It Just Happened - 1. Story

It Just Happened

By Caipirinha

“Mass you in there?”

“Yeah,” I called.

The door to my office swung open and my assistant’s new assistant, Tina, walked in with a stack of papers just an inch shorter than her curly auburn hair and just an inch taller than her tweed micro-skirt. “Veronica sent these over for you to look through.” She dumped the stack in my incoming work tray, and flopped into one of the chairs across from me. “She wants you to be as thorough as possible.”

“But?” There was always a but with Veronica.

The most wonderful look of resigned optimism crossed her face as she gave me a look that begged me not beat her senseless after she spoke. “Accounting needs them by close tomorrow.”

My jaw hit the edge of my desk on its way down to the floor. I grabbed the stack of papers and flipped through it. “There’s at least 300 pages here!”

“462. Which is why Tina and I are helping you,” my assistant Marnie said, walking into my office as if it were her own. “Bring on the coffee, we’re going to be here a while.”

“How late are we planning on staying?” Tina asked, foolishly. You could tell she was new.

“Until this is done,” I answered for Marnie and myself. We had been here long enough to know that something due at close tomorrow meant we would be working until open tomorrow getting it done. Tina however, being new, was most likely under the very mistaken assumption that because this new pile of work had been dumped on us, our load for tomorrow would be smaller.

In a perfect world, it should have worked that way. Our workload for the following day should be decreased to compensate for the additional work given us tonight, not to mention to balance out the additional time needed to give this new project appropriate attention to detail. In a perfect world.

In the real world, we referred to this as an extra-curricular activity. The professional version of piano lessons after school. Though much less boring.

“I should call my boyfriend,” she said, glancing nervously at the clock, “he’s probably already worried. I call him every day when I’m walking out to my car, which I usually do 10 minutes ago. I’m sure he’s wondering where I am.” She smiled at the thought of her lover’s heart growing fonder with her absence.

Marnie and I shared a glance and stifled a laugh, trying not to ruin the poor girl’s sense of romance. “I should call my house too,” Marnie added with a smirk.

“I thought you lived alone?” Tina didn’t notice me smiling; she was too busy digging through her purse, cursing her lost cell phone.

“I do,” Marnie answered, returning my amused expression. “But I like to leave myself answering machine messages so my cats can hear my voice.” Marnie and I burst into a fit of laughter, and even though she was trying her best to appear as stern and angry as possible, a smirk of Tina’s own was coming through.

“I know it’s dorky that my boyfriend and I are so lovely dovey,” Tina said, bringing the phone up to her ear and moving closer to the window in hopes of better cell phone service. “But you know, it’s still a new relationship so we’re still in that dorky kind of cutsie wootsie stage. One of these days, it’ll wear off. And I’ll probably miss it.”

This was the reason I had approved Tina being hired. She’s amongst the youngest people ever hired to her position and by far the most naive. But her ability to really disassociate herself with a situation to objectively observe and react to it was amazing, whether it was something as important as a corporate merger she was in the middle of documenting or as simple as her latest relationship.

“I should call Sean,” I said, reaching for my desk phone and deciding that if I was going to have to work all night the least the company could do was spare me the cell phone minutes.

“What the hell for?” Marnie asked, fingering through the ream of paper waiting to be deconstructed. “You never call him from work.”

I put the receiver up to my ear and quickly punched in our home phone number. “We had plans tonight. But that’s apparently changed.”

“Plans for what?”

I hesitated for a minute. On the one hand, it wasn’t worth lying about. On the other hand, there was no doubt in my mind that these women would rip me to shreds when they heard my answer. “It’s our anniversary.”

“Your what!?” They responded in unison, Marnie’s eyes falling completely out of her head, Tina hanging up on her boyfriend mid conversation so she could yell at me. I put the receiver down, having gotten our answering machine.

Thus began a rain of ‘You are not missing your anniversary for work’ and ‘You should have better sense than to abandon your lover on your anniversary’ amongst other things.

“Guys!” I finally called, after having allowed them to verbally abuse me for as long as I could stand. “Seriously. I know. But what am I supposed to do? These things happen sometimes.”

“Oh I’ll tell you what to do,” Marnie said, slamming the stack of papers on my desk and turning for the door. “Veronica!” Tina and I frowned at each other when all we could hear were the echoes of Marnie screaming ‘Veronica, get your scrawny ass out here now, we need to have words’ as she charged down the hall of our office.

“Yeah,” I said, rolling my eyes, and slumping into my chair. “Because that’s going to make it better.”

Tina at least had the sense to laugh. She leaned on my desk casually and picked up the picture that I kept of Sean and I. “How long have you guys been together?”

“Seven years,” I smiled, taking the photo out of her hands and looking at it fondly. It was the cheesiest, most cliché picture I owned of the two of us. And it was my favorite. Two people, obviously in love, standing at the edge of a mountain, with their arms around each other, taking a photo of themselves. It was so disgustingly sweet that I swore if I looked at it for too long I would get cavities.

Tina whistled her surprise. “That’s a long time.”

“Tell me about it.” I handed the picture to Tina who wanted a second look.

“Did you guys have something special planned?”

“Not really.” I tried the phone again, hoping, and failing, to have better success reaching Sean. “Dinner at Noble.”

“That sushi place?” she asked, cutting me off.

“That’d be it. A walk through Paige Park. Maybe some Italian ice from Rita’s.”

“Mmm, I love Rita’s.”

“So does Sean,” I said with a smile. “It may not sound like a lot, but it’s nice to be with someone for seven years and still feel like you’re on the very first date every time, you know?”

“Yeah,” she said. She slid into a chair, while a huge grin slid over her face. “That nervous excitement. Wondering if he’ll kiss you, and wondering if you’ll see fireworks if he does.”

“Except I know I will,” I said. We both sighed, like old ladies do at soap operas, and then we laughed at each other for being so Danielle Steel about romance. “Oh well,” I said, pulling a highlighter out of my desk drawer, “Maybe some other night.”

“Maybe tonight,” Marnie said firmly, dragging a terrified and angry Veronica into the office with her. “You are not making him work on his anniversary.”

“Marnie, really it’s fine.”

“It’s not fine! It’s important. Important enough to have the night off and make accounting wait a little while.” She clenched her jaw and looked pointedly at Veronica, who shrunk a little under Marnie’s gaze.

“Okay,” Tina said, standing quickly and heading for the door. “And this would be my cue to go pee.”

Veronica smiled uneasily at me. “Look, Massimo, you know I love you and Sean both, but this really just can’t wait. I wish there was something I could do, some way to make this up to you,” she trailed off, shrinking further under Marnie’s death stare.

“This is not how this conversation is supposed to be happening,” she practically growled.

“Marnie it’s fine.”

“Mass…”

“Marnie! Please, I appreciate your concern, but it really is okay.” She looked at me, astonished, and was about to huff a reply, not expecting me to beat her to it. “Can I just have a minute alone with Veronica?”

Marnie looked incredulously between the two of us. “She had better have a black eye when she leaves this office,” she mumbled as she slammed the door behind her.

“For what it’s worth,” Veronica started as soon as the door was shut, “I really wish I could put this off, but you know how corporate gets when they change their map and have to reorganize deadlines.”

“I know,” I said, with a soft smile. I sat at my desk and pulled my briefcase off the floor so I could rummage through it quickly. “Can I just ask you one favor?”

“What?”

“You said you would do anything to make this up to me?”

“Well, within reason,” she said with a smirk.

I laughed, “Of course. Within reason.” I pulled out the small envelope with the gift I had bought Sean in it and held it up. “I know if I’m here all night you’ll be here at least a couple hours late, but you’ll definitely be going home before me. Can you just swing by my house and give this to Sean? It’s his anniversary present.”

“That is definitely within reason.” She grabbed the envelope with an enormous apologetic smile, and walked to the door, turning as she grasped the knob. “I really am sorry Mass. It’s just really bad timing for this to just sort of happen.”

I slid back into my chair with a sigh as the door clicked shut behind her. I picked up the phone again, not wanting to keep putting off the inevitable and dialed home again.

Sean’s voice came through on the third ring. “Hello?”

“Hey babe,” I said softly, leaning back into my chair.

“Hey gorgeous.” I could hear him smiling. “Where are you?”

“Promise not to kill me?”

He chuckled into the phone. “Well that depends on how the rest of this conversation goes.”

“Well it’s not going to be good.”

His voice turned slightly more serious. “Well how bad is it going to be?”

I sighed, trying my hardest to find the best way to word this. “The good news is that I’m going to have all morning off tomorrow.”

I paused briefly, waiting to see if he reacted. This wasn’t the first time that major assignments had been dropped on my desk just as I was scheduled to walk out the door so the routine of me staying all night to finish something and taking the morning off was nothing regular, but it wasn’t anything new either.

“So I’m not going to see you until tomorrow,” he said quietly.

My heart broke as the words reached my ears. “Babe, I am so sor-,”

“Why tonight?” he asked, interrupting me.

I sighed deeply before answering. “I don’t know. It just happened. Bad luck I guess.” I waited to for him to reply, getting more nervous with every second that he didn’t. “Are you mad at me?”

“Yes.” I winced at the fact that he hadn’t even hesitated. “But what are you going to do right? Besides Kelly forgot it was our anniversary and asked me to watch the kids. I’ll just call her back and tell her my night opened up.”

“I really am sorry.”

“I know. I’ve known you long enough to know you wouldn’t do this if you could find any way around it.”

“If it’s any consolation Veronica felt bad for having to make me work so she agreed to stop by and drop off your gift for you.”

“It had better be a damn good gift,” he said with a chuckle, the joy and humor returning to his voice and setting me greatly at ease.

“Still love me?”

He sighed into the phone. “Of course I still love you. I may not like you, but I’ll always love you.”

“I love you too babe.”

“Alright go back to work, the sooner you’re done, the sooner you can come home, and I can see you.”

“I can’t wait for it,” I said with a smile plastered across my face.

“Me neither. Love you.” His voice lingered as he clicked the phone off.

“Love you too.” I turned around to find Tina and Marnie standing outside my office staring at me through the windows with matching worried facial expressions. I waved them in as I replaced the receiver on my phone and picked up my highlighter.

“How did it go?” Marnie asked quietly, picking up the ominous stack of paper and starting to sort it into smaller, more manageable sections.

“We broke up,” I said casually, rummaging through one of the drawers of my desk for nothing in particular. I looked back up to find Marnie’s jaw sitting on the floor and Tina looking like she was about to burst in to tears. “I’m sorry. Did I say break up? What I meant to say was, he’s a little angry, a little disappointed, but we’re fine.”

“That’s not funny!” Tina yelled, punching me in the shoulder as hard as her massively petit frame allowed.

“I don’t know,” I said, dodging an attack from Marnie, “I found it sort of humorous.” I grinned as they both took one last shot at me before settling down to continue sorting.

“How did he really take it?” Marnie

“He took it fine when I told him that Veronica was swinging by with his present.”

“Does he know yet?” Tina asked with a smile, pulling out several reports that we both knew were bound to be completely wrong.

“He has no idea,” I said, smiling to myself. It was probably the best anniversary gift I had ever bought him. And if it wasn’t for their obsessive-compulsive attention to detail, I may never have been able to plan it out without their help.

“Alright,” Marnie said, uncapping her highlighter with an amusing amount of determination. “I have POP, PPG, PPV, PVD, and Poole Point.”

“I have Trades, Transfers, Auto-Transfers, Auto-Charges, Auto-Refunds, and Manual Refunds,” Tina chimed in.

“And I guess that leaves me with everything else.”

Tina and I uncapped our own highlighters and the three of us began what would was sure to be a rousing night of proof reading and correcting every last minute detail that had inevitably been messed up. I opened my first report, Employee Hire Dates and Pay Scale Increase Anniversaries. ‘Happy Anniversary,’ I thought to myself as I started highlighting ferociously.

~~~

“Thank you so much for taking the kids tonight Sean,” my sister said, almost sadly, as her three kids walked through the front door of my house.

“Not a problem,” I replied smiling at my oldest nephew, “I love having the little buggers around.”

“Yeah, well, thank God someone still does.” I smiled as she rummaged though her purse for something. She handed me her never-ending list of emergency contacts, and addressed her children one last time. “Alright guys, I’m not kidding. I love you but I’m sick of you. If you don’t behave for Sean tonight I’m turning you over to DCF, got it?”

“Yes mom,” they replied, rolling their eyes in eerie unison.

“Alright, your father and I will be back around midnight.”

“Ma, we get it, goodnight!” Her oldest, and only, son Mike pointed out as he flopped into the couch and grabbed the remote.

“I swear I’m going to kill that one,” Kelly mumbled as I pushed her out the door and begged her to have a good time and not worry about the kids tonight.

I turned around and started walking back into the living room where the three of them had arranged themselves around the TV watching a movie that was definitely not appropriate for my 12-year-old nieces. Hell, it probably wasn’t appropriate for my 16-year-old nephew who picked it out. “So what do we feel like doing tonight?”

“Hanging out with my own friends,” Mike replied glumly.

“Yeah, like that’s going to be happening any time soon.”

“Dude, I don’t even get why I need a baby sitter, I’m 16 for God’s sake!”

I took the seat next to him and threw my arm around his hostile shoulder. “Well one, because you’re grounded, and even I don’t believe that you would have actually stayed home tonight if your parents had trusted you too.”

“And two,” his sister Rachael said, cutting me off, “last time mom left us alone you were too busy trying to get that Lisa girl pregnant upstairs in your bedroom to notice that me and Jenn went down to Ally Lomme’s house to go swimming.”

I stared in wide-eyed shock at my niece’s answer as she and her twin sister burst into convulsive laughter. Michael for his part blushed something fierce and immediately made a run for the stairs, no doubt retreating to the computer room in the loft.

My nieces laughed harder every time they looked me and I found myself still at a complete loss for words. “How do you guys even know about…you know…that…getting pregnant…and stuff?”

“You mean sex?” Jennifer asked. The fact that my jaw hit the coffee table on its way down to the floor did not go un-noticed by my nieces who burst out into another fit of giggles. “God Uncle Sean, we’re 12, not Catholic.”

“Besides, mom had this talk with us forever ago when we got out periods.”

“Okay stop talking before I black out!” I said, leaving them in hysterics as I got up and left the room. I walked into the kitchen and dialed my sister’s cell phone number quickly, leaning face first into the refrigerator.

“Hello?”

“Is it too late to retract my offer?”

“Yes.” There wasn’t even a hint of sympathy in her voice. “What did they do this time?”

“Nothing, but okay, did you know Mikey is having,” I looked over my shoulder at the girls who were sitting in the couches still laughing as they flipped through the channels. “Sex,” I finally whispered when I thought it was safe that no one would hear me.

“Yeah,” she said flatly, “I’m aware. Anything else?”

“Okay wait, one last thing. Did you know the girls are having their periods?” I once again whispered frantically into the phone.

“Last month they spent a week and a half lecturing me about my ecological responsibility to use a tampon with a cardboard applicator to produce less non-biodegradable waste. Yes I’m aware.”

“What happened to the kids I used to turn loose in a ball pit at Chuck E Cheese’s?”

“They hit puberty.”

“I loved those kids,” I said, banging my head ever so gently on the fridge door. “I miss those kids. What am I supposed to do with these new kids?”

“I don’t particularly care what you do with them. Just don’t take them to the super market. You’ll end up with a cart full of bio friendly tampons and her pleasure condoms.”

My sister hung up on me, and I was left in the kitchen alone, banging my head against the door of the fridge, as my soul slowly died at the mental image of my nephew and nieces shopping for items of an adult nature.

Standing there, with my head still plastered to the front of my refrigerator, I remembered clearly why I didn’t agree to baby-sit Kelly’s children, and why I had stopped offering completely. I turned and looked at the girls again. They were both watching me with sadistic grins. I hated the fact that they gained such joy, such satisfaction, from my pain.

“So are you going to feed us or what?” Jenn asked, smiling sweetly.

“Do I have to?”

“Either you feed us or we kill your neighbor’s dog.” Rachael sat on the couch smugly, clearly proud of her answer.

Too bad I hate my neighbor’s dog. I smiled slowly, deciding to play along and freak them out before giving in. “Thank God, that thing has been driving me crazy for ages!” I said, pulling a meat cleaver out of our chopping block and walking toward the girls, who were suddenly not in the mood to smile any more.

“Um, Uncle Sean, we were…”

“You know, I mean we’re not really…”

“We can’t just go over…”

“What if somebody saw us, it’s just not a good idea.”

“Are you done?” I said after watching them stumble over themselves for long enough. They just rolled their eyes at me as I walked back into the kitchen to replace the cleaver.

“Can we just eat?” Rachael asked.

“Yes we can eat, but your brother gets to pick.”

“So not fair!” Jenn practically screamed, while her sister frowned in disgust.

I crossed the room with a smile. “Listen, you threaten to kill my neighbors dog, you loose the privilege of picking out where we order from.” I could hear them damning my name the entire length of the staircase up to the loft over our garage.

Michael was in fact sitting on my computer typing furiously, when I looked in through the doorway. I cleared my throat hoping to get his attention. Sitting with his back toward me, I knew he couldn’t see me. I could only hope he would choose to listen. “Michael? Can I come in?”

His response came in the form of louder, more aggressive typing that I’m sure was fueled by anger and embarrassment. On the one hand, I felt sympathetic toward my nephew. And on the other, I couldn’t help but wonder to myself why I was asking a snot-headed 16-year-old boy for permission to enter one of the rooms of my own damn house.

“Can we talk for minute?”

“There’s not much to talk about,” he responded coolly, without bothering to turn around and look at me.

“Oh, I’m sure we could find something to talk about. This Lisa girl for instance.”

He was already rolling his eyes when he spun into sight in my computer chair. “Or how about anything else?”

“Or how about Lisa.” He had enough sense to face me, but not enough to make eye contact. “Don’t you think you’re a little, you know, young?”

“Oh please!” He snorted. “We’ve all heard the story about you and that girl from St. Theresa’s during the carnival when you were 14.”

“Yes,” I begrudgingly agreed. “But we’ve also all heard me say a hundred thousand times that it was a mistake.”

“Well maybe in my case it isn’t a mistake.” He spun back around and resumed his rapid-fire instant message session.

“Maybe it isn’t,” I conceded. “But, you should talk to someone about this. And knowing your mother the only sex talk you got out of her was unintelligent screaming followed by her grounding your sisters and locking herself in the bathroom for an hour.”

He turned back around to face me once more. This time however he was not only smirking, but he was also willing to make eye contact. “I love how well you know mom.”

“Yeah well, living with her made it kind of hard to forget.” We both got a good chuckle before turning to a more serious note. “Is your father talking to you about this at all?”

“Not a chance in hell. He’s way too uptight about it. He keeps telling me to talk to mom, she keeps having her little break downs.”

I sighed, and slumped onto the couch on the opposite wall from where he was sitting. “Okay, I’m not a text book or anything and I’m not going to lecture you. I just want to make sure you’re safe.” I paused and looked at him discerningly. “You were ‘safe’ right?”

“She’s on the pill.”

“I’m not asking about her,” I said as he started to squirm in his chair. “I asked if you were safe. You’re using condoms right?” The blush that engulfed the child from head to toe was enough of an answer. “Michael!”

“She’s on the pill!” he yelled in vain defense.

“Michael the pill isn’t 100% effective against pregnancy and it’s 0% effective against anything else. STD’s are not fun! Trust me!”

His eyes widened and my heart sank as that last sentence escaped my mouth. “Trust you? You’ve had an STD?”

I sat there opening and closing my mouth like a fish out of water as I tried desperately to come up with any sort of an answer. “We’re not talking about me,” I said quietly hoping to softly steer the conversation in another direction.

“Of course not,” he huffed spinning around again so he wasn’t looking at me. “It’s fine to embarrass me as much as possible, but the minute you’re uncomfortable the conversation stops.”

I hated it when the snot-nosed-brat had a point. “Okay,” I finally said, garnering a raised ear in my direction. “Yes,” I was speaking so softly I couldn’t even believe he heard me. “I had gonorrhea when I was in college.”

I was not nearly as amused as he was when he almost fell off the computer chair from his laughter. “You had the clap!” he shouted across the room.

“Would you shut up!” I said flinching at his volume. “I don’t want your sisters to hear!”

“Too late,” Rachael said, popping her head into the loft. “When you’re done telling Michael about how you got the clap there’s a woman at the door asking for you, and me and Jenn are still hungry.”

“We’ll finish this conversation later,” I said, giving Michael a very pointed look. I followed Rachael down the stairs asking her who it was and wondering aloud who would just drop by unannounced.

“She said her name was Veronica.”

“Veronica?” I repeated, hitting the bottom of the stairs.

“Sean, hi!” The voice surprised me. I wasn’t expecting my boyfriend’s boss to be standing in the entranceway, and I especially wasn’t expecting my nieces to have let her inside considering she was a stranger to them.

“Veronica, how are you?” I leaned in and gave her a small hug.

“I’m doing well,” she said with a casual smile. “You’re charming nieces let me in. I hope that’s all right.”

“Of course, absolutely. Please, make yourself at home,” I said walking her into the living room. “Can I get you a drink?”

“No thank you,” she declined gracefully, perching herself at the very edge of the sofa. “I really can’t stay long.”

“Well if you don’t mind me asking,” I said, sinking into a chair opposite her, “why are you here?”

She frowned ever so slightly, and what looked to be a light blush was just barely tingeing her cheeks. “Well first and foremost, I wanted to apologize for making Massimo work tonight. I’m sure you probably think I’m Cruela DeVille or some one similar.”

“Of course I don’t,” I said around a smirk. “These kinds of things happen.”

“Regardless, I still feel terrible about it, so I offered to do anything Massimo asked to make it right. And he asked me to come down here and give this to you.” With that, she pulled a small envelope out of her briefcase and stood up again. “It’s your anniversary gift. I hope you love it, I’m sure it’s something spectacular. Massimo hasn’t stopped talking about it since he bought it back in January.”

“January?” I asked, accepting the envelope from a very broadly smiling Veronica, and thinking how strange it was for him to have bought my anniversary gift almost eight months ago.

“Well,” she said, after handing me the envelope and zipping her briefcase back up, “I really do have to go. Believe it or not I’m on my way back to the office myself.” She smiled and chuckled as she walked to the door, most likely not believing it herself that she was going back to work at after seven in the evening.

“Well thank you again, so much Veronica. I really appreciate it.”

“Don’t worry about it.” She gave me one last smile and turned out the door.

Michael was standing on the stairs, smiling and shaking his head slowly from side to side when I turned back around. “What?”

“Uncle Mass ditched you on your anniversary, that’s pretty weak.”

I cuffed him upside the back of his head as we walked into the kitchen where the girls were anxiously pawing through take out menus. “That’s life. And I’m sure that if there was anyway he could have gotten out of working he would have. He loves spending our anniversary together.”

“Today’s your anniversary with Uncle Mass?” Jenn asked, flipping through the pages of a Chinese menu and circling what she wanted.

“Seven years,” I replied.

“Tell us about how you met again,” Rachael asked with a wide grin. Michael pulled a chair up to the counter and started looking through menus with them.

“It was at the Italian Festival. His father put the whole festival together; I was volunteering to work with one of my friends who was half-Italian. He was nice enough to show me around. He was friendly, charismatic. Not to mention attractive. It was basically love at first sight.”

“And what did he think of you?” Michael asked with a smirk. The girls giggled along as he instigated their favorite part of the story.

I chuckled to myself thinking about it. “He thought I was cocky and arrogant. I partied too hard and my bravado annoyed him,” I said, exaggerating my voice and mocking his own words.

I sighed as I pulled out a letter opener from one of the drawers. “But luckily, he found something in me to fall in love with,” I said.

“He probably had to look pretty hard,” Rachael said with a grin.

I stuck my tongue out at her in response and slipped the little package out of the envelope. “Oh my God.” I was surprised the words even passed my lips.

“What is it?”

“What did he get you?”

“You okay Uncle Sean?”

~~~

“I’m going out for a smoke,” Marnie huffed, throwing her stack of papers back on the Massimo’s desk and grabbing a pack of cigarettes out of her purse. “You guys coming?” she asked.

She was polite enough to always invite me along, even though she knew I didn’t smoke. Mass, on the other, would join her pretty frequently, especially on nights like tonight. He had quit long before I had ever met him, but I guess the stress just got to him on some nights.

“I’m good,” he replied, setting his own stack of papers on the desk, and getting up out of his chair to stretch.

Marnie reached for the door and shocked all of us when Sean appeared on the other side. “Massimo,” he said quietly as he stepped slowly into the office. He looked out of breath like he had just been running, and he was shaking just enough to give the impression that he was nervous.

“What are you doing here, are you okay?” Mass asked, walking around to the front of his desk to meet Sean where he was standing in the middle of the small room.

“Tell me you’re kidding,” he said, pulling an envelope out of his pocket. The beginnings of a smile were gently tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Please tell me these are fake.”

“Do you like it,” Massimo asked quietly, as if he was afraid Sean would say no.

“You’re really taking me to Italy?” Sean’s face burst into the most dazzling smile I had ever seen.

“We leave on Thursday.”

Sean threw his arms around Massimo and wrapped him in a very trademark Sean bear hug. “This is amazing. I can’t believe it. How did you do all of this?”

“I’ve been throwing the idea around for a while,” Massimo said with a huge grin. “I told the girls, they thought it was a great idea, and from there it just happened. We’ve been planning it for months. I talked to your bosses; your vacation time is all set. And my family in Italy is all waiting for us. They can’t wait to meet you. Especially my cousin Lucia.”

I looked at Marnie and she looked back at me. We both grinned, having helped plan this whole thing starting months ago when Massimo got the idea to take Sean back to his homeland. Neither of us though had expected to see the reaction first hand. And what a spectacular, and rewarding, sight it was.

When Sean lifted his head off Massimo’s shoulder, he had tears running down his face. “This is just the most amazing thing any one has ever done for me. I love you so much,” he said, kissing Mass. “I love you.”

“I love you too babe.” Mass kissed him again, gently on the lips, and when they parted he wiped the tears off Sean’s cheeks and returned his radiant smile. “Happy Anniversary.”

© 2008 Caipirinha

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