Crumbs (a Tom Hiddleston fanfic)

Burnt/Burned

"Hm." The noise that comes out of me is short, and succinct.  "Let's not go there." My final answer.  She nods, and then tucks her hands into her pockets.  She is the closest thing I have to a girl friend in Maryland, and I know she knows it.  It makes her a little protective of me, which makes me smile.

"I've never seen him at the Ink Pot.  He mostly sticks to his restaur—" Mandy keeps talking, but I almost immediately shut her out.  She just becomes a blurry figure, with a big 'ol moving mouth.

"Mandy." I say, reaching up and pulling my hair into a messy bun.  She stops mid sentence.  "Go and have fun.  I have more to do here.  Thanks for the invite, but maybe another time." I say gently.

Mandy opens her mouth, but then closes it, realizing that I'm not going to budge.  She sighs and then shrugs.

"Okay.  I'll see you tomorrow, Charlie.  How's the cottage coming along?" Mandy moves around the office, grabbing her bag and getting ready to leave.

"It's...existing." The cottage looks almost exactly like it did a week ago, except now there is a queen sized air mattress (the only thing they had left at Walmart), and a folding chair with a matching folding table.  Basically, the saddest thing you can ever think of for furniture in a house.  Yeah, that's where I live.

"You'll get it together." Mandy flashes me a smile and I nod.

"I will.  I'm just going to clean it up and sell it, most likely.  So I have to keep that in mind." I turn toward the computer, and start clicking through my work email.  A few requests for cake tastings, and orders.  Some spam mail from various baking suppliers.  An email from my mother, the subject line titled "Family dinner!!!"  I groan inwardly, but don't open it.  If I don't open it, does it still exist?  It's like Schrödinger's cat.

Mandy is checking her phone, and moving very slowly toward the door.  I wonder if she's going to walk right into it but then she stops dead, her nose practically touching the wall in front of her.

"Mandy?" I frown, turning my chair toward her.  She's staring at her phone.

"Oh my god.  Your imaginary friend...Tom Harrison?" She asks.  I feel something run through me, but I can't quite put a finger on it.  Worry? Fear? Confusion?  It's strange to me that he's a celebrity, and when people mention him sometimes it's because they have seen his work, or have heard his name somewhere, but they mostly likely don't actually know him.  I never think of him that way.  To me, he's just pain-in-the-apple-pie Tom.  The fact that Mandy is mentioning him means she's heard something about him. 

The first time I had let on that he was one of my best friends, she'd squealed for about five minutes into my ear before making a coherent sentence.  It had been pretty funny.  Unfortunately, every time she'd come to visit me in LA he'd been away for work so she has yet to actually meet him. We joke that he's just my imaginary friend.  If I was going to have an imaginary friend, I would have made him far less cheeky, and not quite so obnoxiously good looking.

"Yes. What about him?" I say carefully. 

"Oh wow." She's still looking at her phone, scrolling on the screen with her forefinger.

"Mandy?" I sit up, frowning.  She looks at me, her eyes wide and surprised.  I swallow hard, feeling my mouth go dry.

"He was engaged?" She says, her voice loud in the small office.  Was? Was engaged?

"Yes." I say again.

"His fiancé was caught cheating on him.  She was making out with someone in broad daylight.  It's all over the news. There's pictures." Mandy says, her voice coming out fast and high with excitement.  I feel my stomach drop to my feet, and then everything feels a little fuzzy.  It's like the air has become full of spider webs, sticky and obtrusive.  I can't breathe.