Roses, Chocolates and a Serenade. pt 2

They all walked towards the door
"Ok Mason, you open it" Jude ordered, giving him a puppy dog look. He shook his head immediately.
"No way...Wally, you open it"
"I don't want to be beaten by a mad Speed...Kyle, it's your turn"
Kyle opened his eyes wide and shook his head energetically.
Jude took a deep breath and grabbed the door handle. She shut her eyes and slowly opened the door.
"Special delivery for Mrs. Harrison" the little man said again, causing Jude to open her eyes immediately and sigh in relief.
"Ok, I don't need another special delivery...why don't you go and say to Tommy..."
But the man didn't seem to hear her. He just walked towards his little red car and took out a pile of rectangular white boxes. He handed them to Jude, who received them with an angry expression. The man did this again and Jude ended up with tons of boxes in her arms. The man vanished off Jude's porch as fast as he appeared. She managed to close the door and walk towards the kitchen.
"What's that?" Mason asked as he helped her to put the boxes on the table, next to the roses. Jude opened one of the boxes and looked inside.
"Chocolate...probably bitter chocolate. My favorite" she watched as Kyle and Wally opened their eyes wide and smiled excitedly "and nobody is going to eat it, ok?"
Their smiled faded in a split second as Jude put the rest of the boxes on the table.
"Tommy is insane. How am I supposed to explain this to the girls and Speed?"
"Wait...where are the girls?" Mason asked suddenly
"They're upstairs" Jude responded, pointing up "if they come down, I'll have to tell them the whole truth"
"Maybe you don't have to" Wally said as he moved his hand towards the boxes, trying not to be noticed, but Jude did and slapped his hand.
"I said that nobody is going to touch the chocolates" she said overbearingly
"Kyle already did" Wally accused, pointing at Kyle, who had chocolate on his chin and nose. Kyle looked up and opened his eyes wide.
"I didn't" he said, raising his hands up. They were full of chocolate and he was grabbing a piece of paper in one of them.
"Kyle, Wally...just stay away from the Chocolates, ok?" Jude walked around the kitchen, looking down "I have to talk to him...this is totally out of control".
"Wait...Kyle, where did you get that paper from?" Mason asked as he got close to Kyle
"Well, it was inside the black box...it didn't have chocolate inside, just this paper" he responded, shrugging his shoulders. Mason took the paper away from him and read it.

"A chocolate for every tear you shed for me...until you say you love me"

Jude sighed as she received the paper from Mason.
"He's not going to give up that easy"
Mason nodded.
they started to make up excuses for justifying the roses and chocolates to Speed.
"He would have given you birds instead of roses or chocolates" Wally said suddenly. They all looked at Wally.
"Birds? Why would I want birds?"
"Because we could have just let them free and everything would be solved" he said as if it was obvious
"I don't like birds...well, just canaries and..."
The ring bell interrupted her again.
"You know what? I prefer it to be Speed than the delivery man"
Mason looked at Jude and grabbed her hand
"Don't worry...I will go to get that"
Minutes later he got in the kitchen with a birdcage. It was full of canaries that sang loudly and moved inside the cage, trying to get out.
"Birds!" Wally exclaimed. He looked at them and then smiled happily "ten little canaries, to be exact"
Jude looked at the birdcage in state of shock.
"Canaries? ...why would I want 10 canaries?"
Wally raised his hand.
"I know I said we could let them free...but I changed my mind. We can keep them...they're beautiful and besides are very smart" He said as he got close to the birdcage. He stood there, watching the canaries in amazement.
Jude rolled her eyes and waited for Kyle to say something, but he was looking at the canaries with a special attention.
"Kyle, stop looking at the birds like that...we're not going to eat them" Jude said, reading Kyle's thoughts.
He looked away from the canaries to Jude and the guys.
"But look at this way...you eat chicken, chickens and canaries are like cousins or something...maybe..."
Jude shook her head.
"No Kyle, stay away from then"
Kyle looked down and sat down on the floor, pouting.
"Hey...guys...inside the birdcage..." Wally suddenly said, pointing inside. Jude looked away from Kyle and got closer to the cage. It was truth; there was a paper in the birdcage's roof. They had to bend down and look up to read it.

"not as beautiful as your voice, but almost...one canary for each year I wasn't next to you...until you say you love me"

"You can't say he's not doing a good job, Jude" Mason spotted as he helped Jude to stand up.
"If it was me, I would have slept with him like an hour ago" Wally confessed as he put the birdcage over the table with the roses and the chocolates.
They all looked at Wally raising a eyebrow.
"What?"
Mason looked at Jude
"Well, he's right"
Then he turned around and thought for a moment. There was something wrong with all this, at least for him.
"So...now we have 10 bouquets of roses, like 50 boxes of chocolates and 10 canaries" Mason started as he looked at the roses, chocolates and the birdcage over the table. "I don't get it...a man doesn't do something like this just because he wants to"
He stared at Jude suspiciously and she looked away immediately.
"you didn't give him any hope, did you?...according to the plan, you just told him that he could maybe get the girls back, but never said something about you going back with him..."
Jude looked down and cleared her throat.
"Actually..."
There was a low "oh oh" coming from Kyle and Wally.
"What did you do now, Jude?" Mason asked her serious.
Jude looked up at him and hesitated for a moment.
"I kinda almost had sex with him last night" she said in a whisper, but loud enough for Mason and the guys to hear.
Mason shook his head and took a deep breath.
"So, you technically gave him what he was craving for?"
"I said almost" Jude corrected him "Speed got in the studio and..."
"Oh Gosh, that's gross!" Kyle exclaimed, jumping up from the floor.
"I will never record a song in that studio again"
The door bell ringed for the fourth time in the day. Jude looked at the clock. It was almost 1 pm.
"Maybe we're going to get puppies this time" Wally said smiling at Jude. She just rolled her eyes and walked towards the door to open it.
"Special..."
"Let me guess, special delivery for me?" Jude said, sarcastically. The little man nodded and handed her a box. Jude grabbed it. It moved. Jude looked at the box a little scared and then looked up at the man, but he wasn't there anymore. She got into the kitchen and put the box on the floor. They all stayed silent and suddenly heard a bark coming from inside the box. Wally smiled as Jude gave him a death glance.
"I don't care what happens, I'm not going to open that box" Jude affirmed as she sat down and tried to calm herself down. Wally opened the lid and two little white puppies came out of the box, barking and playing with each other. Mason, Kyle and Jude looked at them in state of shock, but Wally threw himself on the floor and started to play with the puppies.
"This is totally out of control" Jude said, shaking her head and looking as Wally tried to take both puppies in his arms.
"We have to make them disappear" Kyle said, this time serious.
Jude looked at him and laughed sarcastically.
"What? Do you want to eat the puppies too?"
"No, but if Gabrielle and Danielle see the puppies they will want to keep them"
"And your point is..."
"That will be a victory for Tommy...we will lose this game and the girls will find out that their father is Tommy..."
Jude went pale in a split second.
"I'm not going to tell my daughters that the man that abandoned them ten years ago is here and wants them back...over my death body"
There was a uncomfortable silence.
"Then we have to move fast" Mason said, breaking the silence "Let's make a hole and bury the roses in the back yard"
"That sounds like a rose's murder...yes, let's hide the corpse" Kyle said sarcastically.
"Shut up Kyle..." he said, giving him a mean look "about the other stuff...I don't know...maybe the guys can eat all the chocolates and Wally can keep the animals"
"yay!...of course we can eat the chocolates!"
Mason rolled his eyes.
"We have to make sure that the girls stay upstairs...and you have to talk to Tommy about this"
Jude nodded as she took the roses and put them in Kyle's arms.
"And think that this all started ten years ago..." Mason looked at the guys as they tried to carry all the roses they could put in their arms "So...what's the moral of the story?"
The guys looked at each other totally puzzled, looking for an answer to please Mason.
"Condoms can be your best friends?"
"Don't screw guys with bandanas?"
Wally put the roses back on the table and raised his hand excitedly
"I know...I know I know! ...for the next time, hide your journal"
Jude shook his head and laughed as she put the puppies inside the box again. Wally placed his hand on her shoulder.
"Thank God he didn't do something extravagant and bustling. The girls would have found out immediately if he had, I don't know, serenaded you"
Jude covered Wally's mouth with her hands, but it was too late, because in that right moment they heard noises coming from outside. It was music. They all looked at Wally, who just smiled stupidly and looked through the window.
"Wally, why don't you just shut up?"
But Wally didn't hear them. He was on the floor laughing hysterically
"Oh Gosh...you have to see Tommy...he's...he's..."
"What's all that noise?" they all turned their heads towards the kitchen's door. Both girls were standing there, looking at Jude and then at the roses, chocolate boxes and the canaries.
Jude stood there, frozen as her daughters walked into the kitchen and looked through the window.
"Mom, what is Tommy doing outside...and wearing a Mexican hat?"
"It's not Tommy, Danny...it looks more like a traffic cone"
"ok, correction...what is Tommy doing outside...wearing an ORANGE Mexican hat?" Danielle asked as she looked away from the window to her mother "and what's all this mess?"
"Well, actually..."
"I know what Tommy's doing!" Gabrielle exclaimed suddenly, causing Jude and the guys to turn pale. "He's wearing a Mariachi hat...men in Mexico wear them when they're going to serenade the person they love" she cleared her throat as the guys' jaw dropped, one by one "oh, and also they wear nice clothes and sing until the woman comes out to see them"
There was an uncomfortable silence again.
"Ok...something weird is going on here" Mason said, looking at Gabrielle in amazement.
"Why?"
"When did Gabrielle start to be the smart one?"
Jude rolled her eyes and looked through the window.
"So now we have a roses' jungle, at least 50 boxes of chocolate, ten canaries, 2 puppies and something like a cat being tortured out of the house. Great. Just great"
"Puppies? ...we have puppies?!" Gabrielle asked as she looked around anxiously.
Jude took a deep breath and looked away from the girls to the guys.
"Look guys...stay here with the girls...I'm going to talk to Tommy" she said determinately. They were all serious and the girls didn't know why. Gabrielle had finally found the puppies inside the box and Danielle was looking inside the birdcage with a special attention
"Oh...say hi to him from me, mom" Gabrielle said distractedly as she took one of the puppies in her hands.
"And tell him that orange doesn't suit him" Danielle added.
Jude simply nodded to her daughters and walked out of the house. The Mariachis were singing a song in Spanish and Tommy was there, looking at them. She could see how his eyes lighted up even behind the Mariachi's hat (she could barely see his face)
"so...did you like it?" he asked to Jude with a big smile on his face. The Mariachis stopped playing their instruments and waited anxiously for Jude to say something.
"Tommy, what are you doing?" she asked, trying to be as cold as she could. But Tommy's smile didn't fade.
"I'm trying to get you back" he explained as if it was the most natural thing in the world.
"Oh, I thought you were trying to drive me nuts" she replied sarcastically "my house is a zoo and the girls are totally confused...that's what you want Tommy?, you want the girls to find out that you're more that their friend just like that?"
"No...I just want to show you how sorry I am for what I did"
Jude was about to cry, but she had to keep the promise the made to herself ten years ago. She wouldn't shed a single tear in front of Tommy Quincy.
"What you did to me...that's something you can't just fix with flowers, or chocolates, or animals or even with music"
"Then tell me...if there's something I can do..."
"I already told you what to do to get the girls back..." she spotted, looking away.
He looked down for a moment and fell silent.
"and what about you?" he asked, looking back at her eyes.
Jude looked into his eyes and all the grudge she had held against him all these years seemed to disappear. She would have jumped into his arms, but there was something stopping her from doing it. Her daughters...they deserved revenge. She took a deep breath and prepared herself to follow Mason's plan.
"Tommy, we need to talk..."
"Ok, let's talk"
"Not here...somewhere else...and without Mariachi's hats in between"
"Well, if that's going to bring you back to me..."