"You!" he said, pointing a finger at Sam.
Mike grabbed Sam, pinned him against the wall and slammed his fist across Sam's face. Adam and Xavier looked over in alarm.
"What was that for?" Sam demanded.
"You knew how I felt about her! You knew!" Mike yelled.
Adam slowly started getting up. He had a feeling things were about to get messy. Xavier met his eyes and nodded.
"I don't know what you're talking about," Sam replied. "Of course I knew how you felt, but I've never even met Anne."
"Liar!"
Just as Adam exited the room, Mike attacked Sam, an act that naturally caused Sam to attack back. Xavier jumped up and attempted to separate the two.
"What's going on here?" Taylor demanded, coming in with Adam by his side. "Stop it you three."
"Hey, I was just trying to break things up," Xavier defended, nursing his eye.
Taylor barely looked at him. He pointed to Mike and Sam.
"Sit."
Adam and Xavier looked at each other.
"I think we should get Mum to look at that," Adam said loudly.
"Okay," Xavier readily agreed, just as loudly.
Nothing more was said until Taylor heard the click of the door behind him.
"What's this all about?"
There was quiet.
"We can stay here all night."
"He attacked me for no reason!" Sam declared.
"Mike?" Taylor asked.
Mike glared at them sullenly.
"We can stay here all morning too. Hey, we can even miss the concert tomorrow, if you want. That should be interesting. Adam and Xavier doing the whole show by themselves. Oh, wait, maybe Rogue and Storm can stand in your places. We can tell everyone that you two have stomach bugs and are too sick to perform."
"He went out with Anne behind my back!"
"I did not!" Sam objected, genuinely stunned.
"Who's Anne?" Taylor asked.
"Anne is... she's my girlfriend. She's one of the fans in the bus that's been following us," Mike suddenly looked like he was going to cry and he fished around in his pocket. "I... I went over to talk to her. I... I wanted to... to... to propose."
"Propose?" Taylor and Sam repeated as Mike produced a ring.
"It was dark... and she... she... she turned and kissed me when I arrived and said... and said... 'I love you Sam'. I pushed her away from me and she realised I was Mike and... and..." Mike couldn't say any more and he dropped the box on the floor.
Taylor sat down next to him and put his arm around him while he cried. He looked inquiringly at Sam.
"I swear, I never even met Anne. The only girl from the bus I ever see is Janet."
"So you fraternise with fanatical fans too?" Taylor asked. "I think we're going to have to talk about that later, all four of you. However, right now we have a problem. For some reason Mike's girlfriend called him Sam, and yet Sam has never met her. So, either Sam is lying, or Anne fantasises about him, or there's something else going on here."
"I'm not lying," Sam said frantically. "I'm not!"
Taylor thought for a moment.
"Do you two think you can act civil to each other for a few hours?"
They nodded.
"Very well. After the concert tomorrow, I want you to bring this girlfriend of yours over, Sam - I can only assume you're dating her," Taylor went on after Sam nodded. "Perhaps she can shed some light on the subject. And even if she can't, I would like to meet my son's girlfriend."
Sam smiled softly and Mike looked at his dad with a tear-stained face as he stood up.
"And Mike? We will need to have a talk about seventeen-year-olds who sneak out of their hotels to propose to their girlfriends, and don't even bother to tell their parents they even have one. If you boys had ever told us you were interested in one of those girls, well, we wouldn't have liked it, but at least we would know and you wouldn't have to sneak around, okay?"
They all thought the matter would be easily settled the next day. However, when Sam showed up with a rather pretty girl, she very nearly panicked when she realised where he was leading her.
"What?" Sam questioned curiously.
"Anne!" Mike exclaimed.
"Umm, hi Mike," she said nervously.
"Anne?" Sam asked. "But you're Janet!"
"Uhh," Janet/Anne looked very uncomfortable.
There was a stunned, uncomfortable silence. Suddenly Xavier started laughing. Everyone stared at him, and then Adam joined in too.
"I can't believe it," Xavier giggled. "You both got played! Oh boy! This is one for the 'I have to remember this so I can tease them about it forevermore' list."
"I'm sorry," Janet/Anne whispered, slowly walking backwards.
They just stared after her (Sam now being the one who wanted to cry). Then she broke into a run and left their sight. They never saw her again.
"I feel like such an idiot," Mike murmured. "I should have known you'd never go behind my back."
"I wished you realised that last night," Xavier said. "Do you realise how much make up your Mum makes me wear to hide this black eye? I figure, if you've got it, flaunt it! Do you realise how many crazy stories I could come up with to explain it?"