Shoulder to Shoulder

“Juan!” Elena screeched when he put his hands over her eyes.

“Just trust me,” He kept his hands over her eyes and began to guide her down the busy Manhattan street. “We’ll be there in a second.”

Without the luxury of sight, Elena tried to guess where they were going through listening alone. Though the sheer volume of people on the street around her made it very difficult, all she could get were snippets of other people’s conversations, most of which were completely out of context.

“…so he said to me…”

“- Did you get a cream for it?”

“The pizza at this place is amazing.”

“Oh my God, last night’s episode of Dexter was incredible!”

“-Get a load of this…”

Among the chatter of the faceless voices, Elena recognised Juan’s distinct voice. “We’re here.”

He removed his hands from her eyes and Elena looked up and had to stop herself from jumping for joy.

“Wicked? How did you know?!” Elena shrieked and threw her arms around Juan’s neck, hugging him tightly.

He looked down sheepishly. “I may or may not have called your mum to ask her if there were any musicals that you wanted to see…”

“For years, I’ve had the soundtrack on my iPod, but I’ve never got around to actually going to see the show… And now I’m going to see it on Broadway!”

Juan smiled joyfully, glad that his surprise had panned out – he knew she’d love the surprise, but actually getting to see her reaction was the cherry on the cake. They went inside the theatre and got drinks before finding their seats in the Premium Section, which meant they were right in front of the stage.

While they awaited the beginning of the show, Elena leaned her head on Juan’s shoulder and took his hand.

“I know I’ve said it before, but thank you so much for all of this. I really love you.”

Juan squeezed her hand lightly, “it’s no problem whatsoever. Yo te amo mi ángel.” (“I love you, my angel.”)

The whole way throughout the show, Elena’s mouth hung open, just a fraction. She genuinely couldn’t believe that she was finally getting to see Wicked. Elena had thought about asking Juan if he wanted to think about seeing a musical, but kept forgetting. The fact that he’d thought of it months in advance showed how well he knew Elena’s likes and dislikes.

When the songs came on, Juan could hear Elena singing each and every word under her breath. The look of complete and utter enjoyment that was etched on her face was worth the ticket price alone.

----

As the cool New York night surrounded them, they strolled back to their hotel. Their last day in the Big Apple had been spent at Madame Tussauds and with a picnic in Central Park. Well, a picnic might be an exaggeration. But the pair got sandwiches from a Deli, bought a blanket and had lunch under a huge oak tree.

“Today was…perfect.” Elena said as they sat on the balcony of their hotel room. They were in comfortable silence when the faint ringing of a phone infiltrated their vicinity.

“I think that’s yours,” Juan said, angling his head to better hear the ringtone.

Elena jumped up from her seat and ran for her handbag.

“Hey Dan,” she spoke into the receiver glad she could catch it before it went to voicemail.

“Hey El, how’s your holiday going?” Her brother’s bright voice sounded.

“It’s going really great, I’ve had an amazing time. Not that it isn’t lovely to hear from you, but why are you calling? Won’t the overseas call cost you a fortune?”

“When is your flight out of New York?” Dan asked, completely ignoring his sister’s prior question.

Elena took a second to remember the time. “It’s tomorrow at 2pm, I think. From JFK into Heathrow. Why?”

He took a second to respond. “Um, well. Robin and I are in Vegas…and we are to get married. How quickly do you think you can make it out here? We want you and Juan to be our witnesses!”

Elena couldn’t even fathom a response for the huge revelation her brother had just dropped on her. “You-you’re going to get married?” She asked, just as Juan re-entered the room. From the confusion on his face, she covered the receiver and whispered, “Dan and Robin are in Vegas – they’re going to get married.” Juan’s face lit up. “They want us to be there for the ceremony!”

“That’s wonderful!” he smiled, scampering off in search of his laptop.

“El?” Dan called and Elena turned her conversation back to her brother.

“Oh sorry Dan. That’d be great,” she told him Juan was looking into changing their flights to an internal flight from New York to Las Vegas.

With a few clicks, Juan turned his laptop screen to Elena and pointed to some flights details and asked if they were okay.

“There’s a flight out of JFK in 5 hours,” she relayed from the information on the screen. “Which would mean we’re in Vegas by around 10pm tonight. Is that okay?”

“That’s perfect!” Dan said, and he could hear Robin’s cheers in the background.

“I’ll call you when we get to Vegas, okay?” she said, and he also informed of the hotel they were currently in.

“Okay, I’ll see you later. Thank you so much, El. Love you!” He said before hanging up.

Slouching back on the headboard of the bed, Elena gave herself a second to catch up with what had just taken place.

“This is so sudden! I mean, I know they were getting married this year, but I thought they were going for a traditional church wedding –not that this isn’t going to be awesome too. Oh my god, what am I going to wear?” Elena rambled.

Juan stopped her with a kiss. “Calm down, this stressing isn’t good for you. Either of you.”

With his words, she took some deep breaths and got up to begin packing while Juan booked the tickets. She thanked him profusely for paying for the flights.

“What kind of boyfriend would I be if I let you miss your brother’s wedding?” he said, punctuating his sentence with a hug and kiss to the crown of Elena’s head.