Clothes? Check.
Panties? Sadly. . . check.
Bible phone? Check.
Nerves? Out of fucking control.
I glance around my apartment, trying to think of everything I’m forgetting. I got the job yesterday and wouldn’t you know it, they want me there today. So here I am, frantically rushing around my apartment to pack everything and hoping Tom will move into my apartment so I won’t break my lease.
Also, leaving so suddenly, I have no idea what to do with all my shit. If he stays here, because he’s constantly here anyway, I won’t have to move everything out. I don’t know where this job will take me, or how this is all going to end either, so I kind of have to keep my options open.
Tom walks through my door about five minutes after I get the text from Willa that the driver is on the way.
He yawns when I open the door, staring at his phone. “This better be good. I never get up this early on my day off.”
“I got the job,” I blurt out.
Still staring at his phone, he cringes and then tucks it into his pocket. “Do not ever look at a picture of an erect ostrich penis. You will regret it.” He shakes his head, disgusted. “You got what job?”
“The personal assistant for Shade. . . .”
His eyes widen and then he swallows. Twice. “You’re leaving then?”
“Yeah, like right now. Can you stay here and keep my apartment for me?”
“You mean without you here?”
“Yes, without me. I don’t want to break the lease because I. . . I don’t know where this will go. I just figured you’re here enough that maybe you wouldn’t mind living here while I’m gone.”
He considers it, then nods. “Okay, but before you do it, let me just give you one more thing to think about.”
Feeling relieved he agreed, the good feeling doesn’t last long. One more thing to think about?
I’m hesitant when I ask, “What are you talking about?”
Tom sighs, his shoulder meeting my doorframe as he runs a shaking hand through his hair.
Look at Tom. He looks nervous, doesn’t he? It’s like the time he accidentally opened my grandmother’s urn and then dropped the ashes out on my apartment floor. But this expression is genuine and seems to consume his eyes.
When the ash incident happened, he just looked mortified that he’d dropped her. It might have had something to do with the fact that it was last week, the window was open in my apartment, and the fan was in reverse attempting to draw the August heat out. Either way, Tom felt horrible about it. For an hour at least. The amount of time it took for him to forget the incident.
Granny will forever be a part of Pine St.
Tom attempts to wash it away, blinking, but doing it only makes it that much more obvious that he’s struggling with something internally. “Chose me.”
He said that, didn’t he? What is this Greys Anatomy? Am I his Christina? Or is he thinking he’s my Derek? I’m all sorts of confused, but the blood drains from my face. “Chose you for what?”
“Me.” He points to his chest. “Chose me.”
I reach for my bags but then stop, realizing only partially what he just said to me. “What are you talking about?”
“I really like you and I know it might not mean anything to you but before you take that job, I’m asking you to give us a chance.”
Is this really happening or am I dreaming this? “Are you serious?”
He’s straight faced. And if you know Tom Chase, this isn’t a look he has often. “I’m completely fucking serious.” “I can’t.” His face falls, and I want to punch myself that I didn’t see this coming. I want to wrap my arms around him and hug the poor guy. “You’re one of my best friends, and I can’t ruin that with you because you’re secretly in love with me.”
“I never said love. I said really like.” And then he shrugs, dropping his eyes to the floor. “And you can’t blame a guy for trying.” His pretty eyes raise to mine, smiling now. “Can I sleep in your bed?”
This is why Tom is my best friend now that Mila replaced me for the firefighter. He just told me he liked me, wanted me to give him a chance and when I let him down, he’s onto something else.
“Sure, but no jerking off in it or sleeping with some chick in it.”
“Uh, too late.”
That dirty fucking fuck. He already did.
I LEAVE MY apartment, swing by the hotel and Mila has already arranged my leave of absence from work like the fucking champ she is. In the car on the way to the airport is when it really hits me what I’m about to do.
Sometimes you have to plunge into the unknown and the unplanned to experience life. I learned, and it wasn’t easy, that you can’t live the way I was living. Well, you could, but you’d be missing the spontaneity that comes with the thrill. Nothing compares to that.
Sure, I have a fun life in Seattle and friends, but where is it going?
I certainly don’t want to be a hotel manager, and though I enjoy working at the hotel, I think I need this in my life. I think Shade needs me. Honestly.
Chances like this don’t come along all the time. This is one of those opportunities where you know if you let it pass you by, you would look back on it later and know, fucking know in your gut that it will never come along again.
I once got stuck in an elevator with an actor who came up for a role in a film that didn’t appear too interesting. Well, to me, anyway. Looked like it’d bomb. And believe me, after being stuck in said elevator with this man for two hours, I knew everything about the movie.
I told him, if I was him, I’d turn the role down, but then again, being stuck in an elevator with a guy had nothing to do with advising him on which roles he should choose.
I was simply just his elevator stuck buddy. For two goddamn hours.
Anyway, the actor ended up taking the role because he had this gut feeling, this deep-down wrenching feeling, that the role was one he was meant to play. His muse, he called it.
That role, that movie, ended up topping the box office the first night it was out and sold out for the next two weeks.
You don’t walk away from gut-instinct. You just don’t.
Something in me told me I could make a difference in his life. That guy, the one troubled by the death of his friend, needed someone like me, someone who’d been through the same loss and eventually recovered.