Dante. Tiff. Chloe.

The official no-nonsense tribunal.

When facing the scrutiny of these trusted friends, the truth that Neela could barely face herself would eventually come out. Eventually.

"Well?" Dante urged, still struggling to comprehend why the engagement-night sex wasn't a rip-roarin' affair.

"Okay here it is," Neela said, adding a heavy sigh. "He had a cheese plate for dessert last night, which at first I didn't even think about it, but later...when we were well on our way to you know...getting off...there were quite a few..." she cringed before making the final admission, "...motion farts."

Tiff immediately started shaking her head. "No. No no no." Tiff's voice may have sounded calm to a random passerby, but on her usual scale of emotional expression, her reaction was nothing short of extreme. She was traumatized.

Neela watched in silence as they absorbed this flat-out falsehood; in her mind it was only a little white lie, given the actual fart to end all farts that had emitted from his body later on while he'd slept. She shuddered at the memory of the four a.m. fart, before realizing her traumatized friends were waiting for her to say more. "Yeah, so..." she clasped her hands together, "I wish I could say it hadn't happened, but it truly was an epic horror; like a 'Vivaldi's Four Seasons symphony of farts.'" She shook her head sadly. "I suffered a lot."

"You are being a little dramatic," Chloe said.

Neela no longer looked sad. "It's all you fault," she answered coldly.

Chloe scoffed. "Excuse me?"

"Well, you and the rest of France, anyway." Neela was not above a mass generalization when she was halfway through a mission to hide the truth. "Seriously, when will you and the rest of France finally learn that a cheese plate is not dessert?!"

Chloe took a calm and measured sip of coffee. "I do not represent all the problems with the French — not that cheese is ever a problem."

"Hello!" Dante cried. "Did you not hear about the movement farts?!"

"Thank you!" said Neela. They high-fived with a level of ease that made it clear they were always in cahoots. With his support, she continued digging herself into a hole of unfair stereotypes. "Face it, Chloe, you are responsible for the wrongs of your entire country. Just like Dante is responsible for drug-related murders in Mexico, just like Tiff is responsible for the most corrupt administration in American history, and just like I'm responsible for...well...unflinching kindness?" She smiled with the innocence of a squeaky clean Canadian.

"Hey Neela," Dante said casually. "Did you see that viral video about a woman's racist tirade at a Tim Hortons in Alberta?" He looked over at Chloe. "Alberta is in Canada."

Neela was suddenly distracted by her plate of food. "Oh really?" She took a bite of home fries. "That's weird; I never heard about that."

"It only took six hours for the real estate company she works at to issue a statement saying they're firing her," Dante added, casually examining his nails. "Nothing drags a bitch like Twitter."

"Can we please get back on topic?" Tiff asked, having fully recovered from the tale of the farts.

"Sure," Neela said, continuing the stare-down with her plate of food.

Tiff crossed her arms. "Did you get off?"

Neela seemed confused. "You mean like now? From the home fries?"

For the first time Tiff laughed, which in her case amounted to a single "ha." A true gift. "You know what I mean," Tiff said. "You said it was fine in the end; so did you actually get off or not?"

There were no more fart lies or stereotypes to hide behind. Neela sighed. "I didn't," she finally admitted, inching closer and closer to the truth. "I couldn't." She rubbed her forehead. "And I guess it's because...in the back of my mind...I was thinking about a guy I met yesterday."

Her confession was met with a series of gasps.

"Finish up and let's get out of here," Dante said. "This conversation needs my balcony and champagne."

***

Dante's apartment was overrun by stacks of artwork that lacked the square footage to be admired. A massive desktop monitor sat on an antique desk, where the nearby windows led out to a balcony. It was there that four small chairs supported four human butts.

This balcony was by no means spacious or grand. It was so cramped in fact, that knees were touching and there was nowhere to move, but by Parisian standards? Where it was often a luxury to not have to take a shower overtop of the toilet? This balcony was a luxury.

"I would've followed him too," Dante said with dreamy eyes.

"Really?" said Neela, desperate for validation. "Because once I got on the other train I started to think I was going nuts!"

"Well..." Tiff said, with that 'mother knows best' expression.

Neela flinched at the judging tone. "Don't forget this was before the engagement," Neela reminded her. "When he was still just a boyfriend who I hadn't been getting along with for the last couple of months."

Tiff simply shrugged.

"I am not so surprised this happened," Chloe said. "It does not take long for a French man to show his captivating side."

"Captivating?" Tiff snorted. "I thought he fell down the stairs."

"Which in its own way is captivating!" Dante argued. "It's like in rom coms when the girl always trips and falls when she's carrying her coffee and simultaneously trying to run in stilettos or some shit. And then the guy character always shows up just in time, catching her before her head cracks open on the sidewalk..." He took a second to swoon. "And then they lock eyes and fall in love in two seconds. It's just like that, right?" He gestured to Neela. "Right?"

Neela's mouth gaped open. She filled it with a giant gulp of champagne before responding. "Dante, come on, who said anything about love? All I'm saying is in the short time we talked, he was kind was of...funny. And I guess despite his designer duds...he was actually sort of down-to-earth too." The far off look on her face made it clear that she was picturing his face. "He was obviously a stranger, but somehow it was like I...knew him already. I guess that's why I didn't feel the need to be some classier formal version of myself; it was nice not to have to feel that pressure." She smiled involuntarily, an outward expression of an inward feeling she wasn't yet capable of wiping away.

Dante nodded slowly. "It's incredibly special when you can be your trashy self with someone you barely know." He looked like he was about to cry. "Just really special."

"So now what?" Tiff said, always one to cut through the gooey eyed bullshit. "Are you engaged or are you not engaged?"

Neela laughed. "Obviously I'm engaged!" She flashed her ring. "See?"

"So why are we still talking about this clumsy-ass guy who doesn't even matter?"

Neela suddenly seemed ashamed. "I was just..."

"You need to move this memory to trash and permanently delete it from the folder," Tiff instructed.

"No!" Dante cried. "You need to restore it and put it in your Documents folder and back it up!"

"I do not understand what is happening," Chloe said.

Neela sighed. "They're just deciding my future using analogies that make us uncool; it's best to just keep drinking champagne."

Chloe and Neela clinked their glasses.

"Yes champagne!" Dante said, refilling their glasses. "We should all have more then we can figure out what to do."

Neela snorted. "What is there to do? I'm obviously never going to see him again."

Dante shook his head. "Don't be so sure about that."

"Oh really?" Neela started to blush for no reason at all. "And why is that?" She squinted her eyes so she could see into the window. "Is this like an episode of Maury Povich? Is Antonio waiting backstage before he makes his big reveal? Is he not the father?"

Tiff laughed again. This time she offered up a double 'ha.'

"He's not inside," Dante said. "But that doesn't mean I won't be able to find him."

The gals all exchanged confused looks.

"Give me two minutes," Dante instructed. "And when I come back, we'll begin phase one of 'Operation: Find Mr. Métro'!"

He nearly tripped as he climbed back in through the window. When he recovered, he skipped away with a level of excitement that was as disturbing as it was intriguing.

"I hope you'll be pulling the plug on this," Tiff said to Neela in a low measured voice.

Neela avoided Tiff's stare like it was the Eye of Sauron trying to look into her soul. "He's just having a little champagne-induced fun," Neela insisted. "Where's the harm in that?"

"Fine; but don't say I didn't warn you." And there it was. Tiff's go-to remark before the always-inevitable moment when she would get to say 'I told you so.' She wouldn't say it with words, only with a single look, but her cutting stare was usually somehow worse than the words themselves.

Even if that moment was well on its way, for now Neela was more than happy to avoid it.

Chloe finished the last of her champagne. "For the record I am curious enough to stay here and see what happens."

Neela smiled. "Then that makes two of us."