"I'm good. Sorry we couldn't meet last month. Jerry was invited to a Valentine's party by a guy at work. We had a really good time. I hadn't expected his job friends to be that much fun," she said with a snicker.

"I bet that was a real stretch for them. Their parties are a little wild, aren't they?" Martina asked, laughing.

Ronni laughed with her. "Yes, girl, they've been kicked out of every hotel that they've ever booked for their holiday parties. So, their parties are very exciting and different every time since they've never been to the same place twice."

Martina giggled again. "So, what do we talk about today?"

"What did you do for Valentine's Day?"

"Well, Derrick was out of town at a meeting so I didn't do anything. He made up for it later; just last week he came over. My original plan was to spend it with my number one, but Derrick showed up and I had to put him on the backburner."

Ronni let out an astonished gasp. "No."

"Yes, shocking as that is, he had to take one for the team."

"I thought no one came before him on your fantasy-husband list."

"That's true. Zorro is my number one, Sean Connery is number two and Derrick holds a solid number three."

"Three, huh? I bet that piece of information makes him happy," Ronni said, chuckling.

Martina laughed with her friend. "I don't know what he gets all bent out of shape about. He's in excellent company. A solid number three on that list is extraordinarily high."

"So, what happened? Why'd he have to take one for the team?"

"Let's order first, and then I'll tell you all about it."

Ronni flagged a waiter.

"Hey Ronni, Martina. How are you guys? I missed you last month."

"We had to do the girlfriend thing and spend time with our men, Roger. We couldn't fit in any us time until today," Martina explained.

"Aww, you poor things," Roger said, an impish grin on his face. "So what can I get you ladies today?"

"Roger, we need a drink before we start our storytelling and I'm starving, so bring a menu."

"You want the usual?"

"Yup."

"Martina?"

"Make it two Margaritas, Roger. This is a juicy one."

Roger nodded and walked away. He returned with their drinks, and Martina plunged into her story.

"Well, Derrick and I didn't make any previous plans to spend the evening together. He was going to be in Chicago for the week for work. They usually go around the same time every year, but this time the conference went a little over."

"Did you at least talk to him?" Ronni asked.

"Yeah, we spoke all week, and he's so sweet that he sent me a little gift in the mail every day."

"Aww," Ronni said dreamily.

"Yeah, he wasn't supposed to be back until the weekend, so I planned to have a movie night. I was going to watch all the different versions of Zorro that I had. While I prepared for my Zorro marathon, the phone rang."