Just Like That

Part 5

Tom had been exhausted by the time he reached his bed that evening. The day had been filled with preparations to film the video in the morning, edit Chris's part into it, and upload it all to social media. (Not that he was in charge of the technical side) However, none of it had been that simple. Since the time he went silent in your shared conversation on Friday afternoon, Tom had spent the weekend preparing everything with the much required aid of Luke. Had it not been for his publicist none of this would have been possible.

The rights to anything even resembling Loki were in the hands of Disney. Luke had made countless phone calls ensuring that filming this video was possible, especially when it was not immediately tied to any form of publicity regarding the show. Upon much back and forth, Disney had allowed Tom to appear in the video as Loki, only if the video was less than 5 minutes, and he would agree to two extra interviews exclusive to Disney + for season 2 of Loki. At the end of the day, the interviews never truly bothered Tom. Most cases he enjoyed talking about his upcoming projects. Only when they took a turn into his personal life did he feel trapped.

Chris was easy to convince to film the quick video snippet, especially after Tom hinted that there was a woman motivating this endeavor. His 'brother' had plenty of questions after that—which mostly resulted in the same answer from Tom— 'I don't know'. He didn't know what you looked like, where you were from (apart from the South), your relationship status, not even your name... Well, that wasn't entirely true. Ms. L/N. He knew that much at least...

Once the chaos of the day died down and after the rescheduled meetings all took place (he had to rearrange his schedule over the course of a couple of days to film the video), he had yet to hear from you. Tom tried to hide the disappointment from Luke as the two shared the remnants of gin from the other night—Luke was ecstatic. Social media was thumping, Disney saw an uptick in viewings of all Marvel films on their streaming network, everything had gone swimmingly. But that didn't mean Tom had accomplished his goal.

"Still haven't heard from her?" Luke questioned, bringing the glass to his lips.

He was met with a solemn shake of the head from Tom, matching his movements with a sip of gin. "Not yet. Was it too much? The winks. The little comments. The—all of it?" pushing out a sigh as he adjusted his glasses out of habit rather than necessity.

"It wasn't too much, mate," setting his now empty glass on the coffee table. The 'tutting' sound from Tom's direction reminded him to grab a coaster and begrudgingly place it underneath the glass. "Has she posted anything on Instagram yet?"

"I've just told you she hasn't messaged me."

"No, I mean has she posted a picture or a story. Anything regarding the video?"

"I don't understand what you mean."

Luke shook his head, signaling for Tom to hand over his phone. "One of the smartest people I know and yet, absolute shit with technology," muttering to himself, which Tom pretended to ignore. It was a losing argument anyway. Luke tapped around, clicking on your account icon—which looked to be a picture of a beach. Yet, your profile was set to private.

"C-g fan 0-8-2-0? Any idea what that means?" Luke asked, keeping his eyes on the phone as he continued to click around.

"No, I've rattled through different shows, films...books..."

"Could it be an actor? She's outgoing enough to send something to you. There could be someone she fancies more."

Tom's hands had been rubbing up and down his face, missing his beard more for the comfort of the sensory release when he was particularly stressed. Eyes narrowed as he directed his gaze towards his 'friend'. "You're not helping."