Crumbs (a Tom Hiddleston fanfic)

Take Away & Promises

                "Do you want to go out on the boat tomorrow? I'll take you all around the coast.  It'll have to be after noon though because we're doing an interview with Baltimore magazine at 9:30." He said, his chest puffing out slightly.

                "That's amazing, Chase.  Your family is so successful."  I said, stars practically beaming out of my eyes.  Chase ran a hand through his short hair, false modesty cloaking the darker corners of his personality.  I believed it.  I ate it up.

"Well, not quite royalty, but we're pretty important around here.  And rightly so.  Dad says whoever I marry will marry into the best family on the east coast." Chase pulls me into his side and squeezes me, as if to hint at what's to come.  His voice is boastful, like a little kid who just won a contest.  At the time, I felt my heart leap.  I'd never been around someone like Chase.  He oozed authority, and arrogance.  He knew who he was, and what he wanted.  He also was always under the assumption that he deserved whatever he wanted. Looking back at it now, it just seems insane that I fell for it.  Who talks like that? Who says things so blatantly egotistical and actually thinks they can get away with it? 

"She'll be a lucky girl." I laughed and shyly pushed my dark hair behind my ear.  I'd been wearing a dress that I'd specifically picked out for that evening.  We'd been seeing each other almost daily for a month, and things had been heating up quickly. I wore the dress because Chase had said he liked my legs, and it was a short sundress that barely skimmed past my thighs.

"She will." Chase grinned, the setting sun reflecting off his broad, handsome face.  We reached the end of the pier and stayed arm in arm.  Chase kissed my forehead.  Now, I barely remember what it feels like to be touched by him and not be revolted, not be somewhat frightened by it.  But again, at the time, I was blind.  I was walking through the dark, and completely happy with it.

Chase turned to me, looking down at me with his serious eyes.  His heavy brow was furrowed.  I could feel the heat from the low sun, beating down on my back.  I felt my stomach flip, felt nervousness rush through me. I felt thrilled and scared by my feelings for him.  My feelings for the future.

"You could be that lucky girl, Charlotte.  I don't want to rush things, but I feel like you and I are a good match.  You want the same things as me—a family, roots, traditional stuff.  I want to see where this could go." He said tilting his head toward me.  I remember nodding.  I remember I didn't say anything, because I was too nervous to say anything.  I remember thinking "Why me? Why did he choose me?"  I thought I was so lucky.

And then he kissed me.  Strong, and confident, his tongue pushing against mine in what I thought passion was supposed to feel like.  I wasn't stupid back then.  I was just naïve.  And when he pulled me to him, his arms crushing tight around me, the sun still beating hard against my shoulders, I thought it was love.  Maybe it was. 

****

The moment I knew I was in love with Tom...well perhaps I knew I was in love with him long, long before I actually admitted it to myself.  Long before the night outside the cottage, when he threw Keegan's engagement ring into the bay. In fact, I know the exact moment when my feelings changed.  When the hurt and the fear from my marriage to Chase falling apart, seemed to fade into the background.  When I was almost sure that I could feel my heart pumping again in my chest, of it's own free will.  It wasn't like the time with Chase.  It was an entirely different feeling.  An entirely different experience.

About a year and a half after we'd met, Tom had been away for two months for work.  It was Valentine's Day, and I was at my apartment, eating take out Chinese and watching Netflix, aka a regular Saturday night.  I was exhausted.  Tiny Baker was struggling, both in Los Angeles and in Maryland.  I'd barely been making ends meet in Los Angeles, which meant the storefront in Maryland was getting no extra funding.  My dreams of selling desserts and cashing in on the West Coast were floundering.  I was drowning my sorrows in MSG and soy sauce.