The last two arrive to pitch Noreen's latest adventure!

Both women's heads shot up at the sound of a series of loud, sharp knocks on the front door. Ria looked over in surprise but Kath offered a shrug as she reached toward the nightstand and grabbed her phone.

Kath opened the Nest app and pulled up the doorbell camera, laughed, and showed the video to her guest. Ria could clearly see Aimee had taken off her shoe and was hitting the door with it while Noreen stood off a few feet in the yard chatting away on her phone.

Ria laughed at the spectacle as Katherine shook her head. "Hasn't anyone explained to Aimee how to use a doorbell?"

Kath sighed as she left the bedroom. She grabbed her fluffy orange robe from the back of the bathroom door, washed her face quickly, and trotted down the hallway. Ria saw this as a good chance to disappear, grabbed her overnight bag, and retreated into the bathroom.

Kath stopped at the end of the hallway and yelled back, "What do you think you're doing?"

She heard through the locked door reply, Ria shouted, "Your house, your guests! If we ever have sex at my place, they'll be my problem."

She opened the app again, turned on the outside speaker and said, "Stop trying to wake my neighbors, Aimee! I'm coming down." She closed it before anyone could reply and looked one last time at the closed bathroom door. "I'll deal with you later, wench!" Kath's voice echoed down the hallway as she tied the robe shut and descended the stairs.

Katherine glanced into the living room and reassured herself that Kris was still passed out before tromping up to the front door and opening it.

Aimee was turned with her back facing the door as it swung open yelling for Noreen to finish her call. She spun around mid-sentence with a smile plastered on her face to greet Kathy.

"Ummm Hi Kath!" Aimee bubbled toward her friend as Noreen continued pacing the grass speaking hurriedly into her phone. They shared a quick hug and then Katherine looked over towards the yard. She could see the Persian woman at some point had abandoned her heels on the porch and had an animated conversation underway in her stockinged feet that was unfortunately too quiet to make out.

"Noreen!" Kath called loudly in her general direction. She could tell Aimee was just tagging along for whatever adventure her friend was pitching, besides the way the blonde was swaying told her the woman was already tipsy. So any answers would have to come from the mouth of the party girl.

Noreen whispered something quickly and then hung the phone up. She looked toward the two women on the front stoop, offered a warm, friendly smile, and rushed toward Kath wrapping her in a big hug. "Can we step inside for a moment? I have such a great night lined up for all of us!" she offered flashing a conspiratorial smile.

"Sure, I have wine in the kitchen. Let's go chat!" Katherine offered as she grabbed a hand from each and led them inside.

Ria dried off in the bathroom after her shower. She pulled her pink Disney branded sweats from the sports bag and threw them on. Feeling refreshed she pulled her hair back into a ponytail, glanced at the mirror, and happy with her work, stepped into the hall. The bag was tossed on the spare room bed as she passed by. It was about time to see what was going on downstairs she figured.

Ria was halfway down the steps when she heard the laughing from the kitchen. It made sense to her though, with Kris comatose in the living room, where else could Kath entertain? She hadn't made it two steps into the room before the three ladies greeted her like a long lost friend.

Katherine was proud of her cozy little kitchen and it showed. Beautiful white tile with a red rose theme flowing through it covered the floor, a couple of nice sized cream cabinets hung above the prep counter with a respectable silver single door refrigerator and cute four-burner gas stove finishing the appliance layout. Aimee and Noreen sat at the black breakfast nook set in the far corner of the room, wine glasses sitting on the white, polished wood tabletop. Kath finished pouring a fourth and handing it to Ria before putting the wine back in the refrigerator. Kath parked herself in front of the prep counter as Noreen began to speak.

"Welcome, antisocial girl!" Noreen greeted Ria with a laugh. "It's about time you dropped down here. You're a bit underdressed though."

Ria accepted the glass from Kath with a smile and sat in a chair at the end of the table. She looked over at Noreen, shrugged and replied, "It's getting late and I have work in the morning. It's 'get comfy and wind down' time. I can't sleep in my dress. . . not if I ever want to get the wrinkles out."

"Ooooh tell her, Noreen!" Aimee gushed, seeming to will the Persian woman to speak.

"Don't worry about work, Ria. All four of us are at a virtual conference tomorrow and Friday. If you checked your email, you'd know that already," Noreen smugly stated.

Ria grabbed her phone and sure enough, an email was sitting in her workbox for about an hour now. It had her scheduled to work from home via video conference all afternoon both days. She stared in amazement at her friend, "How?"

Noreen smiled. "Being the director's glorified gopher has a few advantages," the Iranian began as she noticed a saucy smirk aimed in her direction from Aimee. Noreen looked toward the blonde. "No, no one was lucky enough to receive any special favors. Your mind is in the gutter again I see," Noreen said with a smug grin. "A few weeks ago, a mid-level manager in HR was having trouble getting a timely appointment with oncology for his mother, I hinted but didn't promise I'd see what could be done."

She paused for dramatic effect and then continued, "I talked with a doctor there that's a shift manager every so often on business so I let slip that the director might have heard something about the issue and was considering looking into it at some point in the future. I hadn't been back in my office more than 15 minutes before the HR manager called to thank me for the help. He returned the favor tonight." Noreen bragged as she played with her hair.

"And you spent it for a night on the town?" Ria exclaimed obviously gobsmacked at the explanation she just heard. A favor like that seemed worth a lot more than a paid 1/2 day or two off to her.

"You have no idea how many favors I have saved up. . . Ok, just a couple, but you ladies need to live a little so I burned one. The girls in the sec pool sleep around for things like this. I just drop a word here, a suggestion there and things happen." Kath shot Noreen a nasty look. "That's what I've heard, Kath! People talk about you folks lot!" Noreen offered in way of an apology. "But I've never heard any actual names attached or anything though."

Katherine shook her head. "Half the organization thinks with their gonads and not the brain God and nature provided. I won't say it's never happened with anyone but nobody ever offers me a paid vacation for an afternoon romp, and I'd like to think someone would be tempted," she said with a giggle relieving the tension in the room.

Noreen offered her Kath one of her trademarked grins, "I can put out the word if you like. I bet you have ten offers before. . ." her words trailed off as she ducked and a roll of paper towels sailed through the space her head had occupied just a few moments beforehand. "I'll take that as a no," she said and the whole room broke into laughter.

After everyone recovered from their bout of uncontrolled giggling, Noreen spoke up again. "Here's the deal. Occasionally when I'm bored, I call a friend in the public affairs office looking for tips on good hangouts for the night. As usual, Ali is out of town on business and my little one is hanging with the grandparents," Noreen made a big show of looking bored, tapping her fingers on the tabletop before continuing. "You two abandoned us, so I called him looking for a lead. Long story short, I was able to score us some invites to a 'welcome to town' party some guys from the football team are throwing for a new transfer player from Brazil."

"Now wait a minute, are you setting us up to be the meat in their whore party sandwich?" Kath quizzed her looking wary all the sudden.

"That's unfair, Kath", Noreen shot back. "Have I ever done anything like that at all?"

"Not yet but when PR flaks start rounding up women for a party, I start to wonder," she mused aloud.

"I've been to three of these things in the last year and didn't sleep with anyone," Noreen replied a tad defensively. "Look the ones I went to ended up having 20-30 people. There was lots of free booze and food along with a ton of mingling. I won't say there were no hookups but all I did was flirt a bit, dance a lot, and enjoyed the atmosphere. It was a fun experience besides John knows not to cross me," Noreen finished with her elbows on the tabletop and her fingers tented in front of her face.

"Hmmm", Ria replied thinking a bit. "It almost sounds too good to be true."

"I thought the same about the first one I went to but I had a blast. Besides, it isn't like we are going alone, the four of us can handle a couple of randy footballers if we feel the need to. Come on! It'll be fun! They can have a car here for us within the hour. It'll give you two a chance to get back into something less 'sleep-overy'," Noreen ended adding her best innocent grin and awaited the group consensus.

"Well I'm in", Aimee volunteered. Though Noreen was sure of her response, she was thrilled the first answer was a yes.

"Normally I'd say no. I'm not the biggest fan of mixing **** and private functions", Ria said carefully. "But I'll do it if I can get the creases out of my dress. I'm in the mood to let my hair down some."

"My clothes steamer can handle that sweetheart," Kath offered. "Kris is kinda useless tonight so I have nothing better to do. Besides, I'm just going along to make sure you don't get Ria in trouble," Kath finished, her eyes carefully darting from Noreen to Aimee and back again.

"Good. It's settled then! You won't regret this, it'll be awesome!" Noreen promised as she hopped up. "Look, it's 9 now, I'll arrange the car to pop by for us at 10. You two go get dressed! It doesn't have to be college party sexy or anything, but try something more festive than business casual ok?" Noreen hurried out the door with her phone glued to her ear calling to make arrangements.

Katherine took a moment to refresh Aimee's glass, grabbed Ria's hand, and led her up the stairs. When they got to the spare room, she hung both dresses up on hangers, pulled the steamer from the closet, and started tending the outfits.

"Is this a good idea or did we mess up?" Ria asked Kath as she pulled her undergarments from the sports bag.

"Noreen may seem a bit calculating at times and 'caution to the wind' at others but she's a genuine friend. I cannot imagine she's getting us into anything she remotely considers to be trouble," Kath replied and continued to run the machine over the garments. "That said, sometimes trouble finds her."

"Well we're committed now. I have high hopes and low expectations."

"Probably the best way to approach it," Kath offered. "It's just a party. I mean what's the worst that can happen?" she mused aloud as both hurried to get ready.

Between the two of them, Kath and Ria were able to finish up with about 10 minutes to spare. Ria was back in her tight-fitting 'little black dress' and Kath went with her knee-length light blue and white cardigan ensemble again. They'd taken turns on each other's hair and felt pretty good about the result. When they went downstairs, Kath noticed the girls weren't in the kitchen and led Ria out the front door. On the side of the road in front of the house, they saw a jet black SUV idling. Noreen could be seen standing next to a tall swarthy man in a black suit with a white ball cap on. The two were smiling and seemingly joking back and forth. Aimee waved excitedly and rushed to meet them as they walked toward the car.

"We have a car and driver!" Aimee exclaimed as she got to them. "And he has the cutest Cockney accent!" she gushed making the girls laugh.

"I don't think Aimee is going to last long at the party before jumping in the bushes with the help," Kath teased.

"I'll be a good girl, I promise," Aimee offered crossing her heart like a schoolgirl.

All three locked arms and strode toward the car. Noreen and the driver stopped talking and watched them sonder down to the vehicle. "This is James," she offered. "He's here to take us to the party."

The driver graciously nodded his head and opened the passenger side doors for the ladies.

"Here goes nothing!" Kath replied as she shimmied inside.

"Or maybe everything!" Noreen bubbled as the rest got in the back. She quickly took the front passenger's seat as the driver gently closed both doors and climbed into his seat. He was quiet during the 10-minute ride as the girls joked back and forth. Noreen and Aimee seemed animated and excited, Kath and Ria were talkative but a tad reserved. The windows were tinted so the scenery was hard to place but the girls paid little attention as they bantered back and forth. Then the driver parked, announced their arrival, and got out. He opened the doors for his passengers and helped each out.

They took a moment to inspect their surroundings and were a bit in awe.

"Wow," Ria exclaimed. "Look at this place!" The looks on the other's faces made it evident they were all in agreement.