@generousobservationkryptonite Thank you for this challenge
Since Rafael and Sonny would be hosting everyone on Christmas Eve and Amanda and Olivia would be hosting everyone on Christmas Day, Kat and Céline decided to invite everyone over for an informal dinner before Christmas Eve.
Christmas music was playing when Amanda and Olivia entered Kat’s apartment.
“Hi!” She greeted them excitedly.
Amanda set down the peanut butter cookies she baked on the kitchen counter.
Rafael and Sonny were already there, seated on the couch holding hands.
Sonny waved Amanda over and she took the seat next to him.
“Good to see you and Liv made it” Rafael said, smiling at Amanda.
“I had to drag her away from work,” Amanda replied.
Soon after the rest of the squad filtered in. Fin showed up along with Ken and Ken’s fiancé. Munch was the last to arrive. The apartment was crowded, but no one minded.
“Just ordered pizza. It should be here in about 20 minutes” Kat announced.
“And here I thought we were just gathering and not going to actually eat anything,'' Munch added in his usually dry, witty, tone.
“Very funny Munch,” Kat said, rolling her eyes at him.
Drinks were poured as pizza was placed on plates and passed around. There was only light chatter as everyone enjoyed the authentic New York pizza. Once finished, the talking got underway until Sonny stood up.
“Alright. Since we are all finished now, get ready for the greatest romantic story ever courtesy of Rafael, Olivia, Amanda and I” Sonny said.
People fell silent and their gazes fell upon Sonny.
“Great. Raf you want to start?” Sonny said, taking a seat again.
“I have known Olivia a long time,” Rafael started.
“We are very close and that is how I noticed how she looked at Amanda” Rafael said nodding towards Amanda whose face was flushed from all the sudden attention.
“It takes a while for Olivia to warm up to a person and begin to trust them. I could tell she wanted to reach out to Amanda, but I knew that she would keep up a tough exterior until she thought she could trust Amanda. Although I did not know Amanda well yet I was worried this might push her away. I tried to talk to Liv but she waved me away saying that I didn’t know what I was talking about and that Amanda most likely would not be interested in her.”
“And that’s when he came to me,” Sonny interrupted.
“Amanda immediately took a liking to me even though she would constantly tease me. Rafael mentioned that Liv liked Amanda and I decided to see if I could do something on my part. I causally asked Amanda what she thought about Olivia. Amanda was worried that Olivia didn’t like her. I told her that Liv could be a little tough but that was what made her such an amazing detective, captain and friend.”
Olivia gave Sonny’s shoulder a squeeze in appreciation.
“I sneakily asked Amanda if she would ever be interested in Liv in a romantic way. She spat back ‘just because you want to jump into bed with that stuck up lawyer guy doesn’t mean we all want to sleep with a coworker’ Little did she know I was actually with that stuck up lawyer” Sonny said, smiling fondly at Rafael.
“We hatched a plan” Rafael said jumping in
“I would talk to Liv and Sonny would talk to Amanda. We were having an in depth conversation about our plan in my office. However, we did not realize that two certain women were outside waiting to see me.”
Olivia jumped in now.
“Amanda and I heard everything. We could have interrupted them, but we wanted to hear exactly what they were planning”
“That night we went out to dinner to try and decide how to get them back for this. While at dinner we discovered that we had a lot in common and actually did like each other. We thought it would be funny to go on another date but tell Raf and Sonny that we talked while at work and didn’t like each other at all.”
“We believed it at first. Olivia really sold it when she said Amanda told her that she was not interested in her” Raf admitted.
“I bought it when Amanda told me she talked to Olivia and that Olivia said that she did not want to date her,” Sonny said, shaking his head.
“Their little lie unraveled when we saw them holding hands eating dinner at Forlini’s. We approached them. Amanda came clean and told us everything and said they had been dating for a month. Sonny and I were very happy for both of them.”
“We did apologize for the scheming. Liv told us she understood our intentions and was glad that it did work out” Rafael said.
“Well there you have it. The story of how Raf and Sonny’s matchmaking plan accidentally worked out” Olivia said planting a kiss on Amanda’s cheek.
“And I am so so happy it did” Amanda said, wrapping her arms around Olivia.
Kat stood up.
“I think that is a great way to end the evening. See everyone tomorrow at Sonny’s?”
People grabbed coats and scarves as they left, saying goodbyes until the Christmas eve gathering.
Amanda and Olivia left, arms hooked together, following after Rafael and Sonny.
SVU writers and producers: We love bringing back old characters like Brian Cassidy...uh...*looks at smudged writing in hand*
....Fedex Cow Butt, Cashew No vans, Ben Sandal, Joke Match....
