(German is now regularly spoken.)
It was ten at night and Laurie was on her Bluetooth talking.
"Okay, no problem. Wait, no! Fourteen of course. Good."
She pressed her phone and turned it off. Bill then walked into the room.
"I officially hate Valentine's Day," Laurie groaned. "Bill, you don't realize how easy you have it. All you have to do is play; I have to do everything else." She walked up to him and hung her head on his chest.
"I hate you," she said kiddingly.
Bill petted her head in comfort. "Don't worry about it, you'll be fine."
"Easy for you to say."
Someone knocked on the door and Bill and Laurie quickly separated. "Come in."
Tom walked through the door and the two immediately lost tension. "Dude, me, Georg, and Gustav are going. You coming?"
"No, I'll leave eventually. You guys can go ahead and go without me."
Tom nodded and left.
"You don't have to stay with me. I'm going home anyway." She picked up her purse and other paperwork. Sometimes she wasn't sure if she was taking the right papers home, or if she even needed to bring anything home in the first time. It annoyed her to death.
"No, you need to eat something. I'll take you out to dinner."
She nodded, "Fine."
They ate dinner considerably peacefully until her phone rang.
"I'm sorry, Bill." She pulled out her phone. "Hello? Oh, hello." She dropped her tone.
"Uh yeah, eight sounds fine. Yeah, no problem. Don't worry; I'll take care of that part. Alright thank you. I'll see you tomorrow."
She slowly put her phone away.
"Who was that?" Bill asked.
"Who?"
"That person. Usually the people you talk to speak English, but this time you spoke German, what's up with that?" Bill just wanted to know what was going on.
"Oh, it was a long distance call," Laurie lied.
He raised an eyebrow. "But you said that you were going to see the person tomorrow."
"Y-yeah, I did. That's because he's on a plane here. We're going to talk about your business in Germany." She avoided eye contact so that he didn't catch her.
"Right…" Bill didn't know why Laurie was lying to him. He didn't want her think he suspected her, but he decided that he was going to keep an eye on her.
OoOoOoOoO
The next day Laurie was avoiding Bill, there was no denying it. Every time he asked her what she wanted to do she'd say she was busy and quickly leave the room.
The real problem was when he realized that his own brother was straying from the subject too.
"Tom, what the heck is going on? She's barely spoken to me all day."
"How am I supposed to know? I'm not her manager. Last time I checked it was the other way around." He carefully tuned his guitar.
"Don't have to be so snappy," Bill commented. "So rehearsal's at eight-"
"Oh, um, I can't go," Tom said in a tone that was both uncomfortable and casual at the same time. "I have something to do."
Bill raised his eyebrows. "Like what? We have a big show tomorrow and we need to make sure the sound check is done."
"You guys can do that without me, or I can just go tomorrow morning. I'm not supposed to miss my… meeting."
"You? Go to a meeting? You're fucking kidding me right?"
Tom said nothing as he continued to tune his guitar.
"Okay, this is getting pretty damn annoying. First Laurie, then you, who next? Georg and Gustav? What the hell is with all these stupid secrets?!"
Tom just shrugged and pretended that Bill wasn't having a minor panic attack. "Yeah well, I'm going to go out. You just keep tuning your guitar or whatever."
He walked out the door as Tom's phone rang. "Hello?"
Bill was about halfway down the office hall when he realized he had forgotten his wallet. "Crap."
He went back and stopped when he heard Tom's voice.
"Yeah, he just left a second ago. He's getting pretty suspicious. Laurie, I don't know if this is a good idea."
Bill caught his breath. Laurie?
"Yeah I know what I said. Okay, I'll catch a taxi and be there in twenty minutes. Fine, but I'm still uncomfortable with whole secrets thing. Yeah, we'll tell him soon though at least." He then abruptly hung up his phone and got up.
Bill scurried away as he realized that Tom was leaving. Bill checked his watch. 7:35. That meant the person Laurie was talking to yesterday was definitely Tom. What was with the all these lies?
He slowly followed Tom and pulled a cab right after Tom's. Bill slowly followed Tom up to Laurie's condo. She greeted Tom and he walked in, but left the door open slightly.
After a few minutes Bill crept up to the door. He was scared of what he would to see. He creaked the door slightly and saw what he could.
His view was bad but he felt he could see what he needed. Tom sat on the bed with his arms around Laurie. Bill couldn't tell what they were doing but they were laughing and smiling a lot.
"You're getting pretty good at this," Tom said.
Bill tried to get a better view when he tripped.
THUMP
"What was that?" Laurie asked.
Bill hurried up and ran where they couldn't see him. Laurie and Tom walked out of the door way and looked.
"That was weird," Tom said. Laurie nodded in agreement.
"God, we only have to keep quiet for another two days." Laurie said.
"Yeah, I can't wait until the secret's out," Tom added.
Bill searched his mind to try to remember what was happening in two days. Valentine's Day. She was going to tell him what was going on with her and Tom on Valentine's Day. He didn't want to be made a fool of though, so he was going to be the one who revealed all he knew.
