ʙᴇ ᴀʟᴿɪɢʜᴛ • ᴛᴏᴍ ʜᴏʟʟᴀɴᴅ

ᴄᴏɴғᴇssɪᴏɴs

Sophie had been pacing the corridor for an hour now. Every time she walked towards toms door she just walked straight back then continued the process over and over again.

"Come on Sophie, get you shit together," she muttered to herself, fixing her hair in the mirror near the elevator, "you can talk to him."

She pushed her shoulders back and strutted down the hallway to toms hotel room, her heels softly tapping against the carpeted floors.

She knocked three times then took a step back and waited for tom to answer the door. Sophie was really hoping that she had the right room or this could turn out ten times more awkward that she originally thought.

"Tom get the door!" Haz yelled from inside. At least she had the right room. There were some shuffling sounds before he unlocked the door and opened it.

Oh for fuck sake, she thought to herself as she looked at Tom in front of her. In nothing but a towel which hung low on his hips, droplets if water running down his body and his wet curls stuck to his head.

Sophie tried her best to keep eye contact and mentally scolded herself when she found herself trailing down to look at his abs.

"We need to talk," She was surprised how calm she sounded, "If now isn't a good time I can come back later."

"No, no nows fine. Eh, come in," he opened the door wider and moved out the way, allowing Sophie to enter. The room was filled with steam that was seeping from the gap under the door.

Tom sat down on one of the beds and Sophie sat on the other, getting a feeling of deja vu and smiling softly to herself.

Sophie scrunched her eyes closed and shook her head, wanting to get back to the whole point on her coming here in the first place.

"Can you promise me that you'll let me say all the stuff I need to say first before you talk. Because I'm scared I'm going to mess this up."

"Yeah, I promise," Tom pushed his hair back out of his faces and shook it a little bit, water falling onto the sheets, before he sat forward, ready to listen to whatever she had to say.

"That night... I thought it was a mistake. I convinced myself that it should have never happened and I ignored that fact that I didn't regret it and thought that if I did ignore it, that it would make everything better."

Tom had a mix of sadness and confusion plastered to his face, which only made Sophie feel more guilty about not doing this sooner. She had ages to and she didn't.

"But, I- um talked to Lorenzo and he told me that he's done things that he's regretted in the past and to this day still wonders what it would be like if he didn't do it, if that makes sense?"

Tom nodded and gave her a small smile so she continued, her hands beginning to shake slightly but she pushed it aside and focused on what she was going to say.

"It made me realise that if I ignored the fact that I didn't regret it then I would probably hate myself for the rest of my life. And then I started to think about how I really feel about you, because I've made myself believe and others believe that I'm over you, Tom, when in reality I think about you all the time and I can't stop thinking about you because I still love you. I've never stopped. Even when I thought that I hated you, I still loved you. Even when I convinced myself we were nothing more than friends, I loved you. And it scared me so I decided to pretend that I didn't, that's why I ran out on you that night. Because I cared about you so much it fucking terrified me," Sophie looked at Tom to see if she could tell what he was thinking, but she couldn't, "You don't have to say anything, this was probably stupid. I should just go."

She stood up to leave but then Tom grabbed her wrist, "it wasn't stupid, Sophie it really wasn't stupid. And I don't blame you for being scared because I made you not be able trust me. But I love you so much, and nothing will change that. When you left that night I cried, because I love you so much Sophie. You're everything I've ever wanted, and I broke up with you because I was scared I was going to ruin it. So I did ruin it. Self sabotage. And I have never, not stopped regretting that."

He brushed a few tears away that Sophie never knew where there. She ran her hand up his arm and to the nape of his neck. Sophie was still a bit smaller than Tom, even if she was in heels, so she needed to lean up towards him.

Not a lot though since Tom leant down to meet her. Their lips brushed against each other before Tom filled the gap between them.

Their kiss was needy. They needed each other. No matter what happened they needed each other. They loved each other.

"I love you so freaking much," Tom said quickly before kissing her again, "I'm so sorry."

"I love you too," Sophie murmured whilst hit tears fell down her cheeks, because this wasn't like the kiss they had that night, no, it was everything she wanted after all this time.

Tom would be lying if he said he wasn't crying a little as well, because all h exile think about in that moment was how he could have had this all along if he didn't just get over the fear of losing her.

The bathroom door opened, revealing a very confused Harrison, "what the fuck!" The two broke apart and looked at the boy standing in the doorway, "what was that?"

"Nothing," Sophie and Tom said in sync. Turning back and smiling at one another.

"What did I just walk in on? How long was I in the shower for? Did I go back in time or something ?"

"You can't tell anyone!" It was like Tom had read Sophie's mind, "don't tell Jacob, or harry, or Sam, or paddy, or anyone!"

"I wasn't going to. But can you guys just explain to me what the fuck that was?"

So they told him about everything that happened. He was annoyed that Tom hadn't told him that they hooked up before but quickly got over it.

"So what does this mean for you two then?"

They both shrugged, "I don't think that jumping right back to where we left off would be a good idea. So many just take it slow, for now?" Sophie suggested.

"Yeah, we can take it as slow as you want to. I'm fine with anything," Tom took her hand in his, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

Later on Tom walked Sophie back to her room, giving her a kiss goodnight. They didn't have to worry about anyone seeing them since it was now three in the morning.

"How about, we have breakfast in the hotel? They have really good pancakes," Tom smiled, swinging their hands back and forth.

"I'd like that."

"Be ready for nine."

"Bye tommy."

"Bye soph."

He walked backward down the hall and waved before he nearly tripped up then decided that walking backwards was probably not the best idea.

Sophie was happy. She was really fucking  happy and she didn't care what people were going to say or what the tabloids were going to publish.

She was happy.