Cedes, that one cut me!"

Mercedes rolled her eyes. "Band-Aids are in the bathroom. The people you want are in the lounge. Go and say hi!" She laughed as she ducked the playful blow that Quinn had aimed at her head.

By the time she'd put the wine to chill and pulled out some low-fat chips to munch with her girl, there was laughter coming from the lounge. She walked in to find Chey randomly dancing in the middle of the room and Quinn telling Sam off for one yawn too many. It was already after midnight in London.

'Here she is!"

Mercedes' eyes creased in suspicion as Quinn turned to her from the screen. 'I was just about to come get you. Sam says he won't go until he's said goodnight to you and looking at the state of him he really needs his beauty sleep!"

"Well we can't deny him that now can we!" Mercedes laughed at the sound of Sam's protest and she scooped Chey up from the middle of the floor. "Come on trouble, say goodnight to daddy coz it's time to brush your teeth."

She opened her mouth to protest but one hard stare from Mercedes shut her down with a quickness. Moving back to the screen she put her before Sam who did indeed look tired. "Okay, kiss daddy goodnight and we'll go upstairs."

There was another small pout but Chey did lean forward to the screen with her lips puckered just as Sam moved forward in an identical move. Only Chey still hadn't quite got the hand of the fact that she wasn't supposed to actually kiss the screen, just stop near it like she was about to. Because somehow her mouth was leaving sticky marks on the screen from whatever she'd been eating.

It always brought a smile to Mercedes' face when she watched Sam lean forward and pucker up too. It was so cute! It was amazing that she used to think bad thoughts about this man!

"Okay ladies, as I'm in London I'll brush up my Shakespeare and say..." He made an exaggerated bow. "I bid you goodnight fair maidens!" He blew each of them a kiss and Quinn made a huge fuss of fangirling over the action which he grinned at.

"Hey Mercedes..." Damn, after all this time, the way he pronounced her name was still doing things to her tummy... "Have you had a chance to think any more about what I asked you?"

She sighed. "Yeah I have. I just need a little more time. Can I tell you by first thing Monday morning? That gives me a clear seven days to let me think it through."

"Sure thing! That sounds reasonable."

"Thanks Sam."

She ended the call and logged out of Skype.

"I won't go until I've said goodnight to Mercedes!" That was the moment when she really wanted to smack her friend. It wasn't the bad impression or the rolling eyes that bugged her, it was the damn kissy face that went with it. That shit was just unnecessary!

"So are you coming up for storytime or what?"

Quinn quickly followed her up the stairs and enjoyed being guest reader for the night.

By the time they returned to the lounge with the now chilled wine and huge bowl of chips, Mercedes had honestly forgotten the purpose of her friend's impromptu visit. But Quinn certainly hadn't.

"So I guess I can report back to George and tell him that all's well on the Cedes' heart front."

"Huh? Oh yeah. Moe..."

"Wow girl! It didn't take you long to forget him at all!"

"I didn't forget him. It's just that my brain was in overload today. Unluckily for him this came at a time when I was already pissed off at him." Mercedes quickly typed a few words into her phone before continuing. "I'd let it ride that on our date he'd said some things about Sam which were totally unnecessary, and I didn't mind said he had to suddenly go away the next day. But he didn't make any contact whatsoever which is weird for mister serial texter. Then when he got back three days later and I told him about karaoke he got super possessive and basically said that I shouldn't do stuff like that with other people while he was away."

Quinn's eyes widened. "How weird! He's always been so nice before! He really said that?"

"Damn right he did."

"That's rude!"

"Believe me! I don't know what was with him when he got back! So basically I lost it and I told him I had every right to go out with my best friend, especially as he's always going away himself. It was our first disagreement and I felt a little bad for it, but he was in the wrong and he knew it coz then he sort of backtracked and said that he didn't have a problem with you but he did have a problem with me spending social time with my ex and letting him sleep over in the house, especially with the way that he looks at me."

"The sleeping over is a potentially messy situation but was necessary under the circumstances. But wait, Moe has a problem with the way Sam looks at you?"

"Apparently so. But they only met for less than five minutes so I don't really see how he can legitimately come up with that opinion..."

"Well Sam was definitely looking at you a lot when we did karaoke..."

"He was watching me sing!"

"Yeah, you tell yourself that!" Quinn muttered to herself as she topped up her wine. "So, I have a feeling I'm beginning to know where this relationship is headed but I still have to ask, do you think you're going to see him again?"

"No. Something about his attitude doesn't feel right anymore."

"His attitude? I'm more interested in hearing how it feels to find out you've been dating a criminal!"

Again she became defensive. "No criminal activity has been proven!"

"True. But the fact that he's currently under investigation by more than one federal department for 'financial irregularities' must count for something! George seems to be taking it seriously and worried about how you'd take the news."

"Of course it counts! But whatever happened to 'innocent until proven guilty'?"

"Nothing. But do you really think he's innocent?"

"I'm not one to judge Q."

"I'm not asking you to judge. I'm just saying go with your gut. What's your gut telling you?"

Mercedes paused as she thought it through just as she had when George broke the news to her earlier. "Honestly? My gut's telling me he deals in cash too much, can't explain his job in simple terms and keeps disappearing last minute on 'business'. It's shady as hell and I don't need that around me and my child. I have to watch my step at every turn now because of who Chey's father is. My heart says maybe I should wait and see this through a little longer because he's handsome and he likes me, but my brain and my gut both say I should 'bail'."

Mercedes finally put her phone down, hesitated, then picked it back up again.

"Okay, that's pretty sound reasoning and you know I'm always here to support you. Now before I snatch that phone from you are you going to tell me who you're texting or am I going to have to guess?"

"Oh it's nobody."

"Those thumbs were flying girl! That's not 'nobody'. Please tell me it wasn't Moe!"

"It wasn't Moe."

She was met with a raised eyebrow and an enquiring look that she knew wasn't going away until she'd given her friend a satisfactory answer. "Okay so it was Sam."

"I thought he was supposed to be sleeping!"

"That's what I just told him! He said he just wanted to make sure that I was okay because I looked a little stressed earlier."

"That was thoughtful of him," Quinn mused.

"It was nothing. He called while George was still here and I guess I was still a little flustered by what he'd just told me."

"I bet he and George get on well."

"Actually they never met until today. Chey forced him to 'say hello to daddy' and I think Sam seemed a bit surprised to see a man here."

"So what did you say to him?"

"To who?"

"To Sam of course!

"The truth. George was the guy that introduced me to Moe and he'd come to give me some information about him. I've told Sam to go to sleep now but I'll fill him in on Chey's next Skype chat. Sam was just worried that I seemed upset but I'm actually not and when I explain he'll understand. It's just, with Sam being who he is, I think its best that I come clean and tell him all about it once I've got my head around it myself. I don't want anything bad getting back to him or his family. Besides," she straightened up and took a sip of her wine, "he also says that he's happy you're here with me right now and I'm to tell you to say hi to Puck for him."

"Really?"

The phone buzzed once more and she quickly flicked the screen. "Really. I can show you the text if you don't believe me. I'm just saying goodnight now… Shit!" Mercedes gasped and slapped her hand across her mouth with a cringe.

"What's wrong?"

"That awkward moment when you're not concentrating on a text and you accidentally put a kiss on the end before realizing who you were sending it to! Ugh, he's going to think I'm creeping out on him!"

"No he won't. He'll probably be flattered."

"Yeah right!" There was one more buzz and she cringed again before looking at the response before heaving a sigh of relief.

"What did he say?"

She leaned forward and showed the message:

Nite x

"I think I got away with it Q. He doesn't seem mad or weirded out. He just responded the same way. Luckily I only used one kiss and not three like I do with you. Can you imagine! He'd probably think I'm drunk texting or something!"

"Yeah, definitely something! But I need you to put that phone away now and focus. Have you decided what you're going to do about Moe for now?"

"I'm going to follow George's advice and cut all contact. I don't want to unwittingly be dragged into any investigations, especially with my own recent increase in income."

"But all yours is documented and legally established through Sam's lawyers. There's nothing for you to be afraid of."

"I know. But it's still a worry."

"I think you'll be fine. Do you have any gifts or expensive stuff that he's bought you?"

"Thankfully no. We've only been for a couple of coffees and a couple of dates. It wasn't as if he was at the stage of buying me expensive jewelry and stuff. Coming to think of it, I've probably had more flowers from Sam than I have from Moe."

"Sam sends you flowers?" Quinn moved forward slightly, sensing something juicy was about to be revealed only to be disappointed.

"Not recently, just once for my birthday and once to cheer me up after those girls were being bitchy at the zoo. All I ever had from Moe was a shedload of text messages and single red rose from one of those cheesy sellers when we were already out."

Quinn reached for the bowl of chips and took a handful while Mercedes shook her head at the offer of more.

"I just feel sorry for George. He was so apologetic when he came by earlier. He says that he feels terrible and would never have introduced me to anyone who he thought may have been dodgy."

"He clearly didn't know at the time and as soon as he did he came to warn you so he can't really be blamed."

"That's what I told him. And he knows that I'm really thankful for him being a friend and giving me the heads up in person straight away."

"So I'm guessing he thinks this investigation really might go somewhere?"

Mercedes nodded. "Apparently some of the files that were taken from his office for review were ones that had been queried by someone else before. He thinks maybe they'd been anonymously tipped off about something but never had enough information to act until now."

"And have you spoken to Moe?"

"Not directly. He was already in a huff about our post karaoke disagreement so I just sent a message to say I don't think it's a good idea that we see each other. I wasn't going to let on that I know about him being under investigation so I just said that if we were finding it hard to agree this early on then it wouldn't be right to pursue things any further. It was something along the lines of my family and my friendships are already established and I'm not prepared to change them, or change who I am so maybe I'm not the right person for him. Plus it's only fair to say this now before things go too far."

"Wow Mercedes! Way to dump someone!"

"I wasn't dumping him. We weren't officially a 'thing' yet. It was just a couple of dates."

"You tell yourself that. The way Quinn sees it, you dumped his sorry ass at the first signs of him potentially being a jerk. And a criminal one at that." She raised her glass in a toast. "Here's to my best friend finally being strong enough to dump someone who treats her like shit, and long may it last!"

Mercedes looked at her incredulously. "You what?"

"Mercy, you're finally learning to stand up for yourself and the way you've handled today is a massive achievement. Mercedes a few months ago would be in a tearful cookie bake fest, musing over bad decisions, but this Mercedes, who I am loving by the way, has taken charge, made a decision straight away, is sticking to it, all the while looking pretty damn sexy at the same time! Now if you're not going to drink to that then give me your glass and I'll happily drink twice!"

She finally reluctantly decided to hell with it and clinked her glass with Quinn's before descending into giggles with her damn near perfect best friend.

"Finish the bottle and sleep in Sam's room tonight?"

She watched as her friend's eyebrow arched but couldn't think of what she'd just said that could have raised her attention.

"Sure. I'll sleep in Sam's room tonight…"