Bad Boy
He was just the guy next door. Cute, fun to hang around with on occasion, but not fodder for daydreams.
Spoilers: Nevada Day
Rating: PG
Character/Pair: Tom/Suzanne
Disclaimer: They belong to Aaron Sorkin, Tommy Schlamme, etc.
Notes: Bex is a betaing wonder. And Jen is awesome with the details.
He'd worn a lobster suit for an entire day because it had made her laugh, had fallen on the sword for her with the story about Harry and Matt, shared the banana bread his mom had mailed him last month, made her laugh with his rendition of Who's on First. But she'd never really noticed him, not the way he'd wanted her to.
And it wasn't like he pined for her. He still went with Matt to visit the Bombshell Babies (Georgia seemed particularly fond of him) and he never turned down any of the brainless sycophants Simon sent his way (He was smitten, not dead.) But none of them was who he really wanted.
No, he wanted Suzanne.
He wasn't especially sure why. She wasn't any great beauty (but, oh, when she smiled, his knees went weak.) And she was smart, but not brilliant (not the way Paula was, with her five degrees.) And sometimes, he thought that maybe she didn't think he was all that funny (the gravest insult for a man trying to make it in comedy.) But there was something about her…
Maybe it was the innocent air she still had about her, despite the fact that she'd been working in Hollywood for years now. Maybe it was the way she hugged her clipboard to her chest and nibbled on her pen when she was anxious about a skit. Or maybe it was because she still called her little sister every week to tell her about the celebrity guest star on the show.
Or maybe it was because she reminded him a lot of himself. Like him, she'd come from a small town. (Cedar City, Utah, population just over twenty thousand). She had one older brother and one younger sister. (Oh, God, what if she thought of him like another brother?) And she liked the simple things (The radiant smile she'd given him when he'd shared that bread had given him hope that she returned his feelings.)
Still… she never seemed to realize that when he asked her to breakfast at the diner or brought her an ice cream sandwich from the cart that was perpetually parked at the corner, he wasn't just doing it to be nice. He was doing it because he wanted her to notice him. Tom, the man, and not Tom, the goofy comedian slash actor who she saw every day but never really saw.
Maybe that was part of his problem. Compared to everyone else in the cast, he was just so… ordinary. Harry sang. And she had that religious right thing going that set her apart from the rest of the left-wing, liberal crowd. Simon was black, and maybe it sounded racist, but before they'd hired Darius, he'd been the only black person on staff. Everyone had some sort of little quirk that made them different – Lucy with her biting British wit, Lily who oozed Latin sexiness, Cal with his trademark vests. And Matt and Danny? Well, they were in a class all by themselves.
But him? He was just the guy next door. Cute, fun to hang around with on occasion, but not fodder for daydreams. And especially not the object of lustful thoughts.
Until, of course, he'd been arrested. For assault. And drugs. And excessive speeding in a borrowed Ferrari. Oh yeah. That had gotten him noticed by all the girls. Including her.
Which is how he'd ended up here, hidden behind the palm trees at the wrap party, hoping to avoid the most persistent of them, and chatting with her, the girl of his dreams, who may or may not have decided to notice him tonight because of everything that had happened in the last 48 hours.
"You know, I'm not really the criminal type," he explained earnestly.
"I know." She was still smiling and Tom wasn't sure why she was smiling like that, though he suspected it had to do with the arrest thing, so he kept on going, hoping she'd understand what he was trying to say. That guy from the Pahrump jailhouse wasn't who he was at all. And if that was the guy she was looking for...
"The assault wasn't really assault. He just sort of tripped on the bush and if Simon hadn't been so busy getting Harry into the car he would have flattened him with a fist in two seconds, but I was too nervous to do more than take a step closer and if he hadn't of fallen, God only knows what they could have been done to me. I mean, I'm a pacifist. My brother, now he's the hero in the family, fighting in Iraq, but me? I'm a pacifist. Through and through. I can't even squash spiders, even though they're all creepy and have those stringy little legs and –"
"I /know/," she interrupted him.
"See, I don't really think you do."
"Tom, I get it," she said. "You didn’t actually touch any of those guys, and everything that happened in Nevada was like a French farce."
"Yes! Yes, that's exactly it! A French farce." He waved his beer towards her, intent on getting her to really understand. "That wasn't me. Ok, it was me, and now I've got an official criminal record to prove it, but… it wasn't /really/ me in that jail. It was me but not me. It was a guy named Tom Jeter, but it wasn't this Tom Jeter, because this Tom Jeter would defend a friend with his dying breath but he would /never/ --"
"Tom."
He sighed and slumped back against the couch back. "I like you," he admitted shyly. "And I don't want you to like me back if it's because you think I'm that guy."
"I don't." She reached over, taking the beer from his hand and setting it down on the floor "I like you /despite/ your criminal status. For, you know, the other stuff. Like defending Harriet Hayes and sharing your banana bread."
And then she reached for him and their noses bumped awkwardly as they tried to figure out how to position their heads. But then she brushed her lips across his, softly and slowly, and Tom wasn't left wondering about her motives anymore. The girl he liked, liked him back and suddenly that was all that mattered.
~End~
Posted by Cassie on 10:11 AM