Hold On

Chapter 5

Meanwhile, Rick was keeping himself busy in La Mariana. Since most tourists were still asleep and there weren't many customers in the mornings anyway, he used this time to add even more Christmas decorations to those that had been already there. Over the bar, he hung a beautiful garland with some glittering golden glass balls and big red bows and then he put up an enormous shining star at the entrance. The walls filled with sparkling silver icicles and wreaths that had real pine cones, dried oranges and faux snow.

If he could, Rick would even go as far as to build a fireplace with Christmas stockings. He had such idea but when he shared it with TC, who beside being his friend also happened to be his business partner, he was told that he must have definitely gone crazy. Yes, Rick Wright could call himself a Christmas freak. He just couldn't help it that he loved all festivals, especially this time of year.

He had just put up strings of smart colorful lights that synchronized to music and was checking how they worked when his phone rang. He took it out of his pocket and found out it was TC.

"Hey, man. What's up? I thought you said here yesterday that you were having some tourist flight in the morning." Rick said.

"Yeah, that's right but it turned out this couple here is in need of a trustworthy, discrete and dedicated private investigator. Do you know anyone like this?" TC asked him, smile evident in his voice. Rick chuckled.

"Anyway, I tried to call our friend but I can't reach him somehow. Maybe he came for breakfast to La Mariana?" He asked with hope.

"No, sorry. I haven't seen TM since our Christmas karaoke last night. Have you tried Jules?"

"Yeah. Her phone is dead too, it goes straight to her voice mail. Did they mention to you anything about their plans for today? Do they have a new case or perhaps they're dealing with some estate's stuff?"

"To tell the truth," Rick pondered, "I don't remember any of them telling me about their plans. After you all had left, they stayed for a short while, teasing each other as they always do, and then they both went home." He said and then an interesting idea sprang to his mind. "Hey, you don't think they finally..."

"What?"

"You know what..." Rick cleared his throat suggestively. "If that's the case, it would mean that definitely I won our bet." Rick stated, recalling the idea he, TC and Kumu had during their poker night quite a while ago. Soon, even Shammy, Gordon and Jin joined in the bet, each of them trying to predict when Thomas and Juliet would eventually hook up.

"No, I don't really think so." TC stated.

"Why not? Perhaps they've finally noticed the thing all of us had seen from the beginning."

"Yeah, especially after singing those Christmas songs yesterday." TC said with sarcasm.

"Hey, what's wrong with Christmas songs? This time of year is full of love, joy and kissing under the mistletoe, maybe it got to them too."

"That's not very likely but I know it definitely got to you. Can you tell me what you are doing right now?" TC asked, his voice turning a bit suspicious.

"Nothing."

"Somehow I don't believe you."

"I'm only making the bar more appealing to our customers." Rick replied but he had a feeling his friend wouldn't be much happy about it and it turned out he was right.

"Oh man, I knew it! You got some new ornaments while there's already so many of them all over La Mariana." TC told his friend. "I thought it's been settled that we had enough of those and you wouldn't add anything else."