Back To You // T.K

Tom/Pearl

Tom

'Can you please tell me what Bill's surprise is?', Pearl asked me for the hundredth time, while she finished putting her pink lipgloss on.

We were going to Bill and Jocy's house because he had a surprise for all of us, but mostly for Jocy.
Of course I knew everything about it, and I had known for at least three months, but I promised him I wouldn't have said anything, no matter how much I wanted to tell Pearl.

'Do you know what a surprise is?', I smiled and got off the bed, 'you really have to learn to be patient, baby.'

'I am patient', she protested as she turned around to me, 'I just want you to tell me what his surprise is.'

'That's not really what patient means, is it?', I chuckled as I heard her sighing.

'You're insufferable.'

I bent down and gave her a kiss on the forehead, while I grabbed an envelope from my back pocket and handed it to her.

'You're not going to find me insufferable when you open this.'

'What is it?', she took the envelope in her hands and stared at it, but she waited for me to reply before opening it, - deep down, she already knew what it was.

'An offer for your parents's house.'

The first thing she did with that house was put it up for sale.
I couldn't blame her, - it was torture for her to just go inside and choose what she wanted to take, I knew she didn't want to live in it nor own it.
We didn't take much from her hold house either way, - just some books and clothes, but we left all the furniture there and burned all of the family pictures.
It caused me deep pain to see the hurt her family caused her, but I never saw a wider smile on her lips when she finally got rid of her last memories of them and left that hell behind her shoulders.

'Already?', she whispered, and finally opened the envelope.
When she looked at the offer, her mouth parted and she started giggling.

'Three hundred thousand dollars? For that apartment?', she asked, surprised.
I knew she wanted to get rid of it, but I didn't want her to be left empty handed, so I placed the highest offer I could under a fake name, - not too high, so it wouldn't be suspicious, but high enough so that she could've started to build her future.

'Well, apparently this old couple who wants to buy it have some money they want to spend', I lied, - a white lie.
I would've never told her that I was the one who made the offer because I knew how much she hated when I suggested her to stay at home and study without working, but the smile on her face couldn't deny her happiness.

'Where do I sign?', she asked, looking around for a pen.

'Our manager will call you and send you all the documents.'

'Your manager, Tom', she corrected me as he placed the document on the desk and stood up, 'we've been over this, Kevin is your manager, not mine. I don't want you or your label to pay me, - plus I have some money now, so I'm good for a while.'

She wrapped her hands around my neck and rested her head on my shoulder.
She looked so unbelievably beautiful when she was happy, even more when I was the reason why she smiled in the first place.

'Alright, baby', I said, - I didn't want to insist anymore, but I knew we would've needed her help with the new songs sooner or later, so I would've figured something out to convince her.

Not today, though, because today was special.
For Bill and Jocy in the first place, but for her too, - I couldn't wait to see her face when Bill finally revealed his surprise.