✔️ Midnight Sparks『 T.H. 』✧･ﾟ:*

Chapter 3: Don't forget to breathe

Yellow diamonds in the light

And we're standing side by side

- Rihanna

- - -

Tom Holland was looking at me expectantly for my reply.

"Umm I don't really.. dance," I said. Sure, I did do my lame attempt at dancing with Jayna at the dancefloor earlier. And I could probably do the same with any other friends too. But with Tom Holland? No thanks. It would just be too embarrassing.

"Come on, I'll let you laugh at how bad my dancing is." Tom started performing some very exaggeratedly bad dance moves, which included swaying one arm left and right as if turning an invisible giant steering wheel.

I couldn't help it. I broke into laughter.

"Okay, you laughed. So now you have to have one dance with me, all right?"

He sounded so earnest, so pure. I was defenseless. "Fine. Let's go, Trev."

We made our way downstairs, back to the main lounge area. I stood next to Tom as we surveyed the dancefloor. The speakers were blasting the latest Tiesto trance mix, which shouldn't be too difficult to dance to. Based on the videos I've seen of rave party festivals, I just needed to sway tipsily like I've had 6 drinks, and run my hands through my hair a lot. Easy peasy.

Tom led the way, bringing us to the middle of the dancing crowd. Then he swiveled so that he was facing me. In my 4-inch heels, I was standing on eye level with him. I had full access to his twinkling brown eyes now, a fact that I tried not to focus too much on.

Tom grinned and got totally into the music. Despite everything, I started to enjoy myself, letting the energetic beats run through my body and bopping my head according to the pulse of the lights.

The song slowed down and melted away to reveal the start of an old Rihanna song – which was fine, except that it was a mellow number and people around us started moving nearer to their dance partners.

I looked at Tom and he looked back at me. With a shrug, he took a step forward and closed the gap between us. We swayed ever closer together, and I had to remind myself to breathe.

"We found love in a hopeless place... We found love in a hopeless place," Rihanna's voice wailed lustily in our ears.

I ran my hand through my hair for about the 15th time, then glanced at Tom. He leaned in and said, "Glad to see that you haven't started laughing. Yet."

"Check again in 5 seconds," I told him with a grin. He had such a way of making people feel at ease with him – even when it came to someone as guarded as I was.

We accidentally brushed against each other a couple of times, but otherwise Tom always maintained a respective amount of space from me. Which was good, because I wasn't sure if I could handle being at even closer proximity than we already were at that point. From where I was, I could detect the citrusy scent of his perfume. And I could see that his left eyebrow was messier than the right one. It was odd, but endearing.

The Rihanna song reached its last few notes, all too quickly it felt.

"Hey, there's this party I'm headed to after this. A party after the party." Tom flashed me a smile. "Do you and your friend feel like crashing another party?"

I laughed with a shake of my head. "I meant to ask – why did you decide to rescue us at the entrance there tonight?"

"Well, you two didn't look like axe murderers or anything, so I figured it should be all right."

"Apart from that, though?" I was genuinely curious.

"I don't know actually. I just thought it wouldn't do any harm to have two more people joining this party," he said, still smiling. "I hope you had fun."

"More so than I thought," I admitted.

"So would you and your friend like to join this next party?"

Jayna! I'd totally forgotten about her. What kind of a friend am I?!

"Well, Jayna would absolutely love to go, I'm sure... But I can't," I said, biting my lip. "I have an early morning work shift tomorrow. Lou would have a heart attack if I bailed on him."

"Lou?"

"Yeah. He owns Café Luna and I'm a waitress there a couple of days a week. We serve the best tiramisu in town, or so I'm forced by Lou to say."

Tom laughed and was about to respond when an arm with gleaming red claws – I mean nails – appeared out of seemingly nowhere and reached out to clutch at his chest.

"TOM. Where have you been? Harrison and the rest were looking for you."

I stepped back and saw that the arm and voice belonged to a tall woman who looked like she could pass for Gisele Bunchen's younger sister.

Before Tom could answer, the woman continued, "Anyway, we're running late. Mark and Philippe are holding down the fort, but we have to move our asses now."

She left the dancefloor, practically dragging Tom along with her.

And all I could do was watch them both walk away.