"The human hand has twenty-seven bones in it except when I think of you, there's twenty-eight."
As I groaned at my business partner, I looked at him and saw the cheesiest smile you wouldn't expect from someone except your best friend. It was then he took a drink of his lemon water before he started pontificating again.
"You groan, sir, because you don't see the subtle charm in the cheesy line of a card for Valentine's Day," he responded.
"Bro, there's a difference between subtle charm and totally pervy," was my retort before we shared a laugh.
As much as I talk about Marcie in these stories of mine, I would be remiss if I didn't share a little bit about Matt. Not only is he still my best friend after all these years, but he was the motivating impetus for our company getting started and arguably putting me in the predicament that I found myself in at that moment. There we were the CEO and the CFO of a Forbes 500 technology company having a rare lunch together a few weeks prior to Valentine's Day. It wasn't exactly a business crisis, but it was under the guise of "catching up after the holidays" that Matt conned me into lunch.
It started okay enough. He drove me to one of the places he would feed or get fed by a prospective vendor or customer and we ordered food our wives would be proud to see us eat. It turned out Shannon was as avid a fan of Matt getting in better shape as Marcie was while we were dating. It was hard to believe that even though Marcie was my neighbor for five years prior to the events that led to us dating (Good Neighbors Ch. 1 btw.) Matt was married to Shannon about six months longer than I was. And of course, Matt had a kid to show it as well. It became apparent the real motive after we finished off lunch and relaxed afterward.
"It's easy for you, Mr. Oblivious," he responded. "My wife didn't surprise me not only with getting two new suits for work purposes, but also a trip to Tahiti as well. I was shocked that she could surprise you with that, Leo. And yet, you have not come up with one idea on what to get her in response."
He was right, of course. Marcie did surprise me with all that for Christmas. Thus, the reason why we needed lunch was to catch up. Still, it didn't change the lingering thoughts in my mind that I wanted to do something special for Marcie for Valentine's Day. There was just the usual thing stopping me.
"You do know what stops me, right?" I asked as Matt took another swig of his lemon water.
"You mean the whole thing with she doesn't do well with being spoiled?"
"Yeah, that. Don't you think the way I..."
"...would give her the world and everything in it if she'd let you because you love her so much?" He finished my thoughts before I could. "I know. That does put a money wrench into things. Have you guys discussed it?"
"We have. She even put a kibosh on me spoiling her and her sisters with a spa day when she went to visit soon after we got back."
"You're lucky. You know how much I have been able to surprise Shannon since we got married?"
I looked at him with a smile.
"That's one reason for separate accounts, my friend," I answered. "It would be easier to do things if Shannon had her own stuff. Not that she had a chance after you seduced her. Speaking of which, why are you thinking a card?"
"Because, Genius, I am sneaking in an itinerary of my own for a family trip for Valentine's Day. We're not taking it until April, but I want to surprise her. Plus, I must have a cheesy line. It is kind of one thing she looks forward to when I try to surprise her."
This made me remember how often Matt used to use cheesy lines when we were in high school. Even though we were best friends, Matt was also a serial dater during those times and used his corny sense of humor to break the ice with a new conquest. I could only imagine what line he used when Shannon and he started dating.
"How did you come up with the trip?" I asked.
"The trip was easy. Paying for it was also easy since I set up a separate savings account in my name," he said with a wink. "I do listen to you, Leo. And the fact that Marcie has her separate stuff because of her late husband's pension and stuff did make it easier for her to surprise you."
Again, Matt was right. A conspiracy theorist would have started getting suspicious with the results. The thing was Marcie and I chose to keep the financials separate because of my desire to show I could trust her. During her marriage to Mitch, she ran their accounts. This was partially fueled by the fact that they scraped together everything to get the house. Mitch worked his ass off to make sure his Queen had a roof over her head during their entire life together until his retirement. They barely bought things for themselves as splurges because of that. It was the main reason that Marcie was so worried when it took so long for his pension to be moved to her name while we dated.
