“Your words. Your gentle way,” he muttered, his voice hoarse and his breathing heavy, as she pushed him against the wall, moving his camera to the side of him so she could press the entirety of her body against his, her tongue moving rhythmically with his as every part of her felt as though it were beating. Pulsating. Throbbing.
“Your wide eyes...”
“Let’s get the bus.” Daisy laughed, pulling away and nodding in the direction of Goodge Street. “Let’s get the day version of our bus. To your place. To...”
Tom stopped, his gaze seeming to reach right into the depths of her. Her breath was coming in short sharp bursts, and all she wanted was to rip her dress off. For Tom to rip her dress off and remove all signs of the day she was meant to have had. A day that didn’t involve him or how much she—
“Oh my God, I’m so sorry,” she added breathlessly.
“What?”
“I didn’t say it. I just thought this—” she moved her hand between them “—made it obvious but in case you needed to hear it, Tom Riley, I am completely and utterly in love with you too.”
The biggest smile broke out across his face as he reached for hers with both hands, kissing her again, his lips moving against hers, his fingers lacing into her hair, tugging gently.
“The bus...” Tom reached down for her hand and started pulling her away from the street, the laughter building up inside them again, erupting around them as they turned back down the street and toward the 73.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Tom
Tom rolled over in bed, smiling as he took in the figure beside him, hair sprawled across the pillow. Her lips were slightly parted, her chest rising gently with each breath. He reached out and stroked the skin of her cheek with his thumb, not wanting to wake her. It was 4:00 a.m. It was time for him to catch the bus.
Stepping out of bed, Tom pulled on jeans and a T-shirt, tiptoeing toward the door before turning back. This was it. This was how Daisy looked when she was sleeping. Everything in him wanted to run and climb straight back into bed with her, kiss her until she woke up, but he had something he had to do before his flight to Incheon later that day. The wake-up kisses could happen when he got back.
Tom pulled on his jumper and jacket at the door and stepped out of his flat, walking toward the bus stop, the spring in his step and the grin on his face noticeable even to him. What a difference a few months could make. Were he to rewind to those weeks after The Worst Day, he couldn’t have imagined a time where he was awake and catching the bus for a positive reason. Not only that, but the woman who helped to change his life, who was usually on this bus, wasn’t on it today because she was at his flat, in his bed, having booked the week off work to joinhim in South Korea. She wanted to see the world, she said. And she wanted to see it with him. She had a job interview for the investigative role when she got back. They’d done the application together and when, a few days later, the interview came in, both of them jumped up and down hugging each other before dancing across his kitchen.
The Worst Day. Tom could never call it that again, could he? Because for all of the bad that came with it, it had brought him to Daisy. It had perhaps done exactly what it was supposed to, which meant that actually, all in all, as he looked at it now, he couldn’t be more grateful for that day and where he stood now as a result of it. Perhaps he needed to remember that, going forward. That sometimes what you think is the worst day of your life is a turning point. A door. A step into a world that eventually becomes much, much better.
Tom tapped his card and instead of going to his usual seat, he took Daisy’s, settling into it and staring out her window, taking a moment to see what the world looked like through her eyes. It was beautiful, but anything probably would be to Tom right now.
He stayed on the bus all the way to the end, fleeting memories appearing with the various stops they passed. The fistfight that got them walking together before King’s Cross, the argument at Euston, the snow falling on Tottenham Court Road. He already had so many memories with Daisy. A history formed before he ever knew he would fall in love with her. Or that perhaps, he already had.
When the bus terminated at Holles Street, he took the same walk he’d taken once before, past Denmark Street and down past Piccadilly Circus. Frowning, he watched as a jogger went by in fluorescent yellow trainers. Tom was fairly sure he’d seen that exact man last time and perhaps, he hoped, that was a good sign.
Turning off Haymarket and onto Pall Mall, he rounded thecorner, noting that the sky was so much darker than it had been when he was last here. The air was cooler and Tom rubbed his hands together as he squinted ahead, preparing himself for disappointment. So much had changed in Tom’s life recently that it was impossible for him to believe that someone else could be living in the same way they’d always been. He approached the square, unable to make out anything in the night sky but, as he grew closer, he was fairly sure he could hear it. The low rumbling tones of a sea shanty.
“Stormy,” Tom said, approaching the fountain, and there he was, his back resting against the wall, dressed still in his shirt and jacket.
Stormy turned and looked up, squinting. “I’m afraid I don’t remember your name,” he said. “But I remember you. Where’s your camera?”
Tom held his arms out, revealing them to be empty. “I left it at home. It’s all packed for a trip I’m taking,” he said. “Can I—” he looked over the road toward the café they’d been in before “—get you some breakfast?”
Even though it was dark, Tom was sure he saw Stormy’s eyes light up, just a little. He held out a hand to Tom. “Could you help me up?”
Tom reached down and placed his forearm in Stormy’s hand, holding on and leaning back, pulling him up. He started walking immediately toward the Pret with a limp.
“What happened?” Tom asked, nodding at his leg.
“Life,” he said. “Life happened.”
Tom nodded. How naive it was of him to think that just because his life had got considerably better since he last saw Stormy, that Stormy’s would have too. If he’d learned anything from their last chat, it was that, yes, human beings were all similar in many ways, but they could also live entirely different lives.
Tom helped Stormy take a seat and ordered him a bacon roll and tea, and a coffee for himself, just like he had before. Not for the first time he thought of Daisy asleep in his bed, a rush of gratitude filling his body as he sat down.
“I see it,” Stormy said, reaching immediately for his bacon roll, his eyes fixed on Tom’s face. “You’ve done it.”
Tom smiled and opened his mouth, ready to speak.
