Tom DeLonge's Intern

Chapter 13: Disagreement

     The next morning, I awoke to find myself facing the edge of the bed, my vision blurry as I looked at my closed bedroom door. The sun had come out in full force but my curtains did a good job at blocking it out for the most part. The feeling of a heavy arm draped against my side caused me to blink harder in order to shoo away the sleep from my eyes. When I realized it was Tom, my heart started racing. I glanced down at his tattooed arm that lazily rested across my body. His tall frame was pressed up against me ever so slightly and his breathing was deep but steady. I listened to him for a few moments while feeling his warm breath on the back of my neck, and it seemed to calm me down quite a bit. The thoughts that swarmed inside of my head slowed down to a near halt after listening to him for a few moments. I rose out of my bed, careful not to wake the tall guitarist. Apparently he was a heavy sleeper because he grabbed the blanket and turned over to face the other side of the bed. I laughed to myself. How could this giant 6'4" punk rockstar be so innocent? I thought as I glanced at him for another moment before I grabbed some clothes quietly and headed to the bathroom to shower as well as get dressed. I took comfort in knowing that Tom was in the next room over and that he was unable to leave because he didn't have a car.

     By the time I stepped out of the bathroom and into my room, Tom was awake. He was sitting up in my bed, the blanket still around him from the waist down. He looked at me, scanning me up and down before he softly smiled. He rubbed his eyes drowsily, a signal that he just woken up. His brown hair was messy and his eyes looked sleepy, like sleep had eluded him, though I was almost certain he was snoozing before I left my room to get ready a few minutes prior.

     "Good morning, Thomas, how did you sleep? I asked and watched as he stood up out of my bed to stretch. The shirt he was wearing rose a bit to reveal the tiny bit of hair that he had on his stomach. I tried hard not to glance and to try to not make it obvious, but I was sure that he noticed.

     "I slept alright. Same as always, pretty much, though on the bright side, at least your bed is small so I had an excuse to be close to you. I saw that by the way, that look" he said, winking at me before breaking eye contact to go across the hall and use the bathroom. I deep sighed to myself; I hated when he said stuff like that because it gave me mixed signals. I wished I had the guts to just straight up ask him how he felt about me. From everything that had been happening since we kissed, it seemed like he was into me, but I couldn't be entirely sure.

     Tom came back from the bathroom and we both went downstairs tiredly. I offered to make him something for breakfast, which he happily accepted. We didn't have much food in the house so I settled on eggs and toast and poured him the last of the orange juice that we had in the fridge. I had a glass of milk and sat across from him at the table. As was the case when we ate meals together, we didn't talk much. I was still pretty tired, and I could tell that he was, too. Though I did sleep the night before, sleeping next to someone for the first time was always a bit of a rough go, so my sleep was of no real quality.

     Eventually that afternoon, I took Tom back to his car in the Macbeth parking lot. Though I had been enjoying our time together, he was a very busy guy and I didn't want to keep him from any of his prior commitments.

     "Holy shit. What's the date today?" Tom asked over the punk rock music playing on the radio. We were a little more than halfway to the Macbeth office at that point in the drive.

     "I think it's Saturday the 14th or something like that," I replied as I turned the black radio knob to the left slowly until the music faded out almost completely.

     "Fuck. It's Saturday right? Fuck. I have a label meeting at 2 today I think. Shit," he said exasperatedly as he looked out the window. He let out an annoyed sigh, one that I tried to ignore as I glanced at the green numbers on my radio that read just before 1 o'clock in the afternoon.