Eli Borrelli

42: Dog

We spent one day at home, before going to get Diego from the airport. We had agreed, that he and Ida would come to New York for his birthday, which was in a few days, and stay over Christmas.

I took Jasper with us when we went to pick them up and as soon, as Diego saw us, he ran straight to the dog.

"What? Not even a hug? You ungrateful little shit," I joked, as Diego gushed at Jasper, who kept on wagging his tail in excitement.

"I've seen you a million times before, but this little fella, I haven't seen before. Have I? No I haven't, you cute little thing," he said quickly losing himself again.

"Ida, so nice to see you again!" I called as I saw her walking towards us with a wide smile.

"You too my darling. How have you been?" she asked pulling me in for a hug. I know, Diego told her about Maria, so her question was more, than just a standard greeting.

"I've been better, but it's great to have my little brother back here. If he'd lift his eyes from the damn dog for once," I said playfully glaring at Diego.

Ida furrowed her brows at my bad word, but quickly brushed it off and hugged me once more.

"You five I haven't met before, have I? I'm Ida," she said warmly to my brothers, who were still trying to reed her. All except Lorenzo and Gabriele, who smiled back.

"Don't worry about those grumpies. They'll warm up eventually," I said smacking the back of Antonio's head and jabbing Matteo in the ribs.

Finally, Diego stood up from petting Jasper and lunged at me with his usual big hugs.

"Now you want to hug me?" I laughed as I tightly embraced him.

"The moment you become a fluffy live stuff toy, I'll hug you first," Diego said with a serious face.

We rode home in two cars. I was with Diego, Ida, Gabriele, and Jasper, while the other four were banished to the other car.

"I've never seen New York like this," Ida said watching the Christmas lights pass by.

"Please can we go do all the cliche movie things?" Diego begged.

"Of course! What did you think we were going to do? Non-movie stuff? Never," I joked.

The next day we went around New York doing all the "cliche movie things".

We went skating at the Rockefeller center, watched the fifth avenue Christmas lights, looked at the window displays, walked through central park, watched the radio city Christmas spectacular, and booked tickets to see nutcracker the next day since we were all way too tired.

I could see Ida trying so hard to keep up, but she had a bad hip, which made it a bit hard for her, so we stopped by in a lot of coffee shops and other places to enjoy the Christmas atmosphere.

At the end of the day, we were all so tired, that we watched one Christmas movie, Love Actually, and headed straight to bed. Once again, Diego slept in my room, but that time, we also had a furry little friend sleeping at the foot of the bed.

"You know, you always promised me a dog, and now you got one yourself. Don't you think that's a bit unfair?" Diego teased before we fell asleep.

"Shut up, and got o sleep," I groaned way too tired for his bullshit.

He just chuckled and quickly fell asleep.