A/N: If you go back and look at chapter 17, you’ll notice that I did change one little logistical thing. I got a couple of things confused when I was looking at my outline, and the date with Andreas happened on Tuesday, July thirty-first, not July seventeenth. I know that this correction probably seems completely anal to you all, but details are actually really important to me. Besides, if it had been on the seventeenth, then it wouldn’t make sense for the choir to be in Paris on August tenth (which happens to be Kurt’s birthday), which they will be, as you will see. Anyway, enough with the boring logistics. On with the story!

Chapter 18: Three Coins in the Fountain

An indescribable amount of joy bubbled up inside of me when I heard the knock on my hotel room door. Leaping up from my bed, I practically flew across the room to answer it. Eagerly, I turned the knob.

Excited beyond all reason, I threw the door open, revealing a young man of twenty, standing at 5’11”, with dirty blonde hair and bright blue eyes that matched mine perfectly. An enormous grin spread across his handsome face.

“Hans!” I exclaimed, leaping into his arms.

Ecstatic, he spun me around a few times before setting me back on my feet and engulfing me in an enormous bear-hug. “Lotte!”

I gave him a light punch on the arm. “Do you have any idea how much I’ve missed you, you dork?”

“Love you, too, Sis,” he chuckled.

“Guys, Hans is here!” I announced as I dragged my brother into the room.

Jane rolled her eyes affectionately. “Yeah, we sort of noticed that.” She made her way over to Hans and wrapped him up in a friendly hug. “It’s great to see you again, Hans.”

“Likewise, Jane,” he replied. He had always gotten along well with my friends, even during the brief few weeks when he was twelve and I was ten that Eden had developed a slight crush on him. Then again, I wasn’t sure if he had even known about it at the time.

“Hey, Hans!” Eden chirped, hopping off of her bed. “It’s been forever and a day!”

Embracing her, Hans gave her a light kiss on the cheek. “It has, hasn’t it?”

I noticed that Brigid had put her book down and was gazing at the four of us curiously. I motioned for her to come over to where we were standing.

“Hans, this is my friend Brigid,” I informed him. “She just finished her freshman year.”

He politely shook her hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“Ditto,” she replied.

I poked Hans in the ribs. “So, Bro, are you ready to head out?”

He pouted. “But I just got here!”

“So?” I replied indignantly. “We’re supposed to go out for lunch, and it’s already noon.”

He sighed. “Can I at least talk to Kurt first? I haven’t seen him in ages.”

The slashing motion that Jane made across her throat and Eden’s emphatic head-shaking did not escape my notice.

My incredibly dense brother scrunched his face up in confusion. “What’s wrong with you two?”

I rolled my eyes. “They’re trying to subtly tell you not to talk to Kurt and hoping that I won’t notice. For the record, guys,” I added, turning to face my friends. “I noticed. The two of you are about as subtle as Rosie O’Donnell with a megaphone.”

“Why shouldn’t I talk to Kurt?” asked Hans.

“He’s in a funk,” I answered, feelings of guilt twisting my stomach into knots.

“Understatement of the year,” Jane muttered.

“Why, what happened?” He fixed his gaze on me. “What did you do to him, Lotte?”

Ok, why was it that whenever Kurt was acting moody, everyone assumed that I’d had something to do with it? Yes, it happened to be true in this particular instance, but that was hardly the point.

“What makes you think that I did something to him?” I protested.

“Because you’re about the only person in the world who can actually make that poor kid miserable.”

Oh, that stung.

I simply stood there, mouth opening and closing without any sound issuing from it.

Ah, phooey. He’d hit the nail right on the head.

“Um…” Eden began awkwardly. “Maybe we should just let you two talk…”

Turning to her, I plastered a smile on my face. “Don’t worry about it. We should head out, anyway. Come on, brother dearest.” I grabbed Hans’s hand and dragged him into the hallway. He followed without protest. We walked in silence to the elevator, but as soon as the doors clanked shut, our conversation resumed in the weird mix of German and English that had become our unique method of communication.

“That hurt, you know.”

“But it’s true,” he deadpanned.

I winced. “Ich weiß(I know). That’s why it bothers me.”

He looked at me strangely. “It bothers you that you have the ability to upset Kurt Matthews? I thought you’d be delighted. Du hasst ihn (You hate him).”

“I do not!” I immediately protested.

“Since when?”

“Since…uh…” I trailed off, unable to come up with a definite time that my feelings had changed. “Ich weiß nicht! (I don’t know!) It was a gradual thing.”

“Gradual, eh?

“Yeah, gradual.”

The elevator doors slid open at the ground floor, and we walked across the lobby to the front door. All the while, I was contemplating the various ways in which I might inform Hans of my new-found feelings without invoking a flurry of I-told-you-sos, it’s-about-times, and maybe even a Kurt-and-Lotte-sitting-in-a-tree or two.

I decided to go with the pseudo-hypothetical situation method.

“Hans,” I began as he held the glass door of the hotel open for me and we stepped out onto the sidewalk. “Hypothetically, if I were to tell you that I had a problem, was würdest du sagen (what would you say)?”

He raised an eyebrow at me. “I’d ask you, hypothetically, what that problem was.”

“And what if I told you - hypothetically, that is - that it had to do with a boy?”

“Then I’d tell you, hypothetically, to knock it off with the hypothetical Quatsch (bullshit) and just tell me what’s bugging you.”

I glared at him. “You’re hypothetically ruining my hypothetical situation!”

He rolled his eyes as we turned into the little al fresco dining area of a café on the corner of the street. “What sort of boy problems hast du (are you having)?”

I said nothing as we sat down at a small wrought-iron table for two.

“Do you need me to beat a guy up for you?” he asked, his goofy grin making it clear that he was in no way serious. “You know, I could always hire a guy from the Russian mafia to break his knees.”

I had to chuckle at that. “Seit wann (since when) do you have mob connections?”

His eyes widened. “Didn’t you know that old Mr. Jenkins next door used to be in the KGB? His name’s really Sergei Vorodenkov.”

“Echt (seriously)!?” I gasped.

Hans nodded solemnly.

“Mein Gott…” I murmured.

There was a moment of silence before my brother burst into a fit of uncontrollable laughter.

I stared at him as though he were insane. “…the hell?”

“You’re pathetic, Lotte,” he hooted. “I swear, you’ve got to be the most gullible person in the world. You seriously believed that Mr. Jenkins was a Russian spy? Oh, man!”

“Du Wichser (You wanker)!” I shouted, giving him a swift kick in the shin under the table. He winced slightly, but kept right on howling with laughter.

In the meantime, a busboy came by to set out napkins and silverware in front of us. He seemed to think that Hans was drunk, high, and/or mentally disturbed, if his nervous glances and avoidance of my stupid brother’s end of the table were anything to go by. He made a point of leaving as quickly as possible.

“Hans, you’re freaking out the waiters,” I hissed.

He took a couple of deep breaths to calm himself down and then grinned at me. “Sorry, Sis. I’ve just missed doing that to you so much.”

“I’m not sure whether I should be peeved or flattered,” I replied.

“Be flattered,” he advised. “I say it with love.”

I rolled my eyes. My brother could be so idiotic sometimes.

He cleared his throat. “Seriously, though, what’s this boy problem about? You know that I don’t believe for one second that you were actually being hypothetical.”

“Um, it’s…nichts (nothing)…” I trailed off, losing my nerve.

“It’s not nichts (nothing),” he insisted. “And I’m going to sit here and stare at you until you tell me what it is.”

One unique talent that my dearest brother happened to possess was an uncanny ability to creep me out with his icy blue stare. I’d withstand it as long as I could, but I’d always crack in the end. This time proved to be no exception. He stared at me silently for a full three minutes, during which the waiter came to take our orders. Hans placed his without ever looking away from me.

As the waiter bustled off to the door leading to the indoor portion of the café, I finally caved. “I hate your stupid stare,” I announced, glowering. “Fine. I have a boy problem.”

Hans merely raised his eyebrow expectantly.

I took a deep breath. “You see…it’s like this: I sort of…had the wrong idea about someone…and some things changed…and, well…”

“Spuck’s aus (spit it out)!” he interrupted.

“IthinkIsortofhaveathingforKurt,” I gushed.

He blinked a few times. “Um, what?”

I sighed. “I think I have a thing for Kurt.”

There was an extended period of silence before Hans finally spoke again.

“Would it embarrass you if I shouted and danced around a bit?”

“Are you high or something?” I questioned incredulously. “I just told you that I have a crush on Kurt Matthews, and you ask me if I’d be embarrassed if you started dancing?”

He chuckled, his face lighting up with a grin. “Sorry, Sis. I just figured that the moment of your confession merited some sort of celebration. You have no idea how long I’ve been waiting for this…”

“What are you talking about?”

“Du und Kurt!” he exclaimed, gesturing wildly at nothing in particular. “I’ve been waiting for the two of you to get together since you hit puberty.”

“But we couldn’t stand each other!” I protested.

“Nein (no),” he corrected. “You couldn’t stand him. There’s a huge difference.”

I simply stared at him, at a loss for words.

“Lotte, you can’t tell me that you’ve never heard the theory that little boys only tease girls that they like. I’m honestly surprised that you never managed to put two and two together.”

I raised an eyebrow at him. “Are you trying to say that-”

“Yes,” he confirmed. “I’m saying that the only reason Kurt picked on you so much was because he had a thing for you. It was kind of obvious, Lotte.”

“No it wasn’t!” I objected.

“Mein Gott, bist du total blind (My God, are you totally blind)?” he groaned. “That kid was fucking crazy about you! Why do you think he’d go out of his way to bug you? Why do you think he’d snoop around in deinem Zimmer (your room) when you weren’t around? Why do you think that he was never able to keep a girlfriend for more than two weeks? Why do you think he hated Sky so much? Please don’t tell me that you thought it was some sort of sports rivalry thing.”

I was silent, having thought just that.

“Why do you think that Mutti loves him so much? Gott, even she figured it out before you did!” he continued to rant. “Didn’t you ever notice that his eyes seemed to be magnetically drawn to you whenever the two of you were in the same room? Or that he decided to join the Chor (choir) exactly two days after you did?”

“I thought that was just a coincidence…” I mumbled.

Hans shook his head at me. “You know, for someone who’s going to Harvard in the fall, you’re awfully dense, Lotte. If I didn’t love you so much, I would have to smack you around a bit for your incredible stupidity.”

As I mulled all of this information over, it actually began to make sense. The many pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that was Kurt Matthews were finally starting to come together in my mind.

“Did he ever tell you that he liked me?” I asked.

“He didn’t need to,” Hans replied. “I figured it out on my own. I’d suspected it since I first became friends with him when I was fourteen and you guys were twelve. When you got together with Sky, though, I knew for certain dass ich Recht hatte (that I was right).”

I gazed at him quizzically. “Wieso (How so)?”

“Don’t you remember that he didn’t come round our place for two weeks?”

I did remember that, in fact. I’d been quite happy about it at the time.

“I kept inviting him over, but he always came up with these completely bogus excuses, like he had to go erg or something. When he said that he had to go rake leaves, I knew that something was up, since the leaves hadn’t even started to change colors yet.”

I had to chuckle at that. It was such a Kurt thing to do.

“Oh yeah, you laugh now, Sis,” Hans chided me. “But you wouldn’t have if you’d seen him beating the crap out of a punching bag in his room while blasting Dashboard Confessional like I did when I went to go ask him what was wrong with him.”

That shut me up.

“It took a while, but I finally made him admit that he was upset that you were dating Sky. You’re lucky that he’s such a strong person, Lotte,” my brother pointed out. “Cause you seriously hurt him there.”

I opened my mouth to protest.

“I know,” he cut me off. “You didn’t know, and you’re free to date who you want. Whatever, it’s in the past.”

We sat in silence as the waiter returned and placed our food in front of us.

“Hans,” I began timidly. “Do you think I’m a horrible person?”

He seemed surprised by my question. “What? No! Of course not! You’re my sister, and I love you. Besides,” he added. “If you were a horrible person, then I’d be a horrible person by blood-relation.”

I smiled at his attempt to lighten the mood. “I love you, too, Bro.”

We stood up at the same time and embraced each other. He made a point of rubbing his hand up and down my back in the familiar, soothing way that he knew I liked.

When we sat down again, I began to eat my pasta. He, on the other hand, wasted no time in questioning me about the comment that had begun the whole Kurt discussion in the first place.

“So what did you mean that Kurt was ‘in a funk’?”

I swallowed the food that had been in my mouth. It went down in a huge lump, reflecting the discomfort of the situation. “Um…well, he is.”

He raised an eyebrow at me. “I know that look on your face, Lotte Leisch. You’re feeling guilty about something. Heraus damit (Out with it)!”

“It’s sort of my fault,” I admitted.

He waited for me to elaborate.

“I, um…” I hesitated. “You see, I…er…I kind of went on a date with this Italian waiter, and Kurt sort of found out about it.”

Agitated, Hans ran a hand through his hair. “Mein Gott, no wonder he’s in such a bad mood. How long ago was this?”

“Two nights ago,” I answered.

“Have you talked to him since then?”

I shook my head. “No. I’m too nervous. I only just figured out that I…well, you know.”

Hans grinned. “No, I don’t know. You’re going to have to say it for me, Lotte.”

I glowered at him. “I like Kurt, you asswipe!”

He put his hands up in front of him. “Hey, no need to get snippy, sister dearest. So what did Kurt do when he found out about you and the waiter?”

I winced, remembering. “He yelled at me for a while, then got all self-loathing when I started to cry.”

“Did he tell you why he was upset?” he asked.

Oh boy, here was the part where the ugly truth about what had happened in Berlin came out. “Well…it’s sort of…kompliziert (complicated).”

Hans sighed. “Lotte, will you please stop being afraid to tell me stuff? I’m your brother, um Gottes willen (for God’s sake)! I’m not going to judge you.”

“Fine,” I conceded. “I’ll just give it to you straight, then. Bear with me, okay?”

He nodded, and I launched into a condensed explanation of the whole sordid affair, beginning with Onkel Alfons’s grave and ending with Kurt finding out about Andreas. All the while, I observed my brother’s facial expressions, registering the shifts in his emotions. Sympathy, amusement, exasperation, frustration… all were expressed through the subtle movements of his mouth and the gleam in his eyes. He had pretty much covered the entire spectrum of human feelings by the time I had finished.

“That’s…interesting,” he commented.

I sighed. “The worst part is what he did when I was on the date. You see, after Andreas took me out to dinner, we went to this jazz club. By some insane coincidence or maybe some sort of divine manipulation, Kurt and Adam were there as well. Kurt got completely plastered, Hans. I felt like such a bitch. It was bugging me for the rest of the night, and when Andreas finally dropped me off at the hotel and kissed me goodnight, -”

“You let him kiss you?” Hans interrupted, going into overprotective brother mode.

“- all I could think about was Kurt and the night that we…well, yeah.”

“So you realized that you like Kurt because the Italian guy sucks at kissing?”

I picked a pea off of my plate and threw it across the table at him.

He chuckled as it bounced off of his temple. “I’m just screwing with you, Sis. Well, this is quite a development. You’ve realized that you have a thing for a guy you’ve claimed to despise since you were seven. Hell has officially frozen over and pigs are now migrating to Florida along with the geese.”

“And the old people,” I added.

“Yeah, but they don’t fly,” he explained. “They just drive Volvos and Oldsmobiles.”

“Got it,” I chuckled.

“Well, sister dearest, you have my blessing,” he declared. “In the prophetic words of that most brilliant of philosophers, Ozzy Osbourne, ‘maybe it’s not too late to learn how to love and forget how to hate.’”

I rolled my eyes. “My darling brother, I do believe that you’re going off the rails on a crazy train.”

Absentmindedly, I kicked a pebble along the ground as I walked. I didn’t even know where I was anymore, really. After Hans had taken his leave, promising me that he’d be sitting front row center at the concert the next night, I’d grabbed my camera and headed off into the wild mixture of chaos and beauty that was Rome. I needed some alone-time for soul-searching.

First off, I’d come to terms with the fact that I liked Kurt. It was true enough that it was a rather world-altering realization, but I had accepted it for what it was. Now, though, as I paused to snap a picture of a pigeon perched atop a statue of some ancient deity, I began to wonder if that was really all there was to it. It felt so much more complicated than that.

If there was one thing in the world that I hated, it was being confused. I liked to know and understand everything that was going on around me, and when something like the sudden realization that I had a thing for my erstwhile nemesis came along to baffle me, it inevitably threw my whole sense of being out of synch.

The more I mulled things over, the more clearly I began to grasp the nature of my feelings. I wasn’t sure exactly what it was that tipped me off. Perhaps it was the little butterflies that had apparently decided to permanently move into my stomach and flap about incessantly whenever Kurt was around. Perhaps it was the horrible wrenching feeling that grasped my heart whenever I saw him upset and knew that I had been the cause of his misery. Perhaps it was the thoughts of him that refused to vacate my mind. I didn’t really know. What I did know, though, was that I had started to fall for him, fast and hard.

Did he still want me, though, after all that had happened over the course of the trip (not to mention throughout the entirety of our childhood)? I had treated him pretty horribly. I was lucky that he still talked to me at all. I could only pray that his feelings for me hadn’t changed. It would simply be too bitterly ironic if they had.

Then, of course, there was the problem of what do to next. I certainly didn’t have the courage to simply amble over to Kurt, say, “hey, I like you, too,” and give him a humungous smooch. As much as I would have loved to do something like that right away and take care of the ridiculous amount of unresolved sexual tension between the two of us, I knew that I couldn’t pull it off.

In the end, I decided to carefully observe Kurt for a while to get my bearings on the situation. As long as he didn’t catch me watching him and think that I had turned into some sort of creepy stalker, it seemed like a good plan.

There was one more issue that I would have to deal with, though: Andreas was coming to the concert. I didn’t think I could bear to see the look on Kurt’s face if he saw the two of us together. I certainly couldn’t let Andreas kiss me, which would probably confuse him, since I had after our date. I simply refused to put Kurt through that kind of torture. He’d had quite enough already.

I decided to break things off as gently as possible. After all, Andreas was a decent guy, and I had no desire to hurt his feelings. Then again, it wasn’t as though he was ever going to see me again. Still, best not to be a bitch unnecessarily. I’d already done enough of that, after all, and I regretted it with every fiber of my being.

“You really like him, don’t you?”

I snapped my head around to face my best friend. “What?”

Eden smiled warmly. “Come on, sweetie, I know that look on your face. You have a crush on Kurt. No, scratch that. You have a major crush on Kurt.”

My blush told her all that she needed to know.

“I was wondering why you were acting so funny for the past couple of days,” she chuckled.

I rolled my eyes. I had been watching Kurt and Adam chatting idly outside of the Pantheon as we waited for the rest of our choir to emerge from within. Eden had apparently snuck up behind me (well, perhaps not snuck, as I hadn’t really been paying attention) and had noticed the direction of my gaze. She knew me well enough to put two and two together.

“So, when did this happen?” she asked.

I shrugged. “I only really figured it out on Tuesday. The actual change was more gradual, I think.”

She nodded. “Got it. So what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” I sighed. “That’s the problem.”

I watched as Kurt smiled at something Adam had said. My heart fluttered a bit. He had dimples! I’d never even noticed that before. I had been too busy hating him. I observed other things as well, little things that were almost imperceptible, like how he would oh so subtly shift from side to side when he listened to someone else speaking, how his hazel eyes would light up whenever he laughed...

I began to drift off in the general direction of Cloud Nine, but my little dream bubble was rather rudely popped.

“Hey, lover girl! We’re going, come on.” Eden dragged me along to catch up with the rest of the group. Everyone had begun heading off down a side street while I’d been busy fantasizing about Kurt’s dimples.

Jane hung back to walk with the two of us. “Dude, what’s up with Lotte?” she asked Eden upon noticing my slightly dazed state. A suspicious look crossed her face as she regarded me. “Are you on something?”

Eden giggled. “Our darling Lotte’s had a particularly heavy dose of the love drug.”

“Alright, girl!” Jane exclaimed, nudging me in the ribs. “Who’s the lucky guy?”

There was a rather pregnant pause.

“No way!” Jane finally whispered excitedly. “Are you telling me that you’ve finally come around and admitted that you like Kurt?”

I smacked my forehead with my palm.

“Aha!” she crowed in response. “I knew this was going to happen! The two of you are going to make the most gorgeous children!”

I gave her a look. “Isn’t that jumping ahead a bit?”

She threw her hands up. “Who cares?”

“There are other things I’ve got to worry about first,” I muttered.

Eden cocked her head to the side as we went around a corner. “Like what?”

“Like how to make things right between Kurt and I without letting on that I saw him getting drunk the other night,” I elaborated.

“Tough one,” Jane commented. “Screw that. Just go grab him, yank him into a dark alley, and jump his bones right there.”

I shook my head in amusement. “You really do have a one-track mind, don’t you?”

She shrugged. “Sex makes the world go ‘round.”

Rolling my eyes good-naturedly, I turned to face my other companion. “You have any real advice for me, Ede?”

She shook her head. “Sorry, sweetie. I honestly have no idea what you should say to him. However,” she went on, placing a reassuring hand on my back. “In the Book of Acts, the Apostles got into some tough situations as well, but the Holy Spirit always found a way to put the right words in their mouths. Don’t be scared. Just trust that whatever needs to be said will find its way past your lips. Go with your gut feeling.”

I smiled warmly. At times, a well-placed Bibical reference could do wonders to cheer me up. “Alright. I’ll give it a shot.”

“Good luck hug!” Jane shouted suddenly, yanking Eden and I into her embrace and squeezing tightly.

“Thanks,” I chuckled when I could breathe again.

She grinned and gave me a little push forward. “Now go get ‘em, girl!”

As I began to walk faster, weaving around students to move up toward Kurt and Adam, my stomach starting doing some sort of bizarre acrobatics routine. I finally spotted the tall, toned figure that I had come to know and love. My heart began to pound as I jogged to catch up with him.

“Hey, Kurt!” I called, slightly out of breath.

He turned around to face me and my heart leapt up into my throat as he smiled. “Hey, Lotte. What’s up?”

“Uh…”

Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit, Holy Spirit…

“Can I talk to you for a bit?

“Of course,” he replied, pausing until I’d reached him. “What’s on your mind?”

How could he be acting so nonchalant about this when I was practically being eaten alive by anxiety? “I, er…I just wanted to…apologize…for the other night.”

He tensed slightly. “What do you have to be sorry for?”

“Well…” I began. “What I did was sort of…thoughtless. I knew it would hurt you, but I did it anyway. I wasn’t trying to hurt you, of course,” I hastily clarified, even though he had showed no sign of indignation. “I just…didn’t think.”

He stayed silent for a long period of time. “I overreacted,” he finally sighed. “I shouldn’t have expected you to put your whole love life on hold just because we…well, yeah.”

“No, you had every right to,” I insisted.

“It’s not like I have a claim on you,” he pointed out.

Yes you do, I thought. I didn’t tell him this, though. “It doesn’t matter,” I contended.

There was a pause in which I could hear nothing but the sound of our feet slapping against the cobblestones.

Kurt finally cleared his throat. “So, er…how did it go with…that guy?”

I blushed profusely, as I’d been hoping to avoid that topic. “Er…fine, I guess?” I ventured uncertainly. “Nothing particularly interesting or spectacular. It’s not like I’m ever going to see him again, anyway.”

Kurt visibly relaxed. “Not into the long-distance thing?”

“They don’t work,” I replied with a shrug, silently thanking God that Kurt was heading to Harvard for rowing. “Besides, it’s not like I had any feelings for him.”

“Really?” he asked, unable to keep a grin off of his face, though I could tell that he desperately wanted to.

I returned his smile. “Yes, really.”

“Alright, then.”

The ensuing silence was far less tense than the previous one had been.

I gave him an imploring look. “Are we cool, then?”

Gently, he reached out and took my hand, lacing his fingers through mine. “We’re cool.” He gave me a slight squeeze, sending a spark of electricity through my body and straight to my heart, feeding the flames of romance that had been ignited there.

Hand in hand, we walked along with the rest of the group, completely ignoring the curious looks being sent our way by those who only knew us as the bass and the soprano who bickered all the time. Eventually, the side-street we were on opened into a large plaza. The center had been lowered so that there were two levels with a set of stairs connecting them and leading directly to one of the most famous and beautiful attractions in Rome: the Trevi Fountain.

Mythical figures carved from white stone attempted to tame wild horses of the sea upon the rocks while two goddesses stood sentinel, framed by Corinthian columns. At the center of it all, glorified in his magnificent arch, was Neptune, Roman god of the sea. He stood, powerful and majestic, with a cloth billowing out behind him, surveying his domain with a keen eye. My breath caught in my throat at the sheer beauty of the scene before me.

“Let’s go throw a coin in,” Kurt whispered in my ear, sending a shiver down my spine. I noted that he was still holding my hand and I secretly basked in my own giddy pleasure.

“Sounds good to me,” I agreed.

Grinning, he led me over to the steps in front of the fountain. There was quite a crowd, considering that we were in the middle of a prime tourist spot, but Kurt somehow managed to weave his way around the camera-wielding sightseers, dragging me along behind him. I spouted out a few hasty apologies as I went to those whose feet I had accidentally trod upon.

When we arrived at the rim of the fountain, Kurt pulled out his wallet and extracted a twenty-cent euro piece. I dug an identical coin out of my pocket.

He turned to face me. “So, how do we go about doing this?”

“You turn your back to the fountain,” I explained, recalling what I’d heard from others. “And you throw the coin over your left shoulder with your right hand while making a wish.”

“That specific, huh?” he chuckled.

I shrugged. “Hey, I don’t make the rules.”

Rolling his eyes good-naturedly, he turned around to face away from the fountain. I mimicked his position.

“Alright,” he began. “So on the count of three, we’ll throw our coins in and make a wish, ok?”

I gave my consent with a nod, already knowing exactly what I would be wishing for.

“One…”

I tensed my hand around my coin, preparing to toss it.

“Two…”

I mentally ran over the exact phrasing of my wish.

“Three!”

I wish that Kurt Matthews were mine.

My coin sailed over my shoulder and landed with a plink in the fountain.

A/N: Okay, that last bit was admittedly cheesy, I know. It was just too cute to resist! This chapter’s a bit short (and probably not my best writing), and for that I apologize. This just seemed like a good stopping point, since what would have come after it would have seemed anticlimactic. It would have taken longer as well, and I didn’t want to keep you all waiting.

On that note, I’m going to have to give you all fair warning that it might be difficult for me to get another chapter out for a while. I’ve realized that I have more papers due than there are weeks left in the term (eight papers, five of which are research papers, in five weeks), which is absurd, considering that it’s my senior spring. Of course, this also means that I’m going to have to be running around preparing for prom, graduation, and all that other lovely stuff. I’ve made my decision for college, though, so that takes a big burden off of me. Let’s just say that I’m very please with the way my life has turned out. :-)

I haven’t written any disclaimers in a while, so I’ll just say for now that I don’t own Ozzy or anything else that you recognize.

One more review until this story hits four-hundred! You guys are AMAZING! On that note, here are the long-awaited replies to anonymous reviews:

From Chapter Sixteen:

Sapph: Haha, passwords can suck sometimes. :-) Thanks so much!

Leslie: You were right! Yay! Thanks!

From Chapter Seventeen:

LondinLi: Thanks so much! I’ll try my hardest not to suffocate under the mountain of work that has been assigned to me. :-)

cls81690: Haha, thanks for the corrections. I was relying on an online translator, and we all know how reliable those are. Note the sarcasm, of course. :-) Computers just don’t get how languages work, I guess.

S. Cherise: Wow, thanks! I’m flattered that you consider my writing style to be so mature. Compliments like that mean a lot to me. :-)

peppermintstorm: There will be two more after this, at least the way I have things planned out. Thanks so much for the review!

If you’ve sent me a signed review and I haven’t replied yet, I swear it’s only because I’ve been off college-visiting! As soon as I get some free time, I’ll get right on answering those!

Please review!

Much love,

woodstock1969