Grant drove the girls back to Zephyr, quietly at first.

"Why are you always where I go?" Runa asked him.

"I don't know," he told her. "Why are you always where I go?"

Mendalie laughed.

"I am not!" Runa said. "I don't follow you."

"I don't follow you," Grant said.

"Yeah, right," she said. "You're like some pathetic puppy dog, Mister Cooper!"

Grant cocked his head to the side, and lowered his brows.

"He is," Mendalie said, reaching in front of Runa to Grant and pinching his cheek, "just like a cute little stray. Why don't you take him home?"

"No way," Runa said. "Strays aren't house broken. What if he goes all over the place?"

Mendalie blurted out laughing.

"If you weren't drunk, Runa," Grant told her.

"If I weren't drunk, what?"

"I'd show you who I really am."

"Oh? Really?" she asked.

"Really," he told her.

"Well, you can show me," Mendalie said, laughing.

Grant just shook his head.

He took them to the back door at Runa's apartment and he had to help them both up the steps. Once they were inside, Mendalie helped Runa into her bed. Then she stumbled out to Grant, who was leaving. "You could stay," she told him. "I'm sure she wouldn't really mind."

"Thanks," he said, "but I can't."

"Oh, why not?" Mendalie asked. "I wouldn't really mind either." She touched his arm and looked at him in what she thought was a seductive way, but it was more comical than anything.

"Goodnight, Mendie," he said, and walked down the stairs.

"Well you're no fun!" she yelled after him.

"Yes I am!" Runa yelled from the other room. "I can be."

Grant just shook his head and left.

Mendalie gave him a delayed 'raspberries', and then she walked into the bedroom and fell into the bed beside Runa. She promptly fell asleep.