Always Been You | Tom Holland

SIXTEEN

Tom

"Zendaya, you've got to be kidding," I flop onto my bed and groan. "Why didn't Jon call me?" Of course, because Z and I are together, Jon set up a zoom interview with James Corden today. I hate not being able to prepare myself for press. My anxiety is always at a cool 30 percent, and situations like this make it spike at least another 30. It feels like I'm hearing underwater. Are they going to ask me about Y/N? About spoilers? At least I'm with Z so she can stop me from saying anything stupid.

"Because he knew you'd say no," she sits beside me and sighs. "I can call him and tell him you're not feeling up to it."

"No, no don't do that. I don't want to disappoint anyone." I sit up and look at her. "What time?"

"We've got about an hour," she winces. Fucking hell. I hate that I'm a people-pleaser.

"Fine," I push myself up and dig through my closet. "Nothing like doing an interview while incredibly hungover."

Z laughs and walks out of my room, leaving me alone. I just hope this interview is short so I can put my comfy clothes back on and go to bed. I don't even know what to wear. They're only going to see the top half of me, so I guess I'm going with a sweater and no trousers. No way I'm putting trousers on for a virtual interview.

I lay back down on my bed, immediately feeling defeated. I pull my phone out and aimlessly scroll through Instagram to get my mind off of the anxiety filling my body. The first post that pops up when I open the app is from Y/N. It's a collection of pictures from last night, but my finger keeps swiping back to the first picture. It's the photo that Jane took of us while we were dancing. We look genuinely happy. Our smiles are wide and our bodies are perfectly molded together. Our cheeks are pressed together and I swear I can see how hard I'm pulling her into me through this picture. It makes me feel... well, I'm not sure how it makes me feel.

"it's literally not even his birthday."

I can't stop the smile that forms across my lips. God, I'm so fucked.

I can already feel my anxiety kicking in. At least Zendaya is incredible at deflecting questions we can't answer. I just hate lying about everything. I wish I could just talk about Tobey and Andrew in every interview, but I can't. I'm going to feel so much better when this movie is finally out. I feel like I've taken 5 years off my life from the stress of holding in all of these Marvel secrets. I'm already so bad at keeping secrets normally, but now that my job depends on it, I'm just stressed all the time.

I'm also worried that Y/N is going to be brought up. We've been photographed together a lot recently – and it doesn't help that we've posted a lot of the photos ourselves – and I just don't know what to say about our relationship. I guess I could ask her. I hear footsteps walking up the stairs, so I walk to my doorway in my sweater and underwear combo to ask Z if she thinks it'll work.

"Hey, is this – oh, Y/N, sorry... thought you were Zendaya," I'm all too aware now that I'm in my underwear. Maybe I should go with sweatpants or something.

Y/N is still wearing her leggings and sweater combo from this morning – the same outfit that ignited the familiar burning feeling in my chest and stomach. I was so hoping the dress last night was the exception to our frenemies situation, but it seems that my body is going to have a visceral reaction to her every damn time I see her. Fuck.

"T-that's okay," she stands in front of me awkwardly, briefly scanning my body up and down and raising an eyebrow. "Um, what are you doing?"

"Z and I got roped into a last-minute interview, so I'm picking out an outfit." I'm not sure how to stand right now. Do I just act like I'm not in my underwear? Do I make a joke? Guess I need pants for an interview, huh? "What are you doing here, darling?"