Riding My (t.h. x female reader)

Seven - Miscommunication (Y)

10k, warnings: moderate angst

summary: you confess, you listen, you communicate.

☆

"I didn't leave my journal on the couch by accident. I wanted you to find it."

Tom has been staring at you for an hour-long second. It's an eternity lost in such a short span of time, but what's the most aggravating is his eyes. They're wide and curious, furious black with a honey ring in the middle as a mediator for peace.

"What?" he starts, clamping his mouth shut before he looks down at your feet. "Wait, you—"

There's another infinite moment, and you swear his mouth never looked this ominous. Nor was his silence so terrifying. You were so angry just a few minutes ago, enough to make a confession that you've been keeping bottled up for long weeks due to his absence. Enough to bring down the stop sign that usually clogs your brain and makes you hold your tongue. That anger fades into the background, buried under the feeling that you might have failed him too, like you messed up so badly that he won't understand.

"Fuck, this is—" he reacts at last, a boiled gaze creeping into yours. "Why?"

Your only reaction is to do what he does himself, too. You ramble.

"Because, Tom." You take a deep breath. "I love you, right? And I wa—" You swallow, not hesitating but feeling the massive weight of each word on your tongue.

"I want you, okay? I do. It's that simple, but I didn't— I was tired of all the hints, y'know? But I had no idea how to tell you that the girl you met is gone," you say in the same exhale. Tom is still a little shocked, but his eyes soften and his mouth no longer looks crooked. He's serene, loyal to himself, listening to you. "That sounds so damn cliche, but she is. She's gone. And I'm here now. I'm ready. For anything."

"That's, that's fucking crazy," Tom says, rubbing both hands across his face. "Do you have— fuck."

You blink at him repeatedly and try to decipher what the groove between his eyebrows means. Is he questioning your intention? Is he surprised that you put your journal out like that? Or at the fact that you confessed so openly?

"I thought of that, y'know?" he clarifies, and the hollow on his brow dissolves. "I wondered, that day, while I was holding your journal in my hands asking myself what I should do, I wondered if you'd done it on purpose, if somehow you were trying to tell me something, but then you—"

Tom sighs. The breadth of his shoulders yields with it, his pose not as imposing as before. When he looks up, the surprise in his eyes has been replaced by a soothing glow. "You've always been so soft-spoken about sex that I didn't— I didn't realize—"

"I'm sorry," you put in, hands outstretched towards him as if it would make any difference. You retract them back to your sides, tucking the edge of your sleep shirt into your pajama bottoms just to have something to do while you speak. "It's just— some things are hard to say out loud. Especially to you, I don't know. I can't explain it."

"I get it, okay? That's fine, it is, I swear. I just—" Tom's next grunt makes you look up even though there's still a strip of shirt sticking out of the waistband. And you worry in the same second. You worry because he's starting to step backwards with his eyes on the ceiling and his hand over his mouth.

"Shit, now it all makes sense," he says, sort of laughing to himself but glancing down at you again. "That's—" He wipes his mouth with his hand, using his forefinger and thumb to rub down the corners and into the center of his bottom lip. "That's why you weren't mad at me."