Always Been You | Tom Holland

TWENTY

Tom

I thought the dress Y/N wore to my birthday party was incredible, but wow, the dress she has on tonight is rendering me speechless. It's hard for me to ignore the dirty thoughts running through my mind. 

God, I really hope tonight goes well. 

"Here's your champagne, Mr. Holland, Miss Walker" our server, Nicolette, arrives with the champagne I ordered for us. She is relatively new, so she hasn't grown accustomed to calling me Tom. "I've put your dinner order in. It will be out shortly." She smiles nervously at both of us.

"Thank you, Nicolette. And please, call us Tom and Y/N." She smiles again and nods before she rushes away from our table.

"I have a question," Y/N asks as I'm pouring champagne into our glasses. She doesn't wait for me to respond. "How did she know my last name?"

"I told them." I hand her a glass. "I always tell them who is accompanying me so they can prepare." I shrug. She raises an eyebrow.

"Prepare?"

"Well, if it's my family... or someone else well-known like Zendaya, or... a date," I choke. "I let them know ahead of time so the proper seating and other arrangements can be made." She seems happy with that response, nodding in silence. "Uh, cheers," I hold up my glass. "To mending relationships and eating incredible food."

"I'll cheers to that," Y/N laughs, clinking our glasses together and taking a sip. "Very good choice, Mr. Holland." I roll my eyes. That is going to be her joke for a while.

"Funny," I sneer. "You look incredible, by the way."

"Thank you. So do you."

We're quiet for a few minutes.

"Tom?"

"Yes?" I look at her over the rim of my glass. She looks... nervous.

"Why are you doing this?" She gestures generally to the restaurant. I raise an eyebrow.

"Because I wanted to take you out," I say. "Listen–"

"Appetizers for you. Careful, they're hot." Nicolette smiles and places plates of food in front of us. She grabs the empty bottle of champagne. "More champagne?"

"Yes, thank you so much, Nicolette," Y/N says before I can respond. It catches me off guard.

"Right away Miss– I mean, Y/N."

I don't think having a conversation about me accidentally confessing my love for Y/N is appropriate to have in public while we're out for dinner. I choose to save that for later.

"When do you start your new job?" I ask just as Nicolette drops off a new bottle of champagne at our table.

"Ah, you remembered," Of course, I remembered. Why would I have forgotten? "The school year starts in September, so I start sometime in August to get my office together and attend the trainings," she smiles. "But I'm going in this week to set my stuff up."

"You seem so excited about it," she does. It makes me happy. "I'm so glad."

"Yeah," she smiles. "I'm just happy to finally be doing a job that genuinely makes me happy." She takes a bite of food and smiles again. "I feel like I can finally make a difference."

"You are going to make such a great impact on those kids." Even in the dim lighting of the restaurant, I can see her blushing.

The good thing about going on a date with someone you've known your whole life is that... well... you've known them your whole life. No need to have the getting-to-know-you conversations. We can just chat like we always do. I'm very interested in Y/N's new career and I feel like I spend way too much time asking her a million questions about it. She doesn't seem to mind, though, and delves right into telling me all about her day-to-day. She glows when she talks about her job.