Wild Things.

Little by little everyone began leaving the De Luca household. Enza’s friends were the first claiming that they needed to prepare themselves for the after party being held at the male strip club. After them Jack’s friend’s with the exception of Ryan when to their houses to take a shower.

Since Enza was going to a male strip club with her friends, Maribel had permitted Jack to spend the night at Ryan’s house. All of her friends would stay at Ryan’s house to watch horror movies trough out the night.

Jack after bidding the goodbyes to her cousins and her uncle’s wife went to her bathroom to take a shower. She quickly got off her bikini and walked into the hot water. Since Ryan was waiting for her she finished her shower quickly.

“The guys left some things for you,” Ryan says loud. “I’m putting it in your bag.”

“What is it?” Jack asks while she finished dressing the jeans. She throws her towel to the basket and walks out of the bathroom.

“Chester gave you his leather jacket,” Ryan says as he closes the suitcase. “The one you kept stealing him.”

“Well that was cute of him,” Jack says with a smile. She walks to her bed and bends. When she locates her shoes she pulls them and sits on the edge of the bed. “He loved that jacket.”

“He’s just feeling bad because he wasn't able to spend much time with you,” Ryan smiles. “Dave gave you his old guitar.” He laughs. “He wrote a manual for it”

“Must he write a manual for everything?” Jack shakes her head lightly with a smile. “What about you?”

“I… I’m giving you this” Ryan took a small golden pendant from his pocket. “It represent’s St. John the Apostle… The patron of friendship so you don’t forget us” His cheeks were bright pink and his eyes never left the ground while he spoke.

“I’d never forget any of you” Jack promptly hugged him. “And I promise that I’ll never take it of my necklace.”

“I know that you don’t pay much attention to religion…” Ryan says once they break the hug. He drops the pendant in Jack’s hands and scratched his head. “When I asked my mother for a good gift… she said I should give you that.” he smiled lightly.

“It’s perfect!” Ryan helped Jack inserting the pendant on her necklace.

“Someone also gave you a letter.” Ryan says. “Before you ask I don’t know who was… and the envelope was sealed…”

“You tried to read it?” Jack asks faking anger. When his cheeks turned bright pink again she laughed. “It was probably Dave threatening me… I can picture it ‘If the guitar has a scratch the next time I see you I’ll kill you with a spoon’…” She says with a rough tone of voice making Ryan laugh. "Or something as odd as that."

“I figured as much…” Ryan nods in agreement. “But we should go already… my mom is probably waiting for us already.”

Jack grabbed her coat and left the room with him while they spoke about their plans for the evening. Ryan’s mother, Alicia, was with Maribel in the kitchen drinking tea. Once Alicia finished her tea, Jack kissed Maribel’s cheek and wished her a good night and left the house.

On the ride to Ryan’s house that was two blocks away Alicia questioned Jack about the moving. She wanted to know everything about the sights and the places that Jack would have to visit daily.

Inside the house Alicia made dinner for her guest and allowed Ryan and Jack to bake chocolate chip cookies that they would eat during the movies. Chester and Dave arrived thirty minutes later and joined Jack, Ryan and Alicia in the dinner preparations.

“Look at their poses,” Ryan whispers. Chester and Dave had fallen asleep in the middle of the first movie. They were in the ground cuddling and Chester’s hand was holding Dave closely to him.

“Dave is drooling,” Jack giggles. Ryan smiles but his expression suddenly changes and he sighs.

“Are you really happy with the moving?”

“Yeah,” Jack responds lightly. “I have friends there and I know the place well”

“I know that” Ryan sighs once again as he scratches his head. “But you never told me why… why you wanted to leave Vegas…”

“I just don’t want to deal with some stuff”

“You know that whatever you are running from my come back later to haunt you…”

“You’re speaking like I’m running away with blood in my hands” Jack moves her body awkwardly. “I’m not running away from anything… I don’t think I am…”

“You don’t want to speak about it?” Ryan places his left hand over hers. “I’m a good listener…”

“I know” Jack smiles. “That’s why I always tell you everything… But I’m not ready to speak about this yet…”

“That means we’ll have to meet later” Ryan pats her hand twice. “So you can tell me everything”

“I promise” Jack childishly extends her pinky to him. They quickly bend their fingers together and nod in agreement.

After that the night was a blur. During Ryan and Jack’s third movie Dave had woken up and pushed Chester off him. They had a small, harmless, argument and they blamed the other for their awkward position. In the morning Enza picked Jack and they shared their last night in Vegas together.

Jack heard Enza’s story and laughed throughout the entire thing. During the second show at the club Henry claimed he had found love and the stripper had actually bought them several drinks. But when Henry was ready to proclaim his love for the male stripper, whose stage name had been Ben Dover, the male stripper ended up asking Sasha if she wanted to visit the locker rooms.

“I still don’t know how we weren’t kicked out” Enza exclaimed still laughing. “Oh and Yvette managed to steal his underwear… I still don’t know how.”

“Yvette can do anything and get away with it” Jack joins her cousin’s laugh. “It looks like you had a great time”

“I did.” Enza sighed with a smile. “I’m going to miss them so much. But I'm a little too frightened to imagine what will happen when they visit us.” Enza laughed loudly.

“Henry will walk off the troubles with his charm, I'm sure.” Jack laughs lightly.

They spent most of the day taking care of the last minute arrangements. Jack had called Jacob Black, one of her childhood friends, to arrange a meeting once she and Enza installed themselves. Jacob promptly offered his help and Jack promised she would call him once she and Enza got there.

Their flight was scheduled to early hours at the morning and because of that Jack spent most of the plane voyage sleeping. Enza had woken her up when the plane landed and after collecting their luggage they entered a taxi.

“I’m a bit nervous” Jack nibbled her bottom lip.

“I know” Enza caressed Jack’s arm. “It’s going to be strange without Zia”

“Yeah. I kind of expect her to be at the door waiting for us” Jack smiled sadly.

“She’d yell at us for looking so tired” Enza laughed lightly. “I giovani devono anche dormire ... A letto, ora! Jack, non avete il coraggio di fuggire attraverso la finestra”

“I loved when she scolded us in Italian” Jack smiles. “I’m going to miss the cookies she baked.”

“I’m going to miss her stories about Italy and growing up their.”

“Enza look” Jack presses her finger against the cold window. “The house looks exactly the same. I wish that Zia was here to welcome us back”

“Wherever she is, I know that she’s welcoming us” Enza sighed sadly patting Jack’s legs. “I’m sure of it.”