"Sugar in the mornin', sugar in the evenin', sugar at supper time," I sang wiggling my shoulders up and down in a trademark Marilyn Monroe move, hiking up the skirt of my dress just a little bit.

"Just be my little sugar, and love me all the time," Paulie danced next to me, staring out into the audience and smiling like a school girl in love.

My wiggling intensified and my smile widened, "Now sugar time, is any time, cause you're so near, and you're so dear, so don't you roam, just be my honeycomb-"

"Honeycomb!" Paulie echoed into the mic.

"And live in a heaven of love," I sang proudly, extending my arms seductively to the audience and swaying my body like slow ocean waves.

"Sugar in the mornin', sugar in the evenin', sugar at supper time, just be my little sugar," we belted the last word together, jumping towards each other and hugging while looking out at the audiences' faces, our own faces as adorable as we could make them. Whoops and hollers came up from the crowd, excited by our sweet embrace.

"And love me," I sang sweetly to Paulie. He beamed at me.

"Love me," he echoed giving me a fake lustful look.

"All the time," we finished together.

"KISS HER!" someone from the audience yelled. We burst into laughter and everyone laughed with us as the song finished on the piano cheerfully.

Like growing green grass, dollar bills started appearing in the audience as men crowded the stage when they got up from their tables, looking up at us hopefully. Most of them were polite, as they were regulars. I knelt down and looked at them sweetly, like Marilyn Monroe would. "Thank you, darling, thank you, honey, thank you, dearest," I chirped to them as I took their money, stuffing it in my tight dress' top. Paulie was doing the same at the opposite end of the stage, dressed like a lady sailor for some of visiting Navy guys. Most of them were crowded around him in their uniforms, complimenting him and he was batting his long false eyelashes at them and giving them his "oh I'm just a little girl, oh I don't know how to respond, thank you kindly you big man" routine.

As we walked off stage the piano man started to play a light tune that I could vaguely recognize, and I made a bee-line for Frankie sitting in his usual booth towards the back. Paulie made a similar bee-line for Avi who was nursing a rather large beer across the room.

"The McGuire Sisters, huh?" Frankie asked, looking so excited he was like a little kid.

"Are you my little sugar?" I squeaked at him like Marilyn. He wiggled his long pianist's finger at me and I made to bite it. He burst into a fit of giggles. I giggled with him. "Don't you like that kind of music? The McGuire Sisters, the Chordettes, all that?" I asked.

He laughed and I could not stop smiling. It seemed like I would be smiling like a clown forever. "Yeah," he said, nuzzling his nose into mine like an Eskimo, "my mom used to play that music around the house all the time when I was growing up. It was her favorite. I think I heard she was in a small time group like that when she met my dad. She never stopped, I guess. Now I know all the words to every song."

"Did she like Connie Francis, too?" I asked, everything making sense, his love of those pop tunes from the wedding reception a week ago.

"Oh, she loved Connie Francis," he said, his face like sunshine.

"What's your favorite Connie Francis song?" I asked, an idea popping into my head like bubble gum.

"'I Will Wait For You'," he giggled, not at all ashamed to admit it. That is what I loved about him.

"I'm going to sing that for you on stage when I learn it," I promised, looking deeply into his tropical sea-like eyes.

He began to blush deeply, his face quickly turning red like a tomato.

"SAY CHEESE!" a German accented voice shouted at us suddenly.

"Fuck!" I yelled instead, in surprise. A flash of light overwhelmed us and behind it revealed the beaming faces of Avi and Paulie. Avi lowered his camera with a grin.

"I don't know if anyone educated you properly, young lady, but 'fuck' is not the same as 'cheese'. You see, one is a food, and the other can only be a food if you're very very creative," Paulie winked, his hands on his hips.

"Gross, Paulie!" I breathed in a mock faint with my arm over my forehead, falling into Frankie. His arms wrapped around my chest and I sighed deeply, happily.

"Speaking of food," Paulie continued, a smile on his face, "Avi and I were going to get some fried chicken. You want some?"

"Yeah, I could eat," Frankie said, beginning to trace my collarbone with his slender finger. All I could do was purr.

"Ask Carl if he wants some, too," I purred out to them.

"He's not going out dressed like that, is he?" Frankie asked in my ear, the volume of his voice amplified due to his closeness.

"Its okay, they know us at that place," I smiled, cuddling into him better. His arms tightened around me and I closed my eyes.

"You know," he started. My eyes popped open and I looked up at his adoring face. He started to feel up my neck with his finger, tracing it. I melted like butter. "I've been thinking about this 'arrangement' Paulie and Avi have going on."

"Yeah? What about it?" I asked, my eyes going wider. If he was going to tell me he needed to have a similar arrangement I would die. Just die in his arms right now.

"Oh no, don't worry, I'm not going to ask for one," he gasped, looking worriedly down to me.

"I didn't think you were," I lied, trying to make him feel better. It worked and he was smiling again, confident.

"Well, I was thinking. Do you really think their arrangement is fair to Paulie? I mean, Avi is getting married to that woman, what's her name? Paulie is kind of like 'the other woman' now, isn't he? I can't imagine..." he trailed off, thinking about it to himself.

"That's not really for us to decide," I said seriously, staring up at him as he stared down at me.

"Yeah, but..." he seemed nervous, saying this.

"Well, but, Paulie isn't like 'the other woman', because number one, he is a man and number two, he was there first," I argued gently, trying to make sense of it to him.

"But what if..." Frankie said, unsure what to say. I could tell his brain was running like a motor about this. He was clearly concerned for his good friends. It charmed my heart.

"What if?" I asked, trying to help him along.

"What if...Avi falls in love with that woman? They'll be married, living in the same house. They're going to have kids..." Frankie said, the familiar crease between his eyebrow forming.

"Avi is a homosexual, honey. He wouldn't fall in love with her," I said sweetly to him, tapping his nose from below.

"But...don't you think sexuality is fluid? For example, us..." he said, trailing off again, trying to touch a very delicate subject and I let him, not bothered by it at all.

"Yes?" I asked, not changing my sweet tone, letting him know I wasn't bothered by his poke at the subject of 'us'.

"What if he falls in love with that woman like I fell in love with you, for who she is and not her physical...I mean...not because she's, you know, a female...for the person she is?" he asked in a blush, tip toeing like a new fawn on ice.

Oh god my heart. When he talked about how he loved me, it always charmed me right out of my shoes. But I had to focus on what he was actually saying here. My lips parted slightly, and I felt his body tighten at this, one of his favorite things.

"Avi loves Paulie. He's only marrying that woman to extend his family line. That's it. She's from a really good family. He has to do this for his family," I said, nodding to make my words have more effect. I was repeating myself, as I had been all week to him. But he just couldn't accept what I was saying as the truth.

"But what if they found out about Paulie?" he asked in a quiet voice, a scared voice.

I paused.

Shit.

Wait.

I stared at him. Fuck. I hadn't thought about that myself. Was Paulie thinking about that? Or was he so in love that he hadn't thought of such practical things?

I was still staring at Frankie when the double front doors of the club opened and in walked Paulie and Avi, back with the fried chicken. Paulie was holding the bag above his head triumphantly like a warrior after battle holding up the severed head of his enemy. Avi waved to us behind him in his feminine way.

I couldn't rearrange my face to smile back now that they were here. Now that I could see them. What Frankie had just said hung in my head like a bright and bloody chandelier, too obvious and eye catching to ignore.

"What's up, buttercup?" Paulie beamed like headlights on a new car, sliding into the booth beside me, causing me to unhinge from Frankie as we slid aside for him. Avi sat at the opposite end of the booth with another bag of chicken, opening it eagerly.

"Oh nothing, Frankie just asked me to learn a new song," I said, forcing a smile, my heart sinking deeper, because Paulie was just so happy. My mind started to wander into dark corridors.

"Ooh, what song?" Avi asked, passing a chicken wing to me on a paper plate.

"'I Will Wait For You' by Connie Francis," Frankie spoke up quickly, catching on to my falsehood.

"Oh god I just lost my appetite," Paulie joked, pushing his plate away.

"But Connie Francis is so good," Frankie pouted.

Avi started laughing, pushing Paulie's plate back towards him from across the table. Paulie grinned at him, taking it lovingly. Pretty soon, any trace of my conversation with Frankie was lost with happy conversations about favorite kinds of chicken.

But all the time, what Frankie had said to me was in the back of my head. But what if they find out about Paulie? And I could not help but smile fakely, concerned for my dearest friend.