We were ready when Monique rang at the door.

"Good morning kids! How did you sleep?"

"Good morning Mon! We slept just fine, thanks."

"Are you ready?"

"Sure, let's go!"

We left the apartment and went to the port. Jean-Louis was there with some of his work mates waiting for us.

"Happy Birthday!!! How are you?"

"Thank you so much. I'm feeling real good I have to say. I hope you'll have a great time with us."

He introduced us to his mates, I knew some of them already and it was a pleasure to see them again. Michel was speaking a little bit of English and he kept on speaking to Shane. He was a real funny guy and he got along just fine with Shane. We got on a boat and then left for the lagoon. There was a small village of fishermen and it had a little restaurant. Jean-Louis had rented it for the day. The hosts were incredibly nice. Jean-Louis and the rest of the gang stayed in the restaurant. Myself and Shane went for a walk to check up the places. There was a small beach and three guys were windsurfing. They looked wonderful. We stayed on the beach watching them. We sat in an old boat left on the shore. The sun was shining and it was a very nice day. After a while we went back to the restaurant finding everybody in the best mood after consuming a few bottles of Muscat de Rivesaltes. It was a great sweet wine and I loved it.

"Hey! Here you are! Have a glass of wine with us!"

I went to the long table and I took two glasses and poured some wine into them. I offered one to Shane and I took one myself.

"Cheers! Happy Birthday Jean-Louis! May all your wishes come true!"

"Thanx! Cheers!"

The wine had an unbelievable taste.

"Mmm… this is very good" said Shane.

"Yes it is. I usually don't drink alcohol, but this is one wine I couldn't refuse drinking. It's so sweet!"

"I understand that you trust me now. You offered me to drink."

"I have to trust you. We would be nothing without trusting each other."

"You're right… Thanx for the trust!" he said giving me a short kiss.

"I wished I were your age, to be so carefree."

"Oh, com'on Jean-Louis, you ended up OK. You have a nice quiet life, you have two great kids and a lovely wife."

"Go on Lee" said Monique satisfied by what I had just said.

"It's the truth. I would like to have your life when I'll be 45 or 60 or 80 if I get to be that old."

"Yeah, I guess I have a nice life, but most of it I owe to Monique. I couldn't have done it without her. I wish you two to have a life at least as great as ours. It seems to me like you'll be together forever by the way you understand each other and care about one another."

"We hope so, even if it's not going to be that easy…"

"Why?"

"Coz we live in two distant countries."

"If you love each other in the right way you'll figure something out sooner or later."

We had a lovely meal, only seafood. I wasn't able to eat all those strange animals even if I knew they were appreciated very well all around the world. I just looked at them and it made my hair go up. We had a good time. We left the lagoon at 5pm by carriages. Yes, they had two huge carriages pulled by four horses each. It was like in a fairytale. They left us in the port and we ran back to the apartment to change our clothes. Monique said she'd be back to pick us up at 7:30pm. We didn't have any fancy clothes with us, but I knew the way Jean-Louis was celebrating his birthdays with the family. It was also his birthday when I was there with my parents. The party was usually held in the back yard of his dad's house and everybody would be wearing shorts and T-shirts. So we didn't worry about that. I put my blue jeans on and a black T-shirt while Shane put a pair of white baggy trousers on and a sleeveless black T-shirt. He even brushed his hair different. He used a lot of mousse and it looked like a bunch of spikes. He was looking fantastic.

"I like your hair better this way."

"Really?"

"Yeah and not being shaved gives you a more macho look."

"You're serious?"

"Of course. Why wouldn't I be?"

"So I should leave it like this all the time?"

"Yeap, if you want to."

"My mum won't recognize me!"

"You're such a mamma's boy, aren't you?"

"Not at all!"

"And then?"

"You're right…"

We heard Monique at the door. It was already 7:30.

"My, my… You look fine!" she said to Shane.

I translated to him and he blushed right away. He was such a kid! We took the present and then left the apartment. We got inside the car and we arrived to Espira in 15 minutes. Audrey and Maxime had come back for their father's birthday. I was so anxious to see them, but first we pulled in front of a house that seemed familiar but which I knew it wasn’t Jean-Louis' or his father's house. A guy came outside and I recognized him right away. It was Thierry! I've met him back in 1994 and he was the sweetest guy you could ever meet.

"Hello Livia!" I heard his nice voice with the strong French accent.

"Oh my God! Thierry my man, how are you? It's been so long!"

"I'm fine. Yeah, it's been long. You look nice!"

"Oh, another liar… This is my boyfriend Shane, Shane this is Thierry."

"Hey man, howz it goin'?"

"Hello! Nice to meet you."

It was nice to see him again. He was 26 years old. I liked him a lot when I first met him. He was different. He had a crush on BC, he was so in love with her, but she broke his heart. I would have never done that to him. When I met him in 1995 for the second time he almost cried on my shoulder. He hurt a lot. I was sorry for him, I knew what he was feeling. I wished back then he would have fallen for me and his heart would have never been broken. But once again I realized that someone is upstairs watching over us and planning our lives. Maybe I would have never met Shane and fell in love with him if things would have been different between Thierry and me. We were good friends, there was a special bound between the two of us. Shane realized that from the first moment I saw Thierry and he wasn't very comfortable. We chatted for a while, but then we had to go to the party. Thierry didn't want to come with us so we said good-bye and I gave him a long hug and kissed him on the cheeks, then he shook hands with Shane and we left. We got to the party finding all the old friends there. We were so happy to see each other. We had a great time remembering the last party. When they brought the cake everybody gave the presents to Jean-Louis and we all sang 'Happy Birthday'. He began to open the presents. He got a video camera from his family and lots of other nice stuffs from his friends. When he opened our present he was obviously shocked.

"I love it! I saw one just like this in a shop in Collioure, but I didn't buy it coz Monique is bored with all the stuff I'm collecting."

"That's where we got it from. We're glad you like it."

"Thank you so much guys! You don't know how much this means for me."

"You're welcome!"

We sang and danced all night long. We partied till dawn. It was a lovely crowd and it was nice hanging out with them. We left back to Le Barcares early in the morning. We were very tired after the long night. Monique dropped us in front of the apartment and she left back to Espira. We got inside and fell right into the bed. We slept until 3pm that day.

"What hour it is?"

"15:10"

"Did we sleep that long?"

"Seems like we did…"

"I'm hungry…"

"I'll go buy something."

"There's no need to. We've got everything we need here. I'm gonna make ourselves a nice pizza."

"Do you know how to make one?"

"I'm THE expert!"

"I can't wait to eat a pizza made by yourself!"

I got out of the bed and went to take a shower first. After that I went into the kitchen. Shane came in and asked me:

"Can I help you with something?"

"No, I'll be fine. Go watch TV or something" I said knowing exactly that he would have stayed in my way.

I prepared the dough and I let it grow and then I sliced the cheese and the bacon, the salami and the mushrooms. I found some peppers in the fridge and lots of different spices and tomato sauce. I had everything I needed to prepare the best pizza in the world. I finished in 45 minutes and put it in the oven. It had to be ready in another 25 minutes. I went in the living-room finding Shane watching TV.

"Come here" he said showing me the place next to him on the couch.

I sat next to him and he put his arm around me without saying anything. It was like we had spent all our lives together. We were just two kids, but we felt like we had been growing up faster in the last two weeks and a half. We stood like that watching an old movie and not knowing what the action was about. Soon the pizza was ready. I took it out the oven and sliced it and put it on a large plate and then took a bottle of coke and went into the living room.

"I'll get the glasses right away."

"I think I at least can do that. Sit down and wait for me. Your job is done for tonight. Smells good, by the way…"

I sat down on the couch and I waited for him to get back with the glasses. He came back in a minute and sat on the couch next to me and poured the coke into the glasses and then took a slice of pizza and tasted it real excited.

"Mmmm… This is the best pizza I've ever eaten!"

"Phew, I was afraid you wouldn't like it…"

"You're joking! This is great! Have some!" he said offering me his slice.

I took a bite and I admitted it was good. I was relieved coz you know how when you want to show off cooking something that usually turns out OK, it comes out real bad. He continued eating his slice and I took one for myself. We finished it real quick and in the end we were stuffed.

"Let's take a walk…"

"Sure. Where would you like to go?"

"On the beach… feel the breeze on my face…"

We went on the beach and we took our shoes off and walked on the wet sand. We got out of Le Barcares walking like that and we decided to turn back. When we got back at the apartment we found a message from Monique on the answering machine. She was asking us to call her back. And so we did. She asked us if we would have liked to go together with them to Spain the next day. We said yes obviously and she told us they would pick us up at 10am the next day.