alexdraven | Tom - hopefull, for Byrne

Something else I've never done - Tom from Becka's POV.

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A whole afternoon and a three inch folder of case studies on the statistical analysis of supreme court judge's appointments and decisions, and he still had that indefinable glow to him. Happy. Honest to goodness just plain happy, and if he wasn't so oblivious to the ambient levels of happy-cute-couple he was giving off she might have been tempted to kill him, or at least be insanely jealous. As it was she was pretty happy herself, to be sat here at the foot of his bed teasing him and watching him grin and colour a little when she pushed for details that she didn’t really expect him to give away.

When the phone rang he made expressive eyes at her, and she got to her feet, taking their coffee mugs as collateral, and made herself scarce, even though he'd said 'Hey mum!" and not "um. Hi." with that specific sort of softness that would give away to anyone with ears what he was feeling. Not that she'd ever heard him say that, but watching the kettle not boiling gave her plenty of time to decide that that's probably what would have happened if it had been Oliver.

She was flicking through the tv channels trying to find something that wasn't kids tv or adverts – trust a boys flat to have really crappy digital - when Tom followed her down. He accepted the offered mug with a thank you and as far as she was concerned that counted as an apology accepted for making herself at home.

"Everything alright?"

"Actually – yeah. She's being really really cool about everything. Wants me to go home for a weekend sometime, but she's not demanding the whole of the study break like your family. Says I deserve the chance to revise without having to share stress with Seth, and by the way, she says hi to you too."

"Cool – say hi back when you speak next. Anyway it's not like you're going to get anything done while I'm not here."

She smirked a little into her coffee, letting him list all the work he'd been doing without her intervention. They were a damn fine study pair, if she did say so herself, but they wouldn’t be them if she missed an opportunity to tease him a little.

"So when you said you'd got naff all done and were going to fail and it was all pointless, you were, in point of fact, lying to me?"

Busted! And by the look on his face, he knew it. In the end he gave up on attempting to bluster and settled back in his armchair with a smile of his own again.

"Basically, yeah. Jaffa cake?"