That night, Laurie was on Skype with her best friend and confidante, Kizzy White. She, sadly, lived in Hawaii, so the only time Laurie got to talk to her face-to-face was when they both had the time for Skype. She was also a computer geek, specializing in writing telephone apps, and it was how they'd met. Kizzy was a little on the round side, with curly black hair, black eyes, and chubby cheeks, with a happy personality that Laurie just loved.

They hadn't had a chat in a while. With her brother now living with her, she found herself too preoccupied with other things, basically taking care of Karl, so that she barely found time for work once she got home. She'd taken to going to her office. She had one, not that she showed up there much because she could just as easily work from home. She'd probably shown up there more in the past two weeks than in the past several months.

But Laurie wasn’t on with Kizzy to speak about her brother. She knew he'd snuck out, which was why she was confident enough to make the call at all. Her brother had already invaded every other part of her life, she didn’t want him invading her conversations, too.

"So, what did you want to talk about?"

Even though she asked, the cheeky look on her face made Laurie think she'd guessed. Was her face that obvious?

It probably was. Now that she was on her own in the house, she felt like she could think about herself for a change, rather than worry about what her brother was up to. He'd show up eventually, likely by the next day.

That left Mickey.

"I have a new neighbor," she confided, a wide grin on her face. "This hunk who just moved in next door. Man, I wish you could see him. I've never met anyone that looked so perfect."

Her friend smiled knowingly at her. "So, you're finally realizing that people exist outside of your computer?"

"Oh, please, you're almost as bad as me, aren’t you?"

Kizzy snorted, grabbing a cup from outside the screen and taking a sip from her straw. "Maybe, but I at least get out of my room and don’t stare at my computer all day."

Neither did she. The bike wasn’t just there for decoration. She made sure to go out at least once every week for an hour or so, just riding her bike.

But, considering how things had been recently, her mood couldn’t help but sour.

"I've actually been getting out a lot more recently. Or I wouldn’t have been there to see my new neighbor move in when he did. My brother," she said in explanation to Kizzy's curious look.

"That's right. You told me he was staying with you. How's that going?"

Laurie sighed, her good mood short-lived. Well, she couldn’t think about any one thing without her brother butting in, lately. How could she answer the question, though? The truth would just have her ranting, and a lie would get caught by her friend, even over Skype.

"It's not just that he's staying here. He showed up on my doorstep with a backpack, because my dad threw him out of the house and he had nowhere else to go."

Kizzy, reacting to the anger in her voice, adopted a serious look, putting the cup aside as she leaned closer to the screen. "Did he tell you why?"

"If you're asking about my brother, he said he told my dad he was bisexual. I haven't actually talked to my dad. I'm not even sure I want to, and Karl insisted he didn’t want to talk about him either."

"Would he really chase your brother out for something like that?"

Laurie snorted. "Oh, I believe it. I don’t know what my brother was thinking of, telling him that kind of thing." Or maybe he'd been as stupid as she'd seen him acting recently and did something obvious to clue their father in. "He's a bit of an idiot, but he should have been able to tell he wouldn’t take it well. The man is a sexist, of course, he'd be against something like this."

Kizzy didn’t ask for clarification. Once they became friends, it hadn't taken Laurie long to tell her friend all about her life at home. Her dad had treated her unfairly. She was the oldest, but because she was a girl, he'd decided practically the day Karl was born that he was going to be the one to inherit most of his assets, and Laurie would get what was left for herself and her children. He'd been planning her family before she was even in her teens.

Because of his views, he'd been a lot less strict with Karl as they grew up. Laurie had never said anything, but spoiling him while still keeping him in shackles was probably what threw her brother into his rebellious phase in the first place. It hadn't changed since he was a preteen. If anything, it had gotten worse. She wasn’t allowed to tell her brother what to do, so even if she'd stuck around at home, she was pretty sure she wouldn’t have been of any help.

Also, because she was a girl, she'd had to rely on scholarships to go to college. Her dad hadn't seen a reason why she needed anything above a few community college classes, he didn’t understand her interest in computers or technology at all, so he wouldn’t pay her college tuition. Karl, on the other hand, got a free ride to college. Her dad had called her up, ranting when he refused to go at all, but it wasn’t like she could have changed her brother's mind.

Worst of all, she was angry with her father because he was sexist, yet somehow still got angry when she didn’t even consider joining the military. She wasn’t good for much besides being a homemaker, so she didn’t even need higher education, but she would be good enough to serve her country. Laurie was pretty sure he didn’t even realize how hypocritical his views were.

Aside from her problems with her father, there were her problems with and worries about Karl.

"I really don’t know what to do with my brother, though. He still acts like a young teen with no sense despite being past twenty. I mean, I definitely believed him when he told me, but…" she chewed on her lip, feeling conflicted. "I'm worried there might be more to the story of why Dad threw him out besides his claiming he came out as bisexual. It's just so out of the blue and sounds more like one of Karl's weird obfuscations than anything real. I know I didn’t keep in touch like I should have, as often as I should have, but I did go home at least once a month before I got so busy with school and other stuff."

She wouldn’t be suspecting her brother, but how he'd been acting, and the things Mickey had asked about him made her think too much. She pictured her brother through the eyes of an outsider, and he didn’t exactly inspire a good image. Of course, Mickey would have been worried if Karl was just someone he bumped into out of nowhere.

"It was drugs, wasn’t it?" Kizzy theorized.

"That sounds like Karl," Laurie said silently. And it made more sense than her brother playing the victim.

She'd have to look into this some more. If there was more to the story, she would try to get Karl to tell her what he wasn’t telling her. She would only resort to calling their father if he refused to cooperate at all.

Outside, listening with his mic and watching through the window using his camera zoom, Mickey sighed with relief.

Laurie was smart. She would need that. He could only hope that she would figure her brother out soon, especially if he decided to try out what he'd been discussing with his friend before. But mostly, Mickey sighed with relief because he was now certain that Laurie, despite her computer skills, was in no way involved in espionage. Then he grinned.

He also rather liked that she called him a hunk.