“Sure,” she said.
He reached forward to press the button and the bus pulled in opposite the station, a few of them stepping off and onto the pavement.
Daisy wrapped her soft white scarf around her neck, pushing it up above her chin to fight against the bitter cold.
“What’s up with you?” she asked as they started walking. Tom was wearing a black North Face jacket which he zipped right up, pressing each hand under the opposite armpit. Over the road Euston Station was lit up by the neon lights of the bus stops. There were no signs, out on the pavements, that it was nearing Christmas.
“We’re not done with that deep chat,” he replied. “But I’m aware you have a limit of how much you can talk about yourself in one go and we just reached it, so I’ll answer and then we can switch back to you. Deal?”
Daisy laughed. She didn’t even know she had a limit, but he was right. She was starting to get uncomfortable and rather than push her, he’d noticed and backed off.
“Deal.”
It was as though they were purposefully walking even moreslowly than the previous time they’d done this trek together. God, it felt so long ago that they’d run hand in hand from the bus stop. When was it? Two months or so? In that time Tom had gone from being an endearing stranger to one of the most important people in Daisy’s life. Someone she now absolutely couldn’t imagine not being there. Someone her fiancé had no idea she spent so much time with, but that was okay. She hadn’t done anything wrong. It was an innocent friendship that started because he stood up for her. They stood up for each other, really, and it had gone along like that since. Wanting the very best for each other, as friends. Of course it wasjustfriends. It couldn’t be anything else, even if she wanted it to be. Even if Clara had gone ahead and implied there was something more to it with this man walking along beside her. The golden retriever who loyally strolled by her side. Because Daisy was getting married. Soon. She shuddered involuntarily. Somehow it had gone from seeming like a date sometime in the distant future to one that was close. Too close. So close she could no longer avoid it.
And Tom... Tom was in love with someone else. Her throat tightened at the thought of it. That without that—without Sophie—they’d never have spoken again after that day.
As if he’d been reading her mind, Tom’s next words shook her. “My best mate, Ralph, suggested last night that it was time for me to move on from Sophie and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. About whether he’s right.”
They passed the entrance to a building, the reception lit up, an empty desk sitting inside. Daisy noticed a hum in the air, as though every office around was pumping heating ready for the arrival of people in a few hours.
“Well doyouthink you should?” Daisy asked carefully, shivering as a cold gust of wind hit the back of her neck. “That’s more important than whether he’s right.”
Tom reached into his pocket and got out his gray beanie,lifting it upward before he glanced across at Daisy and stopped, causing her to do the same.
Turning to her, he placed the beanie onto her head and pulled it down over her ears, moving his hands slowly around to the back to adjust it, his fingers brushing against the nape of her neck. Her breath caught in her throat as she felt him moving the hat farther down, covering more of her. Warming her even though she was pretty sure her entire body was now on fire. Licking her lips, she stood motionless, worrying that any sudden movement would prompt him to stop. To let go. She could make out tiny fogs of her breath in the air—the only sign she was definitely still breathing. Finally he dropped his hands, smiling at her.
“I think it is probably a good idea,” he said and Daisy was short of words for a second. “I can’t go on being this obsessed with it all. It doesn’t feel like a life.”
Recently she hadn’t got the impression he was as obsessed with Sophie as he used to claim to be, but it seemed as though he was if he had been thinking it over this hard. Daisy swallowed and started walking. “You’ve given it a pretty good go,” she said, shaking herself out of wherever she’d just gone, the ache remaining in her chest. “Is it worth setting yourself some sort of deadline? Like if she isn’t back by Christmas, you... give up? Move on? However you want to phrase it.”
“A pragmatic approach to heartbreak, I like it. You know,” he said, gazing toward the University College Hospital where someone spoke animatedly on the phone, one arm gesticulating wildly, “I feel such relief in hearing that.” He paused, fixing his eyes directly ahead of him. “I feel relief at the thought of giving up,” he said as if confirming it to himself.
“Then maybe that’s your answer,” Daisy said quietly.
He nodded. “Maybe it is.”
A lump formed in her throat. Even before he said it, she’d had a feeling it was coming. The end. The moment where everything was about to change. “So that’s it?” she asked. “No moreOrlando?” She tried to keep her voice light, but she heard it crack on the wordmore, the sound of it unfamiliar, even to herself.
“The end of an era,” he said, kicking his foot against the pavement. “But yes, I think it is. I think it has to be.”
They turned the corner opposite Warren Street and Tom lifted a hand into the air, staring at his finger before looking up at the sky and across to Daisy, eyes widening.
“It’s snowing,” he said. He lifted both hands, palms facing the sky and they both watched as small flakes dropped into the center of them.
“It’s snowing,” Daisy whispered, laughing as she watched the flakes growing in size, as they started to fall more heavily around them. She looked ahead. “And look,” she said, pointing farther down Tottenham Court Road, where the Christmas lights were glistening in the still-darkened sky. Giant yellow bows on top of red square presents, with stars shooting from them.
A snowflake landed right on the tip of Daisy’s nose and she blinked as Tom laughed, reaching across and wiping it from her face.
“I heard that means you get to make a wish,” he said, turning to her, the snow melting into water on the tip of his finger.
“I wish you a most excellent exhibition,” Daisy said, reaching out and squeezing Tom’s finger, where the snow had been. She kept hold of it, looking up at him. “I really do. You deserve it.”
They’d reached Goodge Street and Tom pulled the hood of his jacket up over his head, the flakes now falling so heavily that it was immediately covered in snow.
“Thank you,” he said. “Though I’m fairly sure the wish is meant to be for you.”
“I’m fairly sure you don’t make a wish for snow landing on your nose, Tom,” Daisy said and his eyes lit up, his mouth curving into a smile.
