Before The Storm

Part 6 - Sweet As A Melody 丰

"Fine, next one; Would you rather say YES to everything or say NO to everything?" Bill squinted towards the beach, it was a sunny day. The boys were fixing stuff for the barbecue we had planned for this evening, while me and Bill decided to go for a walk by the beach. "That's a hard one, I think that I have to go with saying yes to everything". He was biting his lip, thinking about something, he always did that. "Really? To everything?" I said, giving him a sardonic smile. "Everything". I put my arms around his neck and got closer to him. "What if I asked you if I could kiss you, would you say yes then?" He pulled me even closer, now we were just a few centimeters from each other. "Without a doubt, yes", he said and gave me a soft kiss. He opened his eyes and suddenly narrowed his eyes on something behind me. "Scheisse.." he said, grabbed my hand and walked faster. I looked back and spotted three paparazzis taking pictures of us from the bushes next to a ice cream stall. Great. "Wait!" I said and stopped running. "What?" he said as he tried to catch some air. "I need to take off these stupid high heels", I said and took off the pumps. They were already killing me and there was no way that I would run in them. My feet were aching! I grabbed the pumps, took a grip of Bill's hand and we started running again. The paparazzis were lurking right behind us. "Where are we going?" Bill looked around. "A place where we can be alone. If we find one that is". I didn't know what Bill had in mind, but I'm pretty sure that my idea was better than his. "I have a better idea, follow me", I said and we changed direction. We could never get rid of the paparazzis at this moment, there was only one way; Taxi.

The nearest taxi was about 20 meters away from us so we had to run faster or the taxi would leave. Bill was quite fast and he has long legs, so he got to the station faster than me. And me? Well, I may be a fast sprinter but it still didn't help for short people like me. "Wait on us!" Bill shouted and waved to the taxi man who was just stepping inside the front seat. We both got inside the taxi and locked the doors. "Just drive!" Bill said to the man. The man got so stressed of us that he dropped the car key as he was going to start the car. At this point, the paparazzis had caught up with us and were flashing with their cameras all over the place, blocking our way. They were shouting "Bill, who's that? Bill, you got a new girl? Who's that with you? Is she your friend? Girlfriend? Does Bill finally have a girlfriend? Smile! Don't hide yourself?". Bill and I hid under his jacket and waited for the taxi man to start the car. It was a total chaos, all you could hear was the flashing cameras, the millions of questions and voices of the paparazzis and the honking from the car. I can't describe how I felt at that moment. Afraid, nervous, excited, worried, every possible emotion all at once. The thing is that me and Bill wanted to keep our relationship a secret, because we both knew that once our secret would be revealed to the world, things wouldn't be like they used to be. This way, we could have or own peace more or less. And we both know that, there will come one day where we can't hide the relationship no more. But we didn't want that day to arrive just yet.  

"Bill! Bill! Look here!" the paparazzis continued shouting, to my fear, a paparazzi opened the unlocked door and took a strong grip of my foot, trying to drag me out. "Bill!" I screamed and put my arms around him. Bill cursed in German, you could feel his rage. He was stronger than the paparazzi and managed to push the paparazzi away, drag me back inside and close the door. The taxi man who was confused by this event quickly locked the doors. A screech from the car and we drove away, at last. "Ruby, are you alright?" Bill said and grabbed my face gently. You could see the fear in his eyes, his chest was moving fast, breathing heavily and his eyes went from left to right checking if I was good. I couldn't say anything, the whole thing caught me off guard. I needed a moment to get to myself.

"I'm sorry for this Sir this...", the taxi man said in breaking English. "No need to apologize... where do you want to go? Got any ideas?" Bill asked and looked at me questioningly. Where could we possibly go? Perhaps back to our place? That sounded like a good idea. It was a bad time to go somewhere else right now. What if the paparazzis would find us again? "Let's head back home?" Bill nooded his head. "Good idea". Bill moved closer to the front seat to give the man directions to our place while I made myself comfortable in the passenger seat, looking outside the window as we pass by beautiful buildings and people, each one carrying a different story...