Keeping the Secret

7: The Party

"So, IHOP?" a hushed voice asked.

"Yeah, should we wake him?" another, different voice whispered back.

There was a pause. "Um," as he started to respond, Dan stopped himself because Phil opened his eyes. Dan and Tom were fully dressed and about to leave to go to IHOP to catch up. They had both agreed that last night was too awkward with Phil there to ask questions that they really wanted to ask. So instead, they focused on topics like Tom's YouTube career and Dan and Phil's radio career.

Phil yawned and sat up. "Are you two going somewhere?"

"Yeah, well, um no," Dan said. "We were about to wake you to see if you wanted to come to IHOP." Dan was lying. He was about to say to Tom that they should just let Phil sleep in, so he could have a proper conversation with Tom.

"Oh. Of course I want to go! Let me just get ready first," Phil said, getting up and out of bed.

"Okay, we'll go wait in the lobby for you," Tom said. Dan was about to object, but thought better of it because he really had no reason to.

"Yeah, and you should have your room key if you need to go back to our room for anything," Dan added.

Phil said, "Okay, thanks." Dan and Tom left the room and went down to the lobby. It was weird for Dan to not have Phil within 20 yards of him while he was at one of these events. When him and Tom were in the lobby, a couple of fans came up to Dan. They asked where Phil was, so Dan told them he'd be down in a minute.

"Um, I'm not trying to be rude, but who are you?" one of the girls directed a question at Tom.

"My name's Tom. And that's not rude. I have a YouTube channel, but it's not nearly as popular as Dan or Phil's," said Tom. They asked for his channel name, so he gave it to them and they promised to subscribe. The girls hung around and asked a couple of questions until Phil came down. Somehow he had managed to get ready in under 5 minutes and look like he was fully awake and had been for a few hours. The girls then had Tom take a picture of them with Dan and Phil. They then asked for Tom's autograph "in case he ever became really famous," but they all knew they were just trying to be polite.

"Ready to go?" Dan asked Phil.

"Yep," Phil said. Dan glanced over at Tom, who met his eyes. They both knew the other was kind of wishing it was just them heading to IHOP, for the sake of old times, but Dan pushed that thought away. That wasn't a very nice thought, Dan realised, so he quit thinking like that for Phil's sake. It was rude to wish someone wasn't there.

When they got to IHOP, they sat at a booth. Dan and Tom on one side, Phil on the other. After a few minutes, there was a lull in the conversation, so Tom said the first thing that came to mind, "So, anything new with you lads?"

They both shook their head. "The most exciting thing that happened recently was one of our vlogs went viral because "Bigfoot" was in it," Dan said.

"Oh. Um," Tom began, scratching the back of his head, "About that..."

"What?" Phil asked in confusion.

"Are you trying to tell us it was you?" Dan asked incredulously.

"Yeah, maybe," Tom said. "I was going to tell you, but I lost your number. It was for a video I was gonna post, but it didn't turn out too well. Besides, I was enjoying watching the reactions on your video too much to say anything. Wouldn't want to ruin anyone's fun, you know."

"I told you so! Bigfoot isn't real!" Dan exclaimed.

Phil rolled his eyes, "Okay, so maybe this particular Bigfoot was a guy in a suit, but that doesn't mean all of them are."