IMPORTANT:

IF YOU ARE ACTUALLY INTERESTED IN THIS STORY, I HAVE A NEW ACCOUNT: WHERE MY NAME IS MMXMX. PLEASE READ THE REST OF THE STORY THERE.

CHAPTER 19

ITALY, HERE WE COME

Midnight. Midnight and a minute. Midnight and two minutes. Midnight and three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine minutes.

I wrapped my coat tighter around me, wishing they'd hurry up. Finally a car rounded the corner, and made its way down towards where I was standing. I recognised the car. It was a silver BMW. Except, this time, not convertible. I wondered how many cars Paul owned.

"Four" he said, as he'd pulled up next to me, and wound down his window.

"Excuse me?"

"Four cars. Two silver BMWs, one convertible, one not, a Chevy and a land rover. Oh, and a mustang, but I never use it."

"You could donate it to me?" I suggested, hopefully.

He laughed. "Maybe when we get back from Rome."

I grinned back, figuring he was kidding.

Jesse got out the back seat, and helped me lift my luggage into the trunk.

"Whoa. How much stuff did you bring?"

"Not that much. You know; the necessary."

"Susannah, you brought four bags. We are only going away for a week."

"Well, I was going to bring six, but managed to fit everything in four." I smiled proudly, but Jesse only rolled his eyes, and opened the car door for me.

I scrambled in – careful for the leather, as Paul pointed out, and sat back, resting my head in my hand. The nearest airport was an hour away, so I figured I might be able to sleep a while, before embarking onto the plane that would take us half way across the world to Rome. I soon figured out though, that Jesse was way more comfortable than my hand.

I snuggled closer to him, enjoying the feel of his arm around my shoulder. He was stroking my hair, and I closed my eyes, starting to feel drowsy.

"Susannah." I felt someone shaking me gently. I opened my eyes and rubbed them.

"Wha…?" I asked sleepily.

"We're here."

I sat up so quickly I nearly hit my head on the ceiling. I got out the car, pointedly ignoring Paul, who you could tell was trying very hard not to laugh, and failing miserably.

Jesse and Paul wheeled our luggage onto those little wheelie thingies, and made their way towards that place where they check your tickets, me trudging along behind them, still feeling half asleep. It took 20 minutes before it was finally our go, and then we had to go check our luggage in, which also took us another 20 minutes. By that time, my feet were sore, and I was dieing to go to the bathroom. Finally we made it through the metal detectors, past the whining little kids, and to the waiting area, where I nearly wet my pants looking for a bathroom.

10 minutes later, we were all sitting down at a little round table, all clutching a coffee.

"Thank God for caffeine," Paul sighed, as he set his now empty mug down. I silently agreed with him.

"When's our flight?" I asked, trying not to sound nervous.

Paul checked his watch. An original Rolex. "We still have half an hour."

I stood up. "Good. Be right back."

"What?" Paul asked. "Suze! Suze wait! Where're you going?"

But I was already long gone. I dashed round the corner, found the store I had seen a couple minutes ago, and bought all the interesting English magazines I could find. A couple minutes later I re-emerged at the table, clutching Vogue, Cosmo, Cosmo Girl, Elle, Bliss, Sugar, Teen ink, Dolly and Teen Vogue.

Jesse and Paul stared.

"What?" I asked defensively. "It's a really long flight."

Jesse chose to say nothing and Paul rolled his eyes. I didn't understand what the big deal was. I just bought a couple magazines. Who cares? And yeah, okay, I had 8, but I get bored easily. Take a look at my maths work book for proof.

Paul checked his watch again, and stood up.

"We'd better get going."

Grabbing our stuff (I'd managed to sneak the heaviest magazines into Paul's bag while he wasn't looking); we paid for our coffees, and set off to catch our plane. Obviously there were already a million and three people at the ticket barrier – I swear, I'm jinxed. I never get any luck - and we wasted another 10 minutes shuffling up the line in silence.

Anyway, we finally got on the plane, and everything went pretty well, even though Paul wouldn't let me have the window seat.

The night wore on slowly, and I stayed up half of it, not being able to sleep. When we finally arrived about 12 hours later, I was exhausted and extremely happy to get to the hotel, slip into my pyjamas and crawl into bed, only to wake up the following morning at 10am, snuggled against Jesse's chest and in an exceptionally good mood.