A/N Enjoy!

Disclaimer: Not mine.

EPOV

I waited until it was just Sookie and I before bringing up the events of the day. I figured that after dinner we could watch TV in the bedroom and I'd tell her, but I was momentarily distracted by the pile of clean laundry on the bed.

"Hey, the underpants fairy came!" I said.

"Yup" said Sookie "I think she likes you. You can put your stuff in this drawer if you like rather than keep living out of your bag in the study."

"OK, cool." Huh, I got a drawer. I was moving up in the world.

We sat on the bed and I turned to Sookie. "So, um, I found out something really funny today. You know how I told Sophie-Anne that I was going out, um, sight-seeing with you?" Sookie nodded. "Well, um, it turns out that she told Andre that she was seeing me, to get him to back off…" I trailed off, Sookie hadn't laughed yet.

"So hang on" she said "Andre has a thing for Sophie-Anne?"

"Yeah, well. Apparently she slept with him."

"With Andre? But he's so…yucky." I shrugged. Sookie thought for a minute, gave a little shiver and then said "So how do you even know any of this? Was Andre boasting or something?"

I snorted. "Hardly. The man is a total fucking douchebag. If he talks to me again I might do something I'll regret after he fucking erased all the work I did yesterday."

"He did what?"

I sighed. "Deleted my files from the drive. Then tried to say I hadn't saved anything."

"So, was that because of Sophie-Anne?"

"Dunno."

"But I still don't know how you know he slept with her?"

So I went through the story of my conversation with Sophie-Anne ending with the bit where I accidentally somehow became responsible for getting rid of the pictures.

Sookie stared at me. "So…she cried?"

"Yup."

"And then she asked you to steal Andre's phone?"

"Yeah, but I'm just going to wait until he leaves it lying around, then borrow it for a bit."

Sookie went silent again, then turned around and exploded. "I can't believe you fell for that shit! It's the oldest trick in the book, crying to get sympathy."

"What? No, she was really upset." I'm pretty sure she was. I found the crying fucking miserable at any rate. "Anyway, you cry all the time!" As soon as I heard those words I realised that maybe that wasn't the best fucking thing to say. Turns out I was right.

"I cry?" Sookie yelled. "I cry so I'm the same as that, that fucking manipulative cold-hearted bitch-faced slapper! Jesus, Eric. If you get arrested and deported, I'm not going to the airport to see you off." With that she stomped off to the bathroom.

Fuck, I thought. That didn't go well at all. Fucking Sophie-Anne, now Sookie was pissed at me. I started putting my clothes in the drawer Sookie had given me, hoping that I wasn't going to be taking the stuff out soon when Sookie kicked me out. I thought I should really figure out how to get Amelia on my side before that happened.

When I was done I sat on the bed and turned on the TV. I could hear the shower running but I was pretty sure I wasn't invited. After a while the shower turned off and a little while after that Sookie came into the room in her pyjamas. I braced myself for more yelling.

"OK" she said, at a normal volume at least. "OK. I think you're an idiot for doing this for…her." She spat out the last word like she couldn't bear to say Sophie-Anne's name.

"I'm not an idiot!" I said. Sookie just looked at me. "Well, I admit it probably wasn't the smartest thing to agree to, but I don't think it makes me a fucking idiot."

"Well, whatever. At any rate just be careful and don't get caught. Has anyone seen you and Andre arguing?"

"Yeah, probably. We were a bit loud yesterday. And there was the time I tipped coffee on him…" I trailed off, realising that was news to Sookie.

"I do not even want to know. But you realise that sets you up of course to be the prime suspect when his phone goes missing? Or if any other random shit happens to him."

"Yeah, so that's why I'm only going to borrow it. And then only if it's easy. I didn't promise anything more to Sophie-Anne."

"She might expect more of course. But it's up to you." We sat in silence for a minute.

"Don't be mad at me" I asked, quietly.

Sookie leaned over and put her head on my shoulder, so I put an arm around her. That felt better anyway. "I'm not mad at you" she said, using a finger to trace patterns on my chest. "I'm mad at Sophie-Anne, and Andre and the whole stupid pile of shit they've dragged you into. I'm just slightly annoyed with you for getting yourself caught up in it."

"Yeah, well. I'm fucking slightly annoyed with myself as well."

"Well, it's nice that we agree on something" Sookie said, looking up at me.

"Can we agree to shut up about this now and do something else?" I said, and I bent down to kiss her.

"Mmmm, OK."

SPOV

I'd had a rather boring day doing laundry and putting fruit in to soak for the Christmas cake I was going to make. I spent a lot of time going "Mum mum mum mum" to Felicia and only getting "Bubbubbubbub" back.

So I'd been really looking forward to having Eric home, but I wasn't really expecting him to have some story about being roped in to steal Andre's phone for Sophie-Anne. I was unbelievably annoyed at all of them really, for creating the whole stupid situation. Why could Sophie-Anne not deal with Andre herself? She was a grown woman and had got herself into the mess. I didn't understand her at all. And I really didn't understand why Eric felt compelled to help her. We'd established she was the benchmark for bitches with the whole 'what would Sophie-Anne do?' thing. Maybe he was scared of her?

So when Eric went to work on Thursday I was more than a bit worried he was going to get himself into a really bad situation and I really, really wanted to go with him. Just to make sure. But he assured me he could look after himself and I had to be content with waving him off, while Amelia grilled me about when she'd get a ride in his car.

I had plans for the day anyway. Christmas shopping, ugh. Last year everyone had cut me a bit of slack because I was heavily pregnant and my husband had abandoned me. But this year…yeah, all of a sudden you realised how many people there were in Bill's family. And I always resented buying stuff for Sarah and Portia who would then cry poor and give me something like homemade biscuits or socks from the $2 shop.

And you didn't even want to know about the presents from Lorena.

I decided Felicia and I would try somewhere further afield and we went to the mall at Sylvia Park instead of St Luke's, just for the change of scene. It was pretty busy though, and that was without the primary schools having broken up for the year. I managed to wangle a 'parents with prams' park though so was feeling pretty pleased with myself.

Until I realised that I'd have to buy Eric a present as well. Crap. What was I going to buy him?

EPOV

I'd learnt my lesson and saved a copy of my work on an external drive before I left on Wednesday, but Andre hadn't tried the same shit again and the copies on the main drive were still there. I assumed Sophie-Anne had told him to cut that shit out, but I wasn't about to ask. I was just going to keep my head down, while trying to keep one eye on Andre's desk to see if he'd wander off and leave his phone.

But of course he fucking didn't. He was either engrossed in his numerous internet activities, or off in a meeting, with his phone. This wasn't going as well as I'd hoped.

At one stage Sophie-Anne turned up while Andre was elsewhere. "So, Eric" she said "Everything going well? Have you had any success with the special project you and I talked about?"

"Nope. Can't get hold of what you want. You might be out of luck."

Sophie-Anne pursed her lips and looked at me. "Well that's disappointing Eric. I thought you'd do better than that."

"I'm not a professional thief, Sophie-Anne." I hissed. I was so over this.

"No, you're not. But you are a professional, so try and think of something. Quickly."

"Maybe you could invite him to a meeting? At the last minute so he forgets the damn thing?"

"Well, we'll see. Maybe. But I'd really prefer not to be involved at all."

Well, I thought, if she wasn't going to help me out just a bit, fuck her.

I went back to my work, Andre was still somewhere else and when I realised someone was standing by my desk again, I was about to tell Sophie-Anne that I hadn't fucking got the phone yet, when I realised it wasn't her, it was Peter.

"So, Eric. Everything going OK?" he said.

"Yeah no problems." Apart from the shit-storm created by your over-sexed and completely self-centred employees who were treating this like their own personal soap opera, it was all business as usual.

"Excellent." I expected him to leave at that point, but instead he sat on the desk. Fuck, I thought, I hope he doesn't want me to get back pictures of him from Sophie-Anne or anything.

"So we're having a client function on Friday night, mainly for the business and corporate clients, and I wondered if you'd like to attend? It's just upstairs in the boardroom. Drinks, nibbles, that sort of thing. The chief economist is going to talk about the prevailing climate and our predictions for the upcoming Reserve Bank announcements and I thought you might like to help us out by answering any questions our customers might have about the States."

Ah, OK. They wanted to roll me out to impress the customers. "Yeah, that sounds good Peter."

"Excellent. I'll get Karen to send you an invitation with the details and I'll see you there."

When I got home Sookie asked almost immediately if I'd got the phone.

"What phone?" asked Amelia.

"Never mind" said Sookie. "Just a phone. So did you?"

"No, no luck there. But I'm nearly through now that Andre isn't trying to sabotage me, so I should be done by Friday. Although I got invited out Friday night."

"Oh, by whom?" Sookie said as she put dinner in front of me. She seemed reluctant to take her hand away from the plate, and I swear she was waiting for me to reply before deciding whether I deserved to be fed or not.

"Peter. He wants me to attend some kind of client thing, talk about the States, or some shit like that. I don't think I have an option."

"Oh, OK". Sookie let go of my plate and sat down. Guess I was OK to eat then. "I was thinking that maybe Sophie-Anne wanted to take you out to celebrate or something."

"We're going to see Sophie-Anne?" asked Amelia, who was trying to follow along.

"No" Sookie and I both replied at once.

"I was only asking" Amelia muttered, before going back to poking her dinner.

Bathtime turned into Amelia repeatedly asking me if I got to see Sophie-Anne when I was at work and what was she wearing. I was getting so sick of the sound of her name, if I never saw her again after this week it would be too soon.

Once the kids were in bed I went to find Sookie. She was in the kitchen peering at the stove. "What's in there?" I asked.

"Christmas cake. Gran's recipe. It takes five hours to cook. I hope to God it's going to be OK as I have no clue what I'm doing with it."

"Smells alright."

"Yeah, but it might taste like feet." She straightened. "Oh, do you want a mince pie, I made those as well?"

"Um, OK.". She handed me a small pie covered in sugar, which I thought was bizarre and I bit into it. "It's not mince." I said.

"Yeah, it's Christmas mince, which is fruit. Not minced beef though, like the mince pie I made I made for dinner the other night."

"That's just confusing."

"Not to me."

"It's nice though."

"Well, have another one. I made tons because I was bored."

I helped myself to another one. They were really only a couple of mouthfuls each. "So what else did you do today?" I asked, starting to make coffee.

"Christmas shopping. It was torture. I have no idea what to buy Bill's sisters, but I think I've got Lorena sorted. I just bought her a nightie. It seemed an appropriate old lady present. Judith says she wanted an espresso maker, so I've got them one of those, and I think I've pretty much done the kids now including my own. Except Glen. What do 8 year old boys like, and don't say porn."

"Um…"

"Yeah, never mind I'll think of something. I've got all those to go through" she gestured to a neatly stacked pile of brochures and catalogues on the kitchen bench "so I can get ideas and work out what's on sale."

"That seems…organised" I said, staring at the pile.

"You wanted to say something else there, didn't you?"

I shrugged and ate another pie instead of answering.

"So is there anything you want for Christmas?" Sookie asked.

"Oh, um…nothing that comes to mind…'

"Well let me know if you think of anything Santa can bring you."

I smiled at her, "I've got you, so how could I possibly need anything else?"

"Hmm, practicing your American smarm for Friday. Good work. Nice deflection too, now I'm stuck thinking of something for you without any help."

I poured the coffee and kissed her. "Distraction on top of deflection, you're really at the top of your game tonight."

"Oh, yes. You know I am. Any other games you want to try?"

"Well, I think there's a Scrabble set around here somewhere…"

"I guess we probably could have a rematch…" I said, remembering the last time we'd played Scrabble at Piha.

"Cool, you bring the coffee through to the living room; I'll go set it up."

Oh, I thought, was she was actually going to make me play Scrabble before we got to the good bit? Well that seemed a bit unfair. Oh well. Maybe I'd win this time. Or I'd let Sookie win. I couldn't decide what would be better.

But, I realised as I glanced again at Sookie's pile of Christmas planning materials, I'd better fucking hurry up and figure out what I was buying her.

"Come on Eric!" I heard her yell. "If you're not here soon I'm hiding all the good letters."

The last time we'd played she'd tried to do that by shoving them all in her bra. I had a feeling the Scrabble playing portion of the evening wasn't going to last very long at all.

Thanks for reading!