Met With A Goodbye Kiss

Chapter 1 - And this is how it starts...

Pic of what Julia looked like when they met (11) and what she'll look like when she's older on the side

"And this is how it starts, take your shoes off in the back of my van" I belted out the lyrics to The 1975's Sex and pretended to slay that electric guitar just like Matty Healy does it. Sometimes I would get too distracted by my ring-tone to even answer the phone, but this time I caught myself and slid my finger over the green button without even looking at the caller ID. "Hello!" I said cheerfully. "Hello! Hola, peque." a sweet, male voice answered. Oh no, this isn't happening. I'm imagining it, right? He hasn't called in forever! I looked at my screen for a second just to make sure. "Oh my, hola chico! So nice to hear your voice" why did I just say that? I heard him chuckle on the other end. "You too! It's been a long time. Too long. How've you been?" he added. "Pretty good actually, what about you Mr. model? Where about in the world are you?" "Oh, por eso te llamo, peque. I'm in Madrid at the moment, but I'm flying to London in a few hours." "Really? That sounds like a chance to finally meet up." I said not bothering to hide my excitement. "How long are you staying?" "I leave Tuesday morning for NYC. I have to work on the weekend, but would you like to hang out Monday afternoon?" "I'd love to, but I'm not in London until 10 pm, I have a doctors appointment back in Birmingham at 16:30." "Shit, well, I... um..." I could hear the cogs turning in his head "I could come pick you up from the doctor and then we'd drive to London together, suena bien?" "Estás seguro? I don't want you to go through any trouble..." I said unsure, but the fact that he did want to go through that trouble just to see me was heart-warming. But that's just how Jon was, he was sweet like that. He'd always been. "Peque, are you joking? I want to see you, I haven't got a chance to do that in too long. So if it's ok with you, I'm coming to get you at about 17:30 on Monday, vale?" How could I say no? I don't think I've ever said no to him. "Vale, I'll, send you the adress later." In that moment I heard my mom yell my name. Uh-oh. "Um... chico, I have to go, mom's been asking me to go on a walk with the dog since before we started talking. I'll see you Monday then." "No problem, ciao peque, un beso!" "Ciao, a ti también!" And with that I hung up. I was amazed at how naturally my spanish came to me when I was talking to him. We always spoke half in English half in Spanish because they were both our mother tongues, his being Spanish and mine English. We must sound really weird to strangers, but it made sense to us and we never bothered to change it. I finished brushing my teeth, put some light make-up on and headed out, grabbing my leather jacket on my way out. I skipped and hummed cheery tunes with a smile on my face as I walked around the woods with my dog, suddenly in an fantastic mood. I would't ever admit it, but I knew exactly where that boost of happiness had come from and it was from the unexpected yet welcomed call this lovely Saturday morning.