Hide Your Heart

Let's Talk About Vacation Again--Or Not

The next morning Paul was in the kitchen looking at the travel brochures he had gotten awhile back. "It's time to plan." he said out loud as he sipped coffee.

"Time to plan what?" asked Tommy as he walked in and sat down. "Plan for what?" he repeated. 

"Our vacation. We never decided." 

Tommy held out his hand for the brochures and promptly tossed the one for Spain in the trash. "That's one less to look at." He looked up to see Paul staring at him.                                                     "Not even a maybe?" 

"No." replied Tommy.

"Okay. Let's look through the others then."

Tommy really wanted to go to Ireland but if Paul didn't want to then it wouldn't happen. 

"Do you have a favorite?" "I really do value your opinion." said Paul. 

"Ireland." "It's the only place I want to go." "I have bad memories of the others."

"Would you like to talk about it?" 

"No."

Paul now realized Tommy hadn't told him very much about his last relationship. He didn't want to pry but he needed to know what had happened.

"Thomas, look at me. I need to know what happened. We tour these countries soon but you're telling me you have bad memories of Japan, Russia, Italy and Canada?"

"First of all, don't call me Thomas! Second of all, you asked for my opinion and now you wanna be nosy?" "I swear you're just as bad as Jaime! My opinion doesn't fucking count! You're only telling me that so you can feel better about your decision!"

Getting up, Paul stormed out of the kitchen. "I can find out other ways! Don't act like a spoiled hurt brat!" "No wonder you and I can't agree on this!"

"DON'T YOU DARE GO BEHIND MY BACK!" yelled Tommy as he ran up the stairs and grabbed his keys. "IF YOU DO, I WILL NEVER TRUST YOU AGAIN!!!!"

The door slammed soon as Tommy left. Paul wanted to kick himself for being the cause of it. "I should have left it alone." He sighed as he started opening drawers. The bright blue envelope stood out . "Damn, I forgot this was in here." Laying the envelope back in the drawer, Paul soon lost track of time as he started cleaning. Before he knew it, it was nine at night.

"Where is Tom?"

"Drunk as hell in my SUV." "Passed out in fact." came Gene's reply as he walked through the front door. "What happened?"

Paul told Gene everything that had happened that day.

"So you implied you'd start prying?" Advice?" "Leave the past in the past." "So what if he has bad memories of certain places." "We  all have places we would rather stay away from."

"Gene, we have to tour in those places."

"So?" "If TC feels uncomfortable there, we can work through it." "Now, I'm going to bring him inside and carry him to the bedroom." "If there's no more drama, I'm going home."

After depositing the drunk guitarist on the bed, Gene left.