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"Hey Mickey, you're so fine! You're so fine you blow my mind!"

Ian rolled his eyes, reaching out to catch my wrist and silence me as I beat on the drums. "Haven't we surpassed this one yet? You were playing much more complex songs last time you were here."

I flashed him my biggest grin. "But this one's my favourite."

"So it would seem. You play it every single time you come over. Can we please move on to something else?"

"Sure," I made myself a little more comfortable on the small stool. I began another beat, and Ian seemed pleased. He stood, as always, beside me with his arms crossed. He watched silently, never interrupting me. It always made me feel good about my drumming when he did that. Even though he would usually give me notes and corrections later, it felt like I was doing good when he let me play the whole song. When I finished, I held up my arms and twirled one of the sticks between my fingers. "We love you Vancouver! Goodnight!"

Ian laughed. "Nice touch."

"Thanks."

He headed off in the direction of his kitchen. "Want a beer?"

"You know that I can't seem to turn one down." I abandoned the drum set and followed him. "Can I ask you something?" I accepted the drink he offered and sat down at the table.

"Is that a rhetorical question, or are you really expecting me to answer that?" Ian smiled, closing the refrigerator door and opening his beer.

I laughed a little, taking a sip of the cold liquid. "Fair enough. Have you heard what everyone's been telling Josh about our drum lessons?"

He nodded his head, his smile unaffected. "Yeah, I've heard. How dumb is that?"

"The worst part is that it's actually got Josh all shaken up."

"Are you serious? Why?"

I sighed, setting my beer on the table and staring at the condensation that was gathering on the bottle. "He remembers how everyone always said it about Matt and I. And you know what happened with that."

"But you went back to Josh after all of that; doesn't that count for anything?"

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure that it does. But I get why it's hard for him. I mean, if you look at our past, nothing was exactly simple. It's only natural to believe that more hardship is coming our way."

"Well," Ian appeared to be deep in thought. "I guess we'd better be able to prove that all you're doing when you come over is learning the drums. Instead of taking movie breaks and all of that stuff." He pointed back down the short hallway toward the room that held his drum kit. "Get practicing, Becky."

Josh arrived about half an hour early to pick me up. He sat and watched as I proudly showed him what I'd accomplished that day. He never stopped smiling the whole time. When I finished, he began to clap his hands together.

"Well done, Becky. You're actually getting to be pretty good. Soon you'll be able to give Ian a run for his money."

"Yeah, I know," I set the drumsticks down and got to my feet.

Ian shook his head at me. "You're so modest, aren't you?"

I nodded. "Oh, absolutely." I faced Josh again. "Is it time for my surprise yet?"

Josh laughed. "I thought you might have forgotten about it by now."

"You can't know me very well, if that's the case."

Josh got up from the chair that he'd been occupying. "Okay, fine. Let's go."

"Thanks, Ian!" I gave my friend a quick hug before following Josh out of the room. "We'll talk later to decide on my next lesson."

"Have fun, guys," Ian grinned. "You're going to be one happy girl when you get that surprise."

My mouth fell open and I glared at Josh in accusation. "He knows what my surprise is? Okay, that's definitely not fair."

Josh chuckled lightly, but didn't argue. "It'll all be worth it when you find out what it is."

I grumbled under my breath as we left Ian's place and got into Josh's car. He cranked up the volume on his stereo and drove the short distance back to his apartment building. When he cut the engine, I was staring at him expectantly.

He grinned. "It's upstairs. Come on, let's go."

In my excitement, I beat Josh to the front door. I waited impatiently as he slowly found the right key and let the both of us into the building. The elevator moved at a sluggish pace, and I found myself tapping my toe in frustration.

Josh watched me, thoroughly enjoying himself. "It's not going to go any faster, you know."

"Can't I have a clue? I'm in agony!" I threw up my hands as thought that would emphasize my point.

"A clue?" He considered the prospect for a moment. "Yeah, I suppose I can do that for you. You'll get some time alone with your favourite person in the world."

I contemplated his hint, trying to figure out exactly what it could mean. Eventually, I decided that I would have more fun if I turned the whole thing into a joke. "You mean Andrew? Are you giving the two of us a romantic weekend alone in your apartment? I really like your apartment, so that wouldn't be a bad surprise."

"Oh ha ha," Josh said dryly. "You're so hilarious, Becky."

"Will you give me a real clue now?"

"You really can't take forty-five more seconds of suspense?"

"I don't have a choice, do I?"

He chuckled appreciatively. "No, you really don't."

I groaned, leaning against the wall of the small elevator. Josh took my hand as the small cubicle slowed to a stop at the right floor. He led me to his apartment, where he once again took longer than necessary to retrieve the proper key. As soon as we were inside, I couldn't stop myself from scanning the room for anything out of the ordinary. There was nothing, aside from a blue Gibson guitar that he'd left lying on the couch.

"It's not something that you can see," Josh snorted, noticing my intense inspection of the room.

"I can't take it anymore! Please, I'm begging you, get it over with."

He led me to his bedroom and opened a dresser drawer. "I know we said that we weren't going to get each other anything for our one year anniversary," he began as he dug around inside the drawer, keeping his back to me. "But I really couldn't stop myself."

My pulse raced as my mind searched for an explanation. What could he have gotten me? "We missed our one year anniversary about five months ago. And all I gave you was a phone call. I don't need anything, Josh."

He glanced at me over his shoulder. "We only missed it because I was on tour. Actually, I was in Saskatoon that day. I'll bet that you didn't remember details like that, did you?"

"It might have been a little bit different if I was the one that was somewhere other than here. I remember some of the details. Like the way that Mike answered your phone and thought that I didn't know it wasn't really you. Seriously, whatever you got me, it's too much. I already told you what I want."

"And I already told you that you're being greedy. You already have a song," he pointed out.

"Yes," I agreed. "And I love Push. But that chapter of our lives is over, and I never want to live through that again. I want something that captures what we have now."

"Well until then, this will have to suffice," he said, spinning around to face me while keeping both of his hands hidden safely behind his back.

I folded my arms across my chest, trying to look disinterested in whatever it was that he had. I knew that my eyes were betraying me, however, since I couldn't help but try and sneak glances behind him.

"Aren't you even the least bit curious?" Josh asked, taking a few steps toward me.

"Nope," I lied.

"In that case, I'll give it to someone else."

Despite myself, I felt an inward pang of jealousy. I knew that he wouldn't actually give it to someone else, but I couldn't keep up my little charade after his threat. "Okay, fine. You called my bluff. What is it?" I reached out, trying to grab whatever he was hiding.

"Before I give it to you, you have to promise me one thing."

I nodded feverishly. "Sure."

"You can't say no. I've gone through a lot to make sure that everything's already arranged. You're not allowed to turn me down, okay?" His tone was playful, but his eyes were sincere.

I could hear my heartbeat in my ears. Every nerve ending in my body was electrically charged. I couldn't determine whether it was due to anticipation or fear. Unable to think clearly, I simply nodded my head numbly.

"So you promise?" He asked.

"I promise," I whispered, forcing the words past my dry tongue.

"Wonderful." With a flourish, he removed his hands from behind his back and held them out before him. There was an envelope clamped between his fingers.

I took it from him with shaking hands. I carefully slid my forefinger beneath the seal and opened the envelope. Inside was a pair of airplane tickets. I read the information and looked up at him with an awed gaze.

"You're taking me to Mexico?"

"Yes, I am. Because you promised that you wouldn't say no, so now you have to go with me."

"And we leave tomorrow?"

"Bright and early. Believe me, I tried to get a later flight. They're not very flexible when you get one of those all-inclusive deals," he smirked.

"And everyone else was in on it? How the hell did you keep this from me?"

He kissed my forehead and pulled me close to him. "We have some really great friends. And they all want to see you happy."

"I've been pretty happy anyways," I rested my head on his chest.

"I figured that we've spent enough time apart over the last year that we deserve some time alone in a foreign country. I won't even bring my cell phone. No band stuff, okay? It's just us. Plus, you need to get some sun on your legs," he joked.

"You need to get some sun everywhere."

His breathing was calm, but I could hear that his pulse was at the same eratic pace as my own. After a long moment of being wrapped up in one another's arms, I looked up at him.

"I guess I need to go home and pack, don't I?"

"Actually, I was hoping that you would help me pack first. Then we could just go over to your place and stay there tonight so that we can get Matt to run us to the airport in the morning. That way we don't have to leave a car in the airport parking lot for a whole week."

He really seemed to have thought of everything. I wondered how long he'd been planning this trip. It made me feel guilty for not getting him an extravagant present. But right then, I wasn't really concerned with matching his generosity. I was entirely focused on the upcoming week. No cell phones, no work, no distractions.

This had the potential to be the greatest week of my life.