“Of course.” It was seared into my brain. “I wasn’t shitfaced or anything.”
I nudged my thigh between Tom’s, the hard length of his dick pressed against me, and I buried a groan in the crook of his neck.
Jesus. Just the thought of it had me shifting about on my stool. I didn’t miss Tom’s smug smirk either. “Oh, fuck off,” I grumbled.
His laughter had me smiling, though. God, I’d missed this.
“Seriously, though. I went to bed with a huge smile on my face that night.”
So had I.
“But the next morning?” I’d woken up with a smile too, but obviously Tom hadn’t.
He went back to studying his pint. “Panic set in. That’s all I think to explain it. I woke up and it hit me. I’d kissed my best friend in the whole fucking world. And he had a boyfriend. Where did that leave us? As far as I could see, it wasn’t anywhere good.”
His words sank in.
Fuck me, was that the reason we’d not spoken in four long, lonely months?
I shook my head slowly. “I didn’t.”
His eyebrows scrunched together in a frown. “Didn’t what?”
“Have a boyfriend.” Shit. All this time wasted over a fucking miscommunication. I hated those more than anything because there was no need for them, and this time I only had myself to blame. I should’ve read the texts. “I wasn’t with Mike when we kissed.”
“But . . . You’re with him now.” He frowned again. “Or you were.”
I swirled the last inch of my drink. “I think we need more beer.”
Tom ordered another round and then settled back against the wall, watching me, waiting for an explanation.
“We’d finished the week before that party.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you were right about him—he was an arsy wanker—and I didn’t want to face your I told you so’s.”
“But you were with him today. And I know for a fact you’ve been with him these last couple of months, at least.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Been checking up on me?”
He shrugged and looked away, but his cheeks coloured, nonetheless.
With a sigh of my own, I prepared to tell him the rest. “I wasn’t in a good place after you sent that text. You weren’t the only one who went out and got pissed. On more than one occasion.” Our second round arrived and I took mine gratefully. “He caught me at a low moment. I knew it wasn’t right, but . . .”
Tom didn’t say anything for so long, I wondered if he was ever going to.
“And now?” he murmured, almost too quiet for me to hear.
“We’re not together. We haven’t been for a while. But we’d already arranged to drive up together, and I didn’t have enough money for train fare.” Catching the bus would’ve taken for fucking ever, so I didn’t bother even mentioning it.
“You could’ve asked me.” He stared at his pint as he spoke, but the tense set to his shoulders told me that I’d hurt him by not asking. Even with everything still shit between us, I knew he would’ve said yes in a heartbeat.
“I could have,” I replied softly. “Should have. But we both know I’m way too stubborn for that.”
That earned me a huff of laughter.
The mood lightened, but there was still a huge fucking elephant in the room, and I figured it was up to me to address it since this was mainly my bloody fault in the first place. Heart hammering, I waited until he looked up at me. “Would it have been different if you’d known about me and Mike?” Would you still have sent that text? Still have broken me?
His long sigh didn’t bode well. It wasn’t the happy “fuck yeah” I realised I’d been hoping for.
“Tom?”
“I—”
“Good evening, gentleman. Your table’s ready if you’d like to follow me.”
We both turned to look at the smiling waitress who had the absolute worst timing ever. But she was full of Christmas cheer, and who could be angry in the face of that?
“Thank you.” I plastered an answering smile on my face, grabbed my pint, and followed in her wake, all the while desperate to know what Tom had been about to say.
Any thoughts of carrying on the conversation once we sat down disappeared when I saw our table. Not that we were overly close to the other tables, but it still felt a bit exposed, like we were under a spotlight. Which was ridiculous, I was sure no one here gave a rat’s ass about what we had to say, but still . . .
As if reading my mind, Tom smiled as he took his seat. “We’ll talk later, yeah?”
“Yeah, okay.” I wasn’t sure if I felt relieved or disappointed.
Maybe a bit of both.
With that discussion tabled for now, our conversation flowed surprisingly well. We chatted about the last four months, catching each other up on recent events while managing to avoid the reason why we had to.
By the time we’d polished off dinner, pudding, and a couple more beers, I felt full, relaxed, and a little sleepy. A yawn caught me by surprise, and Tom laughed.
“Am I boring you?”
I grinned back. “No more than usual.” I stifled another yawn and leant back in my chair, patting my belly. “I need to get these jeans off.”
Tom’s gaze dropped to where my hand rested, and he licked his lips. “Yeah.”
Either it was my imagination or the tension between us had thickened considerably.
“Um . . . I mean, me too.” Tom added, cheeks colouring.
Heart rate picking up, I tried very hard not to read too much into this. But with the way Tom’s eyes kept drifting towards my crotch, it was a struggle.
“Shall we pay and go back to the room?” His head shot up, eyes boring into me, and I stammered out lamely, “To finish our talk.”
“Yep.” His expression was suddenly hard to read, and he didn’t look at me again until the bill was paid and we were getting up from the table.
Unsettled, and more than a little apprehensive, I waved a hand towards the bar, “Did you want another drink first?”
He gave me a long, measured look, and slowly shook his head. “No. I want to go back to our room.”
The roughness of his voice caught me by surprise, and I shivered as he brushed past me and towards the door.
Okay, then.
I followed, almost running into him when he opened the pub doors and came to an abrupt stop. “What the— Oh.”
The snow had finally stopped, but the car park was now under a thick white blanket. Only a few footprints marred the pristine snow, and I wriggled past him to get outside. The cold hit me as I left the warmth of the pub, but I didn’t care.
I loved snow—when I didn’t have to drive in it—and even in a Premier Inn car park off the M42, it was still magical like this. Walking out onto the path, I smiled as it crunched underfoot, only stopping when I realised Tom wasn’t coming. I turned to see him still standing just outside the doors, eyebrows drawn together in a frown.
It was probably a bad idea. Scratch that, it was totally the wrong thing to do, but fuck it. It’s what the old us would’ve done without a second thought, and that’s what we were trying to get back to, right?