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Loosely contained by formal wear, rumpled and well worn for the extended evening, he doesn’t quite seem real to you…. except you know that he’s actually laying there atop the hotel bed duvet with you. This isn’t some make-believe moment in your head, even if just yesterday you’d been so very sure that he’d never have anything further to do with you.
The plan had been to make an appearance at the event, walk the carpet and smile and pretend that everything in your life was just the way it should be. What did you have to complain about, after all? Just a derailed relationship. Just a broken heart.
Tom inhales, reaching out to brush his fingertips along your upper arm, “Where’d you go, just now?”
Into your head to a place far far away from this moment in the hotel room in the wee hours of the morning.
First trying to bite back the soft smile, you eventually give in and let the smile fully emerge as you flit your attention over his face. “Nowhere,” you answer, “I’m right here.”
His eyebrows knit together for a split second before he laughs, tipping his body closer to test that answer, his mouth quickly occupied with rediscovering yours.
It’s been like this since the diner. Careful quiet conversation punctuated by the intense need for physical contact. In transit, even in the elevator and short walk down the hallway to the door of the room, it had been fleeting innocent contact, both seemingly cautious of one another. Once in the room, though…
Had it been you that started unbuttoning his shirt, or him? You can’t quite remember. He’d been the one to draw up short, of that you’re sure, pulling himself away to pick up the conversation where it had left off.
This time he only pauses for breath, his body tucked close, but you catch the hesitance in his eyes all the same. You reach to try to wipe some of the transferred lipstick from the edge of this mouth, quietly offering another apology.
“Please stop apologizing,” he murmurs, trapping your hand beneath his and pulling it to his mouth to dot a light kiss to your fingers. The frown that had been edging onto his face deepens, knotting up his forehead, “I never should have taken you there. Left you there.”
Ignoring his request, you drift your fingers away from his mouth to his cheekbone, his jawline. There isn’t even a ghost of a bruise left to betray what had happened on the front lawn of your mother’s house. You smile at him as he tilts his head into your palm, “I’m sorry I didn’t warn you sooner. Tell you sooner, what they were like.”
His free hand moves along your side, searching for a zipper or just tracing down to your hip because he can. For a moment he closes his eyes, remains there just breathing, before fluttering those blue eyes open again to find yours. “I had this - this plan in my head. Of what would happen. How I wanted things…”
His focus drifts down to your lips and you think for a moment that he’s going to abandon whatever he’s trying to tell you, tip forward and kiss you again, but he doesn’t. His hand drops further down to flatten against the material at your hips and lower, pressing smooth the layers of shimmering tulle.
I’m sorry, Tom. The words are there, ready to be spoken, but you hold them in place for now.
His features lift, still a frown but not fully. “How much longer are you in Spain? In…”
“Madrid?” You offer up the city he’s mentally searching for and get a nod in return. “Um…”
Rather than waiting for your answer Tom muddles on, “Could I visit? Before you come back here, I mean. Home to L.A.”
Should you tell him you hardly consider it home anymore? That it hasn’t felt like home since he left, after staying with you that short while? That you’ve been thinking of making another big change, that you’re toying with leaving the screen for the stage again, or going right back to living out of suitcases like you had before?
“I’d like that,” you shift a little, seeking out a slightly different position in his arms. “I’d like that very much.” The tension leaves his face as you answer, lifting your head just enough to indicate that you want his lips back on yours again. The smile you’re graced with in return wrinkles the corners of his eyes, lighting up his face as he leans in to obey your wordless request.