Who Is This?

Chapter 9

By the time they finally reached the restaurant, Cass was a nervous wreck. Two miles my ass, that had felt like a thousand miles.

It wasn't that it was weird being with Tom, it was just that ... he was too nice. It was suspicious. Every stupid comment Cassidy made - and she made many - he somehow managed to turn into a reasonable, totally normal, even funny thing to say. It was concerning.

Preoccupied with Tom's disgustingly winning personality, Cass wrenched the car door open and began to step out, only for Tom to yell, "stay in the car!"

She immediately froze, waiting for him to remove the land mine or whatever dangerous object made it imperative that she stay in the car, then Tom grabbed her hand and gently pulled her to her feet.

"Sorry," he sighed in relief, "I just had to help you out of the car. It's sort of a first date tradition."

Fuck. That was so cute. A little misogynistic, but Cass was willing to overlook that. Or, at least, her brain was willing to overlook that. However, while her brain was busy cooing over how sweet Tom was, her mouth took control of the operation, an event which never ended well.

"I can get out of a car by myself, you know," she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. Her brain suddenly realised what was going on and made a furious attempt to abort mission. "I mean, under normal circumstances I could get out of a car by myself, but on first dates I'm happy to be temporarily disabled. Ha, I mean, I am always disabled, but I can generally get out of a car by myself. I'm just ... differently disabled on first dates."

Oh god that was even worse. She would slap herself if Emily hadn't done such a good job on her makeup. Even her humiliating word vomit wasn't worth ruining such a masterpiece.

"Well, that's good to know," Tom mused, tucking Cassidy's arm through his and slipping the car keys into his pocket.

"Yeah, great, and not weird at all," Cassidy mumbled, making Tom laugh.

"I promise it's not weird," he said. Cass raised an eyebrow at him and he amended, "well, not that weird. But it's a good kind of weird. I like it."

Cassidy knew she was grinning like an idiot, but it was kind of hard to avoid when Tom was being so ridiculously charming. There was a sudden rush of warm air as he opened the restaurant door, then he was ushering her in, his arm sliding from hers and his hand finding its way to her back.

"Reservation for Hiddleston," he said politely.

"Right this way," the host replied, then Tom was gently steering Cassidy further into the restaurant.

He pulled out her chair for her, which kind of made her want to wriggle around like a gleeful slug, but she managed to maintain her (relative) calm and take her seat in a composed fashion.

"So, got any suggestions?" Cassidy asked.

"For dinner?" There was a rustling noise as Tom opened his menu, then a brief silence as he perused his options. "Should we start with drinks, d'you reckon?"

"Drinks sound good," Cass replied thankfully. Maybe after one, or two, or ten glasses of wine she'd make a bit more sense. Unlikely, but at least she'd be drunk enough not to mind when she spouted bullshit. It was hard to feel self conscious when you couldn't even remember your own name.

"Do you prefer red or white wine?"

Ah. Yes. Now was the time to impress Tom with her obvious connoisseurship of wine.

"I'm not gonna lie, they do all taste the same to me," she blurted. Well. There went all her attempts to sound sophisticated.

Tom laughed.