Skinny Love

He's Got a Secret

My Sunday was incredibly relaxed. After I unpacked my last moving box, I ran up to the farmer's market, picked up the sequel to my book (along with a few other new stories), and then headed home to curl up with my cat to read. The cliffhanger at the end caused me to immediately start 'The Ask and the Answer' and I couldn't wait to keep reading after work. Tom had also texted me to see if I could go to dinner with him later this week, and we planned a date for Wednesday.

I walked through the doors of the office, and was immediately greeted by one of the other interns. Oliver was a London local who generously had been introducing me to people around the city. He was a tall, skinny guy with blonde hair and electric blue eyes that were always rimmed with square frames. He, along with another intern, Emma, had quickly become a good friend. "Good morning Y/n. Brought you a coffee just how you like it: disgusting." 

Oliver stuck out his tongue at my drink as he handed it to me. Offended, I pushed his shoulder and rolled my eyes. When he smirked back at me I took a sip and immediately felt better. "Thank you, I needed this today." We began walking towards my desk and he kept the conversation going. "Late night?"

"Uh yeah, stayed up late reading the second Chaos Walking book." I sat down in my desk chair and brought my laptop out of my bag while Oliver leaned against the the table. "Geez, you're already reading the second one? I'm barely halfway done with the first. He asked us to start reading those three days ago." I laughed at the boy, knowing he would procrastinate finishing the trilogy and end up having to read all three in one night before our meeting on Friday. 

"I was kind of hoping to be on the third one by now but I got distracted." I leaned back in my chair and drank more of my coffee, becoming happier each second. "Did you get distracted while watching the new episode of 'Keeping Up With the Kardashian's'?" Oliver loved poking fun at Americans for trash television and our love for the Kardashian/Jenner family, even though he watches some show called Love Island. "Oh shut up, you know I don't keep up with celebrities, and that I don't watch TV. I only have one in my apartment because my mom insisted I needed it to keep up with the News. That Kardashian show is literally my worst nightmare."

"I swear you're the strangest American I've ever met." Oliver looked at me like I was an enigma, a complete rarity, like a girl who only likes to read has never been heard of. I shook my head at him as Emma walked through the glass doors. She was a girl of average height, with fair skin, brown, perfectly curled hair and brown eyes. Emma was from Paris, and man did she dress like it. Everything in her wardrobe must've been high fashion and her french accent made her seem more pretentious than she actually was. She had the kindest heart, but knew how to mess around. I had gone out with her a few times, and man did she like to drink.

"What are you bothering her about this time Oliver?" She threw her coat on the back of her desk chair, which was luckily directly in front of me, and set down her bag. Emma had this elegance about her that made her irresistible to any straight man. "Just joking around with her about her lack of pop culture knowledge." 

"So the usual." Emma laughed at my joke and nodded her head before taking a seat. Oliver flipped us off before walking over to his desk across from us. The office was pretty small, as my boss liked to work away from the big corporate office. The only other people who worked here were him, the receptionist, and his assistant. However, most of the time it would be just the interns and receptionist, a girl named Molly, who were in. 

My boss's name was Matt Clooney. He travelled a lot with his family, trying to get them to see the world, and would work while he was out. He always, always brought his assistant Cassie with him so the number of my coworkers would dwindle. We mostly only saw Matt on Fridays for meetings and I was coming to the realization he liked to FaceTime for those anyway. 

After I worked my way through a list of summaries over book applications and decided which plots seemed worth while, I decided to take a break. I always spent my Monday's picking which books I'd read for the week and it took forever, as Matt got a lot of applications. I began thinking about Tom, again, and couldn't help but smile at my desk. I realized I had nothing to wear for our date and began scouring the internet for anything I could get within the two days I had.

After about 20 minutes, I grew bored and decided to look up the Chaos Walking movie Tom had told me about on Saturday. The first article that came up read, "DAISEY RIDLEY AND TOM HOLLAND'S SCI FI DRAMA 'CHAOS WALKING' IS SET TO RELEASE IN MARCH 2020"

I reread it. Does that say Tom Holland? As in my Tom Holland? Well, he is an actor but he would've told me he was going to be in the movie based on the book I was reading. Right? This can't be right. I clicked on the article, and sure enough, there he was. The handsome man that I was swooning over, in a big hollywood movie. Why wouldn't he tell me?

So yeah, I google his name. It doesn't take me very long to figure out the rest. The mysterious man who I had another date planned with is basically the most famous up and coming actor in the world. At the young age of 23, he's already released like seven huge box office movies. Playing his most famous character of Peter Parker, aka Spider-man, earned over a billion dollars during its time in theaters over the summer. I sat back in my chair, speechless, as I started connecting the dots.

The woman at the coffee shop knew Tom's name, not because he'd been there before, but because practically everyone on the planet knew his name, you know, except for me. Tuwaine probably wasn't tagging along because Tom didn't want to ditch him, but instead he was his security. All of the stares I thought I felt, I had really felt. I was just mindlessly walking the streets with Spider-man and I had no idea. Maybe Oliver did have a point about me not keeping up with pop culture. 

I decided to send Tom a text. I attached an article about his movie Spider-man: Far From Home and wrote 'Lying may not be the best way to start a relationship.' I was incredibly overwhelmed. Dating someone of this status would put me in the spotlight and I was pretty sure I didn't want that. I realized we won't be able to go anywhere or do anything without being photographed and I'm sure there were already photos of us together circling the internet. 

Tom replied soon after, "One date and you're already calling it a relationship? ;)" I rolled my eyes at his sarcastic text and put my phone down. I was really battling how I was feeling about this whole thing. I really liked Tom, he was the first person I've had feelings for in years. But being with him would change my whole life, and not for the better. As I sat back in my chair, debating my situation, my phone buzzed again. 

"Let's move up our dinner to tonight. I want to explain." I sighed at the double text and decided to give him a chance to explain to me why he wouldn't warn me about his career. It was the least I could do, and I was curious. Not to mention I already missed his company.