(no subject)
Will some lovely person make me a Chantelle icon? *bats lashes* It seems I need one.
Title: Hiding in plain sight
Pairing: Tom/Chantelle, with a side of twins gen
Rating: PG13
Summary: One should never lurk in the Cherrytree chatroom, it will lead to headaches.
A/N: It seems that I must write a new chapter in this saga every time something happens. Obligatory warning for het.
In retrospect, Tom would admit that he really shouldn’t have blurted out the first thing that came to mind, his English was clumsy enough on the best of days and picking up the phone when he was ticked off had, admittedly, not been a good idea. He could blame Chantelle for starting the whole irritating mess in the first place though, or maybe Bill for not keeping Tom from calling his girlfriend the minute he had angrily quit the Cherrytree chatroom, where he’d been lurking.
There was a long silence on the other end of the line now, and Tom squeezed his eyes shut in agony and counted back from ten; he’d had enough experience with girls (and Bill) to know that trying to say anything else would only make things worse.
“What do you mean, I talk too much?“ Chantelle said at last, in a small voice, and Tom cringed and wished for the first time that she was the type to fly off the handle and into a rage. He could deal with that sort of person. He had no clue what to do with a girl who sounded genuinely upset.
“I watched the Cherrytree chat just now.”
Chantelle laughed nervously. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he said, irritated. “And I really should’ve just stayed out of it. Like you should’ve.”
“Why?” she asked, and an edge of defensiveness was creeping into her voice now. “It was all in good fun, no harm done.”
“No harm?” Tom exclaimed. “You know we have a stalker problem, it’s the whole reason you and I went out that first time, and you go and tell everyone that we’re coming to LA!”
“I didn’t break the news!” Chantelle cried. “Martin told everyone and their mom that you were coming--”
“Martin! Don’t get me started,” Tom snapped. He sighed deeply. “Look, I thought I told you--”
“Yeah, well, maybe I didn’t understand you then!” she retorted, and Tom thought that was a low blow.
He scowled at the phone. “You shouldn’t have told everyone about our private business and you know it.” The implications stung.
“I didn’t tell them anything private!” she protested, and he could tell she was hurt then, could hear it in her voice. “I’d never, Tom!”
“You told them we were coming to LA, that we’d be meeting up--”
“I thought they were supposed to know that, David said--”
“Fuck David!” Tom said with feeling.
She gasped. “Tom, don’t--”
“I told you I didn’t want to do this stupid PR thing anymore, I just wanted to meet you and finally introduce you to my brother--”
“But what else was I supposed to tell them?”
“Nothing,” he said roughly. “You shouldn’t have said anything at all!”
“Yeah, well, neither should you! Not like this!” Chantelle cried, and her voice broke on the last word. “Bye, Tom!” and then she hung up, leaving Tom to stare, dumbstruck, at the phone in his hand, which beeped feebly.
No girl had ever hung up on him.
“You know, you really shouldn’t yell at her,” a sage voice said from behind him. “She doesn’t deserve this just because she made a stupid newbie mistake.”
Tom turned his head to glare at his twin, who stood in the doorway to the kitchen, tapping his palm with a spatula. “Stay out of this! I can only deal with one drama queen at a time!”
“You said she was a nice girl,” Bill reminded him, smirking faintly. “Didn’t sound like a drama queen to me at all, from what you told me, and I should know, don’t you think?”
Tom glared harder. He wasn’t at all inclined to see reason yet, especially not Bill’s peculiar sort of reason. He’d thought he and Chantelle had come to an agreement, he’d thought they’d decided to keep their budding relationship under wraps from now on, and the fact that she’d go and blabber about it after the spectacular nights they’d had together, after hundreds of increasingly private e-mails, countless text messages and daily phone calls… Well. He didn’t like it.
“She made a mistake,” Bill repeated gently. “Maybe there’s even a good reason. Have you asked her?”
“What reason could there be? Common sense should tell her--”
“Oh, please! Remember all the stupid shit we did when we were new at this? Remember that drunken interview? Das ist gelooooogen!” he imitated Tom’s inebriated stupor.
Tom winced. “But--”
Bill held up the spatula like a scepter with all the air of a king about to throw the pearls of his wisdom to his inferiors. “I know you’re hurt--”
“I’m not hurt!” Tom protested.
“…but that’s because you really like this girl, and if you really like her, you’d better work this out,” Bill suggested. He nodded decisively and smiled. “And now excuse me, I have to go see to my potatoes au gratin.” He sauntered off and closed the kitchen door behind him.
“Potatoes au gratin?” Tom called after him. There was no reply. Tom stared very hard at the door, then at the phone, which he was still clutching in his fist. He pressed a few buttons and scrolled through names and numbers until he found the one he was looking for.
Call ‘Chantelle’ the display suggested. The girl smiled at him from the small, pixely picture which he’d snapped with the phone. She wasn’t wearing make-up and her hair was still damp after a long, shared bath, but she looked prettier than in any of the glossy promo shots Tom had seen of her since. It had been the morning after their first date, at the Chateau Marmont, and he didn’t want to stop looking into her smiling eyes.
He’d dialed her number again before he knew it.
It took a while until Chantelle picked up. “Hello?” she said softly, hesitantly, and Tom could tell that she’d been bracing herself for this call just like he.
“Hey,” he said uneasily. His stomach churned. Better to get right to it, get it all out before it made him feel sick. “Look, I didn’t mean you talked too much, okay? Not really, not like that.”
“But?” Chantelle asked. “What did you mean to say?”
Tom sighed. “I need to think.”
“About what?”
“How to say this right.”
“Oh. Okay.” She seemed to perk up a little at that; she was used by now to waiting and hearing him out while he fumbled for the right words, and he suspected she actually enjoyed it quite a bit when he took a moment to put some thought into what he said to her.
Tom leaned back into the couch, closed his eyes and pictured Chantelle’s face: her twinkling eyes, the dimples in her cheeks when she smiled, the way she blushed pink when he whispered naughty things in her ear. Getting this right was hard; staying calm even harder. “You know sometimes the things I say come out wrong. Like before?”
“Yeah?” she said hopefully.
“They come out wrong because I’m nervous or tired or so damn hot for you that I can’t think straight, okay?”
He knew she smiled then; he could hear it in her voice. “Yeah, I know. Okay.”
“I was angry. I’m sorry.”
“But why were you angry?”
“Because I don’t want to do it like that anymore, telling everyone what we’re doing before we’re even doing it. I don’t care what David says. I want you to myself, okay? I want this to be our thing, no one else’s. I thought we agreed.”
“Yeah,” Chantelle said quietly. “We did.”
“Good.” Tom took a deep breath and continued, as gently as he knew how, “So why’d you say all that stuff in a public chat room?”
There was a small pause of hesitation in which he listened to her erratic breathing and knew, without the shadow of a doubt, that those beautiful blue eyes would be cloudy and wet if he could be there to see them. “Maybe I wasn’t thinking straight either,” she whispered.
He shifted restlessly. “Why’s that?”
“Because I was so…so…”
“So, what?” he prompted.
Chantelle drew a wet, shaky breath. “Oh, this is hard. Scared. Excited. Scared.”
He furrowed his brow. “Scared? Why?”
She sighed. “You know when you have to keep a big secret? And it’s all you can think about, and you can’t stop blabbering for fear of someone noticing that there’s something you’re not saying?”
Tom didn’t quite follow. “Um, yeah?”
“It was kinda like that,” she said sheepishly. “They kept asking me questions, and I just said the first silly thing I could think of because I couldn’t tell them how we…I…”
“You, what?” Tom asked, smiling.
For a few long moments, Chantelle didn’t reply. “I don’t want to do this over the phone,” she said then, so quietly that he could barely hear her over the giddy laugh that bubbled out of him with sudden, liberating joy. Finally, he was enjoying this conversation.
“Do what over the phone?”
She huffed softly. “Tell you important things.”
“Like?”
“Oh, shut up!”
“Now you’re telling me I shouldn’t talk?”
Chantelle laughed then. “I couldn’t tell them what’s really going on between us, now could I?”
It was a testament to how much he cared for her that he didn’t feel the instant, desperate urge to redirect the conversation, that he, in fact, smiled to himself, curiously, and encouraged her to speak. “What is going on between us?”
“Tom,” she pleaded with him. “Can it wait until we see each other?”
“No?”
She seemed to dither for a moment. “I really like you,” she said, and the words tumbled out in a rush as if they’d been at the tip of her tongue for a long time. “Not just as a friend, not even as a friend with benefits, even though you’re mean, making me say this when I can’t see your face.” Her breath hitched. “I’m falling in love with you.”
Tom rubbed a hand over his brow. His head felt hot, like her words had gone straight under his skin, right into his blood. His heart thumped in his chest, and once again, he didn’t know what to say.
“Tom?” she prompted, and her voice wavered sweetly with nerves. “Are you still there?”
He swallowed hard. “Yes.”
“This wasn’t how I pictured it,” she said regretfully. “Are you mad?”
“No,” he protested. “How’d you picture it?”
“Ideally?”
“Yeah?”
“After a romantic dinner, in bed, with candles and flowers everywhere and you inside me,” she whispered.
It took him a moment to gather his composure enough to speak. “Uh. Yeah. Nice,” he forced out. His tongue felt heavy, as if he was drunk on some exquisite, ages-old liquor. “But we don’t need candles and flowers and all that stuff.”
“It would’ve been nice though,” Chantelle said tartly.
“Sure,” he hurried on, “but we don’t need it. Except, you know, the me being inside you part.”
That garnered a small laugh. “I thought you’d like that.”
“Oh yeah,” he agreed. “But that’s not all I want from you either, sweetheart, okay? Trust me.”
“What are you saying?”
Tom chewed on his lip. “I don’t know yet. I need to think about it. I’ll tell you when we see each other, okay?”
“That’s not fair.” He could practically hear her pout, her full, pink bottom lip sticking out, waiting for him to nibble at it. How’d she described the scene - a romantic dinner, flowers and candles, him inside her…
He shifted again as his body reacted to the mental image. “But I want to get it right. Let me try, okay? When I get there.”
“Okay then,” she said softly. “I should go to bed.”
Tom listened very closely. “You okay?”
“Yes,” Chantelle assured him. “I’ll be better when you get here and we can talk, but, yes. I’ll see you soon?”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “I can’t wait.”
“Me neither. I miss you.” She laughed a bit. “It’s easier when we’re together, huh?”
“Yeah,” Tom agreed. “Soon. Good night, baby.”
“Good, uh, morning?” she replied, laughing. “Say hi to Bill, okay? Love you.”
She’d hung up before Tom could reply. Not that he would’ve known how to reply. His whole world seemed changed somehow, even though he was still lying on the same old couch in the same old room when he opened his eyes. His heart was pounding in his chest, and he stared at his phone and felt totally out of his depth. Three days until they were leaving for California. The thought wasn’t terrifying, but definitely daunting. It was time, Tom thought, to come up with some really good words. The right words.
He considered for a few moments. Then, he called out, “Bill?”
“Hmm?” Bill’s voice came from the kitchen, where he was still cooking up some early morning dinner that would no doubt be inedible and would result in them having pizza delivered once again.
Tom sat up on the couch and braced himself for what he was about to do. “I need help.”
“With what?” Bill asked distractedly.
Tom took a deep breath. “Chantelle.”
A spoon clattered on a marble countertop, and then Bill was sitting next to Tom on the couch, apparently having figured out at last how to teleport, which he’d wanted to learn since they’d seen it on TV when they were six, or maybe it was just that Tom had his face hidden in his hands and so hadn’t actually seen him hurry over. He tugged at Tom’s wrists. “Oh, look at me, you can’t have fucked up that badly in such a short time.”
Tom’s cheeks burned. He dropped his hands and reluctantly faced his twin. Bill’s eyes were shining, and Tom couldn’t help but smile at his brother’s eager expression. Bill had waited a long time for this moment, which he’d predicted would come with unfailing accuracy even when Tom hadn’t believed it himself. Well. At least one of them would be enjoying this.
“No,” he started hoarsely, “I just need help figuring out how to tell Chantelle that I…that I…”
Bill nodded maniacally. “Yes? Yes?”
Tom felt his face grow hot, which was stupid because this was Bill he was talking to and they could tell each other everything, but somehow Tom felt vulnerable in his uncertainty. He’d never done this before, never, not like this. “I really, really like her.”
Bill flailed with excitement for three seconds, then pulled himself together with what looked like an enormous effort and affected a sober look. “Tell me all about it,” he said prayerfully, in a hushed voice.
Tom frowned. “That’s all there is to tell. I really, really like her, and I need to figure out how to tell her that."
Bill rolled his eyes like a teacher handing back Tom’s mistake-riddled homework. “Okay, first of all, you don’t just mean you really really like fucking her, do you?”
“No,” Tom protested. “Well, I do, but that’s not the point.”
“And what is the point?” Bill asked eagerly.
“That I like her. Sex and all that aside,” Tom shrugged. “How do you tell someone that without sounding like a total idiot?”
Bill beamed as if he was the golden Buddha on their front lawn and Tom was the lost spirit to be guided towards the light. “Oh, there are ways. Good ways. Great ways. But let’s start easy. Tell me.”
Tom blinked. “Tell you what?”
Bill nudged him impatiently. “That you love me, idiot.”
“What? No!” Not that it wasn’t true, but Tom had always felt that declarations of feeling between them were unnecessary, and if Bill insisted on having them, they were still reserved for special occasions, like the moments right before and after vocal cord surgery and other such life-and-death situations.
Bill huffed. “If you can’t even tell me, how are you going to tell someone else?”
“That’s what I’m wondering.”
“Aw,” Bill said fondly. He patted Tom’s head. “You’re emotionally stunted, I know, but you can’t just keep Chantelle guessing like you do me--”
“I do not keep you guessing,” Tom protested, offended. “Just because I don’t say it doesn’t mean I don’t show it.”
“I know,” Bill said quickly, “but you can’t blame her for not quite understanding you the way I do.”
Tom nodded thoughtfully. That was true.
“And really, the way you show love can be weird sometimes. No offence.”
“Weird? When?” To Tom, it was always clear as day.
“Oh, let’s see.” Bill counted them out on his fingers. “When you tell me my hair looks stupid. When you tell me I can’t sing. When you hit me over the head to wake me up at night to cuddle. When--”
“But you know I don’t mean it!”
“Yeah, I do, but she doesn’t.”
“I’ve never told her her hair looks stupid. And I don’t do anything but nice things to her in bed.”
Bill raised an eyebrow. “I should hope so.”
“Can’t that be enough?” Tom asked despairingly. “That I, uh, make love to her whenever we’re together?”
“Sure. If that’s enough for her,” Bill shrugged. “Do you think it’s enough for her?”
Tom ducked his head. “No.”
“Can’t blame her for not understanding that you taking her to bed is meant to show deep emotion,” Bill nodded. He crossed his legs, laid his hand on Tom’s shoulder and made himself comfortable on the couch as he warmed to his topic. “And besides, you know true love doesn’t need to have anything to do with sex at all.”
Yes, Tom knew that. He’d depended on it for most of his adult life, kept his physical desires entirely separated from his emotional needs, and it had always worked out fine. He shook his head. He’d always known that mixing the two would lead to trouble.
“What’s bothering you?” Bill asked softly.
Tom pulled at his lip ring with his teeth. “Just…Why does this have to be so hard? I don’t want to get it wrong and mess things up.”
“Stop that, it’s just going to get infected.” Bill tapped his brother’s lower lip with one finger. “You can’t get it wrong if you show her what’s truly in your heart--”
“Oh, god!”
“--and why you’re so afraid of opening up, I have no idea, because I have certainly never rejected your love, and with all your girls it was you doing the rejecting, so. What is it? Mom and dad? Because I think it might be time to get over that.”
Tom picked at a loose thread in the seam of his shirt. He chewed on his lip. “Yeah, I know.”
“I’d tell her for you,” Bill offered, “just like in school, but that might look a little silly.”
Tom considered this a moment, remembering eleven-year-old Bill, with his uneven eyeliner and weird hair delivering little notes to Tom’s sixth grade crush, Julia. He laughed. “Yeah. Just a little.”
“I would, though,” Bill assured him. “Just so you know.”
“Thanks,” Tom smiled. “What’d you tell her? If, you know, we decided to take that approach.”
“I’d tell her that you haven’t been your grumpy old self ever since you met her because you’ve been walking on pink clouds,” Bill teased. “I’d tell her how your face lights up when she calls and how you moan her name when you jerk off in the shower… Ow!”
“Shut up!” Tom rubbed his fist, which had connected unpleasantly with Bill’s bony shoulder. “I do not moan her name!”
“You do,” Bill grinned. “Haven’t you realized? Ha, that makes it even better! Aw!” He wrung his hands gleefully. “You’ve got it so bad!”
“Shut up!” Tom repeated lamely. His head felt as if his braids had caught fire and he was slowly being swallowed up by flames from the scalp down. “You’re supposed to help me! At this rate, I’m going to be even more tongue-tied when I meet her!”
“I think you must’ve done pretty well with her all on your own because she keeps calling and the calls keep getting longer, so you can’t have made a total ass of yourself. You can do this.”
Tom leaned over, braced his elbows on his thighs and studied his toes. Drawing shallow breaths was easier with his head between his knees. His stomach felt weird; his pulse was throbbing hotly in his gut, as if his heart had slipped and ended up who-knows-where. “In English? I don’t know.”
“I do,” Bill said without the shadow of a doubt. He reached out and hugged Tom, his cheek coming to rest between Tom’s shoulderblades. “You only need to let yourself.”
“You think?”
“Yeah,” Bill nodded against Tom’s back. “I love you. If things don’t work out, I’ll always be here for you. Don’t worry.”
“Hmph,” Tom made uncertainly.
Bill slid off the couch to kneel between his twin’s feet. He cradled Tom’s burning face in his cool palms so he could look up, amused, into Tom’s doubtful eyes. “Seriously now, Tom, you’ve charmed a thousand girls. How’s she any different?”
“I don’t know, she just is,” Tom said. “With all the others, I could just say whatever because it didn’t really matter if they liked me or not, I didn’t care about them so I didn’t mind if they didn’t really care about me, but Chantelle… I met her when all that crazy shit was going down, and she never judged me for it, she was sweet and kind and it’s so… I can’t get enough of it. When I’m with her, everything just sort of slows down and goes quiet and I feel like I can breathe again, like all the pressure just goes away, and I don’t care anymore what anyone thinks of me as long as she’ll just like me, because when I hold her, I never want to let go again and I wish I didn’t have to.” He gulped for breath. His head spun. He didn’t even know what had just poured out of him, but somehow he felt better for it. Lighter. He looked back at Bill and found his brother smiling at him.
“So there you have it,” Bill said, pleased. He patted Tom’s cheek fondly. “That’s what you tell her.”
“What?” Tom asked dumbly.
Bill laughed. “All that you just told me.”
“How am I supposed to repeat that?”
“You could condense it a little,” Bill allowed. “Maybe just tell her the last bit.”
Tom squinted doubtfully. “What last bit?”
“When you hold her, you never want to let go again. And you wish you didn’t have to,” Bill reminded him. He tapped his fingers against Tom’s cheek. “Hmm. I like that. I need to write that down.” He beamed at his twin. “Well done, you! I was starting to think I had gotten all the brain cells, but there is poetry in you after all… Ow, ow, ow!”
Tom enjoyed his brother’s pained yelping for a few moments until he stopped twisting Bill’s wrists and let go. “Don’t tell anyone.”
Bill rubbed at his arms, pouting. “Why do you insult me?”
“Sorry,” Tom grinned.
Bill gave him a disgruntled look. “Chantelle is such a lucky girl.”
“Yup,” Tom agreed, and he could almost believe it now. He’d have to make some arrangements…candles and flowers, just as she’d wanted, and maybe some bath bubbles. He smiled a small, slightly wicked smile. “What happened to your potatoes au gratin?”
Bill slapped his forehead. “Shit!” He jumped up and rushed into the kitchen, where he caused a loud clatter, accompanied by colorful swearing and finally a squeak of pain. “Ahh! Help!”
Tom shuffled over and leaned against the doorframe, watching his twin cradle his burned hand to his chest while he hopped around the kitchen on one leg, as if that would somehow alleviate the pain. “See, that’s what happens when you try fancy,” he teased.
“Did I tell you that when you asked me for help?” Bill scoffed.
No; thankfully, he hadn’t. And he hadn’t laughed or teased either when Tom had put his heart on display, so perhaps, Tom thought, grinning, he should take mercy on Bill. After all, the weirdo hopping through the kitchen like the Easter Bunny on amphetamines was still his favorite person in the world. “Come on,” he smiled, “let’s get you an ice pack.”
***
Title: Hiding in plain sight
Pairing: Tom/Chantelle, with a side of twins gen
Rating: PG13
Summary: One should never lurk in the Cherrytree chatroom, it will lead to headaches.
A/N: It seems that I must write a new chapter in this saga every time something happens. Obligatory warning for het.
In retrospect, Tom would admit that he really shouldn’t have blurted out the first thing that came to mind, his English was clumsy enough on the best of days and picking up the phone when he was ticked off had, admittedly, not been a good idea. He could blame Chantelle for starting the whole irritating mess in the first place though, or maybe Bill for not keeping Tom from calling his girlfriend the minute he had angrily quit the Cherrytree chatroom, where he’d been lurking.
There was a long silence on the other end of the line now, and Tom squeezed his eyes shut in agony and counted back from ten; he’d had enough experience with girls (and Bill) to know that trying to say anything else would only make things worse.
“What do you mean, I talk too much?“ Chantelle said at last, in a small voice, and Tom cringed and wished for the first time that she was the type to fly off the handle and into a rage. He could deal with that sort of person. He had no clue what to do with a girl who sounded genuinely upset.
“I watched the Cherrytree chat just now.”
Chantelle laughed nervously. “Yeah?”
“Yeah,” he said, irritated. “And I really should’ve just stayed out of it. Like you should’ve.”
“Why?” she asked, and an edge of defensiveness was creeping into her voice now. “It was all in good fun, no harm done.”
“No harm?” Tom exclaimed. “You know we have a stalker problem, it’s the whole reason you and I went out that first time, and you go and tell everyone that we’re coming to LA!”
“I didn’t break the news!” Chantelle cried. “Martin told everyone and their mom that you were coming--”
“Martin! Don’t get me started,” Tom snapped. He sighed deeply. “Look, I thought I told you--”
“Yeah, well, maybe I didn’t understand you then!” she retorted, and Tom thought that was a low blow.
He scowled at the phone. “You shouldn’t have told everyone about our private business and you know it.” The implications stung.
“I didn’t tell them anything private!” she protested, and he could tell she was hurt then, could hear it in her voice. “I’d never, Tom!”
“You told them we were coming to LA, that we’d be meeting up--”
“I thought they were supposed to know that, David said--”
“Fuck David!” Tom said with feeling.
She gasped. “Tom, don’t--”
“I told you I didn’t want to do this stupid PR thing anymore, I just wanted to meet you and finally introduce you to my brother--”
“But what else was I supposed to tell them?”
“Nothing,” he said roughly. “You shouldn’t have said anything at all!”
“Yeah, well, neither should you! Not like this!” Chantelle cried, and her voice broke on the last word. “Bye, Tom!” and then she hung up, leaving Tom to stare, dumbstruck, at the phone in his hand, which beeped feebly.
No girl had ever hung up on him.
“You know, you really shouldn’t yell at her,” a sage voice said from behind him. “She doesn’t deserve this just because she made a stupid newbie mistake.”
Tom turned his head to glare at his twin, who stood in the doorway to the kitchen, tapping his palm with a spatula. “Stay out of this! I can only deal with one drama queen at a time!”
“You said she was a nice girl,” Bill reminded him, smirking faintly. “Didn’t sound like a drama queen to me at all, from what you told me, and I should know, don’t you think?”
Tom glared harder. He wasn’t at all inclined to see reason yet, especially not Bill’s peculiar sort of reason. He’d thought he and Chantelle had come to an agreement, he’d thought they’d decided to keep their budding relationship under wraps from now on, and the fact that she’d go and blabber about it after the spectacular nights they’d had together, after hundreds of increasingly private e-mails, countless text messages and daily phone calls… Well. He didn’t like it.
“She made a mistake,” Bill repeated gently. “Maybe there’s even a good reason. Have you asked her?”
“What reason could there be? Common sense should tell her--”
“Oh, please! Remember all the stupid shit we did when we were new at this? Remember that drunken interview? Das ist gelooooogen!” he imitated Tom’s inebriated stupor.
Tom winced. “But--”
Bill held up the spatula like a scepter with all the air of a king about to throw the pearls of his wisdom to his inferiors. “I know you’re hurt--”
“I’m not hurt!” Tom protested.
“…but that’s because you really like this girl, and if you really like her, you’d better work this out,” Bill suggested. He nodded decisively and smiled. “And now excuse me, I have to go see to my potatoes au gratin.” He sauntered off and closed the kitchen door behind him.
“Potatoes au gratin?” Tom called after him. There was no reply. Tom stared very hard at the door, then at the phone, which he was still clutching in his fist. He pressed a few buttons and scrolled through names and numbers until he found the one he was looking for.
Call ‘Chantelle’ the display suggested. The girl smiled at him from the small, pixely picture which he’d snapped with the phone. She wasn’t wearing make-up and her hair was still damp after a long, shared bath, but she looked prettier than in any of the glossy promo shots Tom had seen of her since. It had been the morning after their first date, at the Chateau Marmont, and he didn’t want to stop looking into her smiling eyes.
He’d dialed her number again before he knew it.
It took a while until Chantelle picked up. “Hello?” she said softly, hesitantly, and Tom could tell that she’d been bracing herself for this call just like he.
“Hey,” he said uneasily. His stomach churned. Better to get right to it, get it all out before it made him feel sick. “Look, I didn’t mean you talked too much, okay? Not really, not like that.”
“But?” Chantelle asked. “What did you mean to say?”
Tom sighed. “I need to think.”
“About what?”
“How to say this right.”
“Oh. Okay.” She seemed to perk up a little at that; she was used by now to waiting and hearing him out while he fumbled for the right words, and he suspected she actually enjoyed it quite a bit when he took a moment to put some thought into what he said to her.
Tom leaned back into the couch, closed his eyes and pictured Chantelle’s face: her twinkling eyes, the dimples in her cheeks when she smiled, the way she blushed pink when he whispered naughty things in her ear. Getting this right was hard; staying calm even harder. “You know sometimes the things I say come out wrong. Like before?”
“Yeah?” she said hopefully.
“They come out wrong because I’m nervous or tired or so damn hot for you that I can’t think straight, okay?”
He knew she smiled then; he could hear it in her voice. “Yeah, I know. Okay.”
“I was angry. I’m sorry.”
“But why were you angry?”
“Because I don’t want to do it like that anymore, telling everyone what we’re doing before we’re even doing it. I don’t care what David says. I want you to myself, okay? I want this to be our thing, no one else’s. I thought we agreed.”
“Yeah,” Chantelle said quietly. “We did.”
“Good.” Tom took a deep breath and continued, as gently as he knew how, “So why’d you say all that stuff in a public chat room?”
There was a small pause of hesitation in which he listened to her erratic breathing and knew, without the shadow of a doubt, that those beautiful blue eyes would be cloudy and wet if he could be there to see them. “Maybe I wasn’t thinking straight either,” she whispered.
He shifted restlessly. “Why’s that?”
“Because I was so…so…”
“So, what?” he prompted.
Chantelle drew a wet, shaky breath. “Oh, this is hard. Scared. Excited. Scared.”
He furrowed his brow. “Scared? Why?”
She sighed. “You know when you have to keep a big secret? And it’s all you can think about, and you can’t stop blabbering for fear of someone noticing that there’s something you’re not saying?”
Tom didn’t quite follow. “Um, yeah?”
“It was kinda like that,” she said sheepishly. “They kept asking me questions, and I just said the first silly thing I could think of because I couldn’t tell them how we…I…”
“You, what?” Tom asked, smiling.
For a few long moments, Chantelle didn’t reply. “I don’t want to do this over the phone,” she said then, so quietly that he could barely hear her over the giddy laugh that bubbled out of him with sudden, liberating joy. Finally, he was enjoying this conversation.
“Do what over the phone?”
She huffed softly. “Tell you important things.”
“Like?”
“Oh, shut up!”
“Now you’re telling me I shouldn’t talk?”
Chantelle laughed then. “I couldn’t tell them what’s really going on between us, now could I?”
It was a testament to how much he cared for her that he didn’t feel the instant, desperate urge to redirect the conversation, that he, in fact, smiled to himself, curiously, and encouraged her to speak. “What is going on between us?”
“Tom,” she pleaded with him. “Can it wait until we see each other?”
“No?”
She seemed to dither for a moment. “I really like you,” she said, and the words tumbled out in a rush as if they’d been at the tip of her tongue for a long time. “Not just as a friend, not even as a friend with benefits, even though you’re mean, making me say this when I can’t see your face.” Her breath hitched. “I’m falling in love with you.”
Tom rubbed a hand over his brow. His head felt hot, like her words had gone straight under his skin, right into his blood. His heart thumped in his chest, and once again, he didn’t know what to say.
“Tom?” she prompted, and her voice wavered sweetly with nerves. “Are you still there?”
He swallowed hard. “Yes.”
“This wasn’t how I pictured it,” she said regretfully. “Are you mad?”
“No,” he protested. “How’d you picture it?”
“Ideally?”
“Yeah?”
“After a romantic dinner, in bed, with candles and flowers everywhere and you inside me,” she whispered.
It took him a moment to gather his composure enough to speak. “Uh. Yeah. Nice,” he forced out. His tongue felt heavy, as if he was drunk on some exquisite, ages-old liquor. “But we don’t need candles and flowers and all that stuff.”
“It would’ve been nice though,” Chantelle said tartly.
“Sure,” he hurried on, “but we don’t need it. Except, you know, the me being inside you part.”
That garnered a small laugh. “I thought you’d like that.”
“Oh yeah,” he agreed. “But that’s not all I want from you either, sweetheart, okay? Trust me.”
“What are you saying?”
Tom chewed on his lip. “I don’t know yet. I need to think about it. I’ll tell you when we see each other, okay?”
“That’s not fair.” He could practically hear her pout, her full, pink bottom lip sticking out, waiting for him to nibble at it. How’d she described the scene - a romantic dinner, flowers and candles, him inside her…
He shifted again as his body reacted to the mental image. “But I want to get it right. Let me try, okay? When I get there.”
“Okay then,” she said softly. “I should go to bed.”
Tom listened very closely. “You okay?”
“Yes,” Chantelle assured him. “I’ll be better when you get here and we can talk, but, yes. I’ll see you soon?”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “I can’t wait.”
“Me neither. I miss you.” She laughed a bit. “It’s easier when we’re together, huh?”
“Yeah,” Tom agreed. “Soon. Good night, baby.”
“Good, uh, morning?” she replied, laughing. “Say hi to Bill, okay? Love you.”
She’d hung up before Tom could reply. Not that he would’ve known how to reply. His whole world seemed changed somehow, even though he was still lying on the same old couch in the same old room when he opened his eyes. His heart was pounding in his chest, and he stared at his phone and felt totally out of his depth. Three days until they were leaving for California. The thought wasn’t terrifying, but definitely daunting. It was time, Tom thought, to come up with some really good words. The right words.
He considered for a few moments. Then, he called out, “Bill?”
“Hmm?” Bill’s voice came from the kitchen, where he was still cooking up some early morning dinner that would no doubt be inedible and would result in them having pizza delivered once again.
Tom sat up on the couch and braced himself for what he was about to do. “I need help.”
“With what?” Bill asked distractedly.
Tom took a deep breath. “Chantelle.”
A spoon clattered on a marble countertop, and then Bill was sitting next to Tom on the couch, apparently having figured out at last how to teleport, which he’d wanted to learn since they’d seen it on TV when they were six, or maybe it was just that Tom had his face hidden in his hands and so hadn’t actually seen him hurry over. He tugged at Tom’s wrists. “Oh, look at me, you can’t have fucked up that badly in such a short time.”
Tom’s cheeks burned. He dropped his hands and reluctantly faced his twin. Bill’s eyes were shining, and Tom couldn’t help but smile at his brother’s eager expression. Bill had waited a long time for this moment, which he’d predicted would come with unfailing accuracy even when Tom hadn’t believed it himself. Well. At least one of them would be enjoying this.
“No,” he started hoarsely, “I just need help figuring out how to tell Chantelle that I…that I…”
Bill nodded maniacally. “Yes? Yes?”
Tom felt his face grow hot, which was stupid because this was Bill he was talking to and they could tell each other everything, but somehow Tom felt vulnerable in his uncertainty. He’d never done this before, never, not like this. “I really, really like her.”
Bill flailed with excitement for three seconds, then pulled himself together with what looked like an enormous effort and affected a sober look. “Tell me all about it,” he said prayerfully, in a hushed voice.
Tom frowned. “That’s all there is to tell. I really, really like her, and I need to figure out how to tell her that."
Bill rolled his eyes like a teacher handing back Tom’s mistake-riddled homework. “Okay, first of all, you don’t just mean you really really like fucking her, do you?”
“No,” Tom protested. “Well, I do, but that’s not the point.”
“And what is the point?” Bill asked eagerly.
“That I like her. Sex and all that aside,” Tom shrugged. “How do you tell someone that without sounding like a total idiot?”
Bill beamed as if he was the golden Buddha on their front lawn and Tom was the lost spirit to be guided towards the light. “Oh, there are ways. Good ways. Great ways. But let’s start easy. Tell me.”
Tom blinked. “Tell you what?”
Bill nudged him impatiently. “That you love me, idiot.”
“What? No!” Not that it wasn’t true, but Tom had always felt that declarations of feeling between them were unnecessary, and if Bill insisted on having them, they were still reserved for special occasions, like the moments right before and after vocal cord surgery and other such life-and-death situations.
Bill huffed. “If you can’t even tell me, how are you going to tell someone else?”
“That’s what I’m wondering.”
“Aw,” Bill said fondly. He patted Tom’s head. “You’re emotionally stunted, I know, but you can’t just keep Chantelle guessing like you do me--”
“I do not keep you guessing,” Tom protested, offended. “Just because I don’t say it doesn’t mean I don’t show it.”
“I know,” Bill said quickly, “but you can’t blame her for not quite understanding you the way I do.”
Tom nodded thoughtfully. That was true.
“And really, the way you show love can be weird sometimes. No offence.”
“Weird? When?” To Tom, it was always clear as day.
“Oh, let’s see.” Bill counted them out on his fingers. “When you tell me my hair looks stupid. When you tell me I can’t sing. When you hit me over the head to wake me up at night to cuddle. When--”
“But you know I don’t mean it!”
“Yeah, I do, but she doesn’t.”
“I’ve never told her her hair looks stupid. And I don’t do anything but nice things to her in bed.”
Bill raised an eyebrow. “I should hope so.”
“Can’t that be enough?” Tom asked despairingly. “That I, uh, make love to her whenever we’re together?”
“Sure. If that’s enough for her,” Bill shrugged. “Do you think it’s enough for her?”
Tom ducked his head. “No.”
“Can’t blame her for not understanding that you taking her to bed is meant to show deep emotion,” Bill nodded. He crossed his legs, laid his hand on Tom’s shoulder and made himself comfortable on the couch as he warmed to his topic. “And besides, you know true love doesn’t need to have anything to do with sex at all.”
Yes, Tom knew that. He’d depended on it for most of his adult life, kept his physical desires entirely separated from his emotional needs, and it had always worked out fine. He shook his head. He’d always known that mixing the two would lead to trouble.
“What’s bothering you?” Bill asked softly.
Tom pulled at his lip ring with his teeth. “Just…Why does this have to be so hard? I don’t want to get it wrong and mess things up.”
“Stop that, it’s just going to get infected.” Bill tapped his brother’s lower lip with one finger. “You can’t get it wrong if you show her what’s truly in your heart--”
“Oh, god!”
“--and why you’re so afraid of opening up, I have no idea, because I have certainly never rejected your love, and with all your girls it was you doing the rejecting, so. What is it? Mom and dad? Because I think it might be time to get over that.”
Tom picked at a loose thread in the seam of his shirt. He chewed on his lip. “Yeah, I know.”
“I’d tell her for you,” Bill offered, “just like in school, but that might look a little silly.”
Tom considered this a moment, remembering eleven-year-old Bill, with his uneven eyeliner and weird hair delivering little notes to Tom’s sixth grade crush, Julia. He laughed. “Yeah. Just a little.”
“I would, though,” Bill assured him. “Just so you know.”
“Thanks,” Tom smiled. “What’d you tell her? If, you know, we decided to take that approach.”
“I’d tell her that you haven’t been your grumpy old self ever since you met her because you’ve been walking on pink clouds,” Bill teased. “I’d tell her how your face lights up when she calls and how you moan her name when you jerk off in the shower… Ow!”
“Shut up!” Tom rubbed his fist, which had connected unpleasantly with Bill’s bony shoulder. “I do not moan her name!”
“You do,” Bill grinned. “Haven’t you realized? Ha, that makes it even better! Aw!” He wrung his hands gleefully. “You’ve got it so bad!”
“Shut up!” Tom repeated lamely. His head felt as if his braids had caught fire and he was slowly being swallowed up by flames from the scalp down. “You’re supposed to help me! At this rate, I’m going to be even more tongue-tied when I meet her!”
“I think you must’ve done pretty well with her all on your own because she keeps calling and the calls keep getting longer, so you can’t have made a total ass of yourself. You can do this.”
Tom leaned over, braced his elbows on his thighs and studied his toes. Drawing shallow breaths was easier with his head between his knees. His stomach felt weird; his pulse was throbbing hotly in his gut, as if his heart had slipped and ended up who-knows-where. “In English? I don’t know.”
“I do,” Bill said without the shadow of a doubt. He reached out and hugged Tom, his cheek coming to rest between Tom’s shoulderblades. “You only need to let yourself.”
“You think?”
“Yeah,” Bill nodded against Tom’s back. “I love you. If things don’t work out, I’ll always be here for you. Don’t worry.”
“Hmph,” Tom made uncertainly.
Bill slid off the couch to kneel between his twin’s feet. He cradled Tom’s burning face in his cool palms so he could look up, amused, into Tom’s doubtful eyes. “Seriously now, Tom, you’ve charmed a thousand girls. How’s she any different?”
“I don’t know, she just is,” Tom said. “With all the others, I could just say whatever because it didn’t really matter if they liked me or not, I didn’t care about them so I didn’t mind if they didn’t really care about me, but Chantelle… I met her when all that crazy shit was going down, and she never judged me for it, she was sweet and kind and it’s so… I can’t get enough of it. When I’m with her, everything just sort of slows down and goes quiet and I feel like I can breathe again, like all the pressure just goes away, and I don’t care anymore what anyone thinks of me as long as she’ll just like me, because when I hold her, I never want to let go again and I wish I didn’t have to.” He gulped for breath. His head spun. He didn’t even know what had just poured out of him, but somehow he felt better for it. Lighter. He looked back at Bill and found his brother smiling at him.
“So there you have it,” Bill said, pleased. He patted Tom’s cheek fondly. “That’s what you tell her.”
“What?” Tom asked dumbly.
Bill laughed. “All that you just told me.”
“How am I supposed to repeat that?”
“You could condense it a little,” Bill allowed. “Maybe just tell her the last bit.”
Tom squinted doubtfully. “What last bit?”
“When you hold her, you never want to let go again. And you wish you didn’t have to,” Bill reminded him. He tapped his fingers against Tom’s cheek. “Hmm. I like that. I need to write that down.” He beamed at his twin. “Well done, you! I was starting to think I had gotten all the brain cells, but there is poetry in you after all… Ow, ow, ow!”
Tom enjoyed his brother’s pained yelping for a few moments until he stopped twisting Bill’s wrists and let go. “Don’t tell anyone.”
Bill rubbed at his arms, pouting. “Why do you insult me?”
“Sorry,” Tom grinned.
Bill gave him a disgruntled look. “Chantelle is such a lucky girl.”
“Yup,” Tom agreed, and he could almost believe it now. He’d have to make some arrangements…candles and flowers, just as she’d wanted, and maybe some bath bubbles. He smiled a small, slightly wicked smile. “What happened to your potatoes au gratin?”
Bill slapped his forehead. “Shit!” He jumped up and rushed into the kitchen, where he caused a loud clatter, accompanied by colorful swearing and finally a squeak of pain. “Ahh! Help!”
Tom shuffled over and leaned against the doorframe, watching his twin cradle his burned hand to his chest while he hopped around the kitchen on one leg, as if that would somehow alleviate the pain. “See, that’s what happens when you try fancy,” he teased.
“Did I tell you that when you asked me for help?” Bill scoffed.
No; thankfully, he hadn’t. And he hadn’t laughed or teased either when Tom had put his heart on display, so perhaps, Tom thought, grinning, he should take mercy on Bill. After all, the weirdo hopping through the kitchen like the Easter Bunny on amphetamines was still his favorite person in the world. “Come on,” he smiled, “let’s get you an ice pack.”
***