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Chapter 1

His fingers were wound tight against his steering wheel as he drove, a bouquet of red and white roses in the hand that wasn’t gripping the steering wheel. They weren’t all too special in Tom’s eyes, but he knew they’d have you gushing the moment you laid eyes on them.

He slammed the door to his car shut as he angrily stomped up your driveway, hands full of flowers, cigarettes, and wine, the words from his boss echoing around his head, hitting him over and over again like rapid fire.

“Fired, Holland! You hear me? Fired!”

"But,sir!!!"

“Either leave willingly, or I’ll see to it you’re thrown out!”

He was livid, his hands quaking amid the pile of treats he’d brought for you. He hadn’t seen you in three days, since the night of your last fight, and truth be told he was aching to see you again, and the events at work today only increased that need. Tom remembered the way he spoke to you, the words you threw back at him and the sound of the glass of water being thrown as he slammed the door behind him. Tom remembered the deep pitted feeling of regret the moment he removed his door from the handle but remembered that this was just another one of your ‘Bumps in the road’.

Nothing could separate the two of you, except each other.

“I’m not hinting at that, Tom! All I did was bring it up.” She was totally hinting at it, Tom knew her like the back of her hand and when his girl wanted something, most of the time she had her ways of getting it.

“You don’t just casually bring up the fact that your best friend has, and I quote ‘The most beautiful diamond ring, worth thousands’ without wanting something.” Tom gripped the roots of his hair. “I’m not ready yet, Y/N, we’ve talked about this before.”

It wasn’t as though he didn’t want it. He swore up and down that he did, and sometimes he even believed it. But therein lies the problem. He had to make himself believe it, and you deserved to have him in it 100%.

All of this over a diamond ring but if you were being honest, it wasn’t just the fact that your best friend wore a ring on her left finger now, one that you knew Tom would never be able to afford. It was the fact that her boyfriend- now fiance, had finally worked up the courage to ask her to be his forever while Tom and you were still on and off.

“Is it so bad that I want you to make me yours?”

He groaned. “I thought I made you mine every time we made love? Is that not enough anymore? Wait are you- are you pregnant?” A feeling of excitement surged through him, strong enough to make a lump form in the back of his throat.

She shook her head wildly, a fresh set of tears ready to fall. “How come the second I want you to put a ring on my finger, everyone suddenly assumes that I’m pregnant? I’m not carrying your child, Tommy, for fucks sake.”  You narrowed your eyes at him, the fuse lighting in your anger and you pulled yourself away from him. “You know I can’t - I can’t have children, is that all you want from me?”

Tom was growing more frustrated by the second. It sounded like the worst thing in the world, I’m not carrying your child, Tommy. It was a punch to the gut in more ways than one, and he knew it wasn’t that you didn’t want to- but he could see the temper flaring, see the anger boiling waiting to explode and he knew you’d use any grounds possible to get your point across.

So, he beat you to it.

“Well since you can’t get pregnant, then there’s no reason for us to get married right now is there?” His words hit you like a knife to the chest.

The two of you always said things you regretted during your explosive arguments and maybe he did want to marry you, maybe the excuse of you not being able to carry a child was nothing but horse shit but what other excuse could he make?