Who Is This?

Chapter 10

Cassidy woke up happy.

She buried herself down deep in the covers until only a slice of her face and a few flyaway curls were visible, then let out a deep sigh. The events of last night were running over and over in her mind, though the humiliating bits (see: saluting waiter) were skipped over slightly faster than everything else. But as her memory ticked over to the end of the night, she closed her eyes and slowed those moments down into tiny increments, stretching them out for as long as she possibly could. Tom's hand on her face lingered, then his lips were slowly touched to hers and the softness of them, the pressure of them against hers stretched out into oblivion. She grinned widely, then lazily opened her eyes, rubbing at them with the back of her hand. She yawned, then rolled over onto her stomach and gently dragged her fingers along her nightstand until she found her phone. She tapped it against her forehead for a moment, undecided, then pressed the home button down and said, "call Tom."

"Calling Tom," her phone parroted back to her. She waited in a tense silence as it began to ring, trying to ignore the way her heart was pounding.

"Don't be a moron," she muttered to herself, "it's only Tom."

She took slow, calming breaths while she waited, then immediately panicked when the ringing stopped.

"Cass! Hello." Tom's voice was far too cheerful for this time of the morning, but Cass couldn't keep her smile off her face.

"Hey, you. Tom, I mean. I know your name." Jesus, Cass, try to be more of a loser, why don't you?

"Well, that's good to hear," Tom laughed. "I would hope that after two dates and a lot of phone calls that you'd have some idea of my name."

"Two dates?" Cass asked, frowning slightly.

"Well. One official one, but, um, when we met up the first time, that was sort of a date, wasn't it? I mean obviously if you don't want it to be that's fine, I just thought that–"

"No, date definitely works," Cass interrupted, trying to jump in the path of his spiralling.

"Oh, thank God," Tom breathed, and Cassidy laughed.

"Just Cass is fine," she joked, thoroughly enjoying Tom's pained groan at what was clearly a terrible dad joke.

"I'm sorry, I don't think we can go out on any more dates," Tom sighed. "I just can't be associated with someone who thinks that that monstrosity passes for a good joke."

"Excuse me, I am very funny," Cass protested, affronted.

"Of course you are," Tom soothed. "You're hilarious, Cass. You should start doing standup."

"Okay, okay, I don't know if I'd go that far. I think I'm too socially awkward to do standup. My version would have to be more sit-down, 'cos I'd probably walk straight off the stage."

"That would be hilarious though, you'd have to admit."

"Okay, sure, it'd be funny, but it's sort of a one-time joke. There's only so many times you can fall off the stage before it's not funny anymore. Or I break something."

"Good point," Tom allowed. "That would be pretty unfortunate"

"I think the word you're looking for is extremely." Cass snorted attractively.

"I guess it would depend on what you broke."

"I think breaking anything is a fairly serious situation."

"Well, yeah, but breaking your neck, for example, would surely be more serious than breaking your arm."

There was a brief pause while Cassidy considered this.