Between the Lines (Part 105)
Pairing: Tom Sturridge (40) x Reader (28)
Warnings: Age Gap, Domestic Abuse, Arranged Marriage, Sexual Abuse, PTSD, Religious Extremism; Implied Child Abuse, Domestic Violence, Child Abduction
The afterparty was, somehow, worse.
Not worse in any reasonable sense. Not unpleasant. Not ugly. Not frightening in the way airports and police stations and headlines had been frightening.
Just absurd.
A level of absurdity so polished and expensive it felt less like a party and more like walking into someone else’s fever dream.
There were flowers everywhere. Enormous arrangements that probably cost more than your first car. There were waiters weaving through the room with silver trays of champagne and tiny food that looked more decorative than edible. There were photographers pressed near the entrance, flashes snapping every time someone vaguely recognisable stepped beneath the lights. There were actors you had seen on posters. Directors whose names appeared in festival programs. Women in dresses that looked poured rather than worn. Men in suits who somehow managed to look dishevelled on purpose.
And there was alcohol.
Everywhere.
Again.
As if Cannes ran on champagne, cigarettes, and the collective terror of people pretending not to care what anyone thought of them.
You stood just inside the entrance with Sarah’s hand lightly at your elbow and thought, with genuine despair, that if someone offered you another glass of champagne, you might start laughing and never stop.
Sarah glanced sideways at you.
“You’ve gone pale again.”
“I’m fine.”
“That has become my least favourite sentence from you.”
You turned your head slowly and looked at her.
Then you tugged a little at the hem of the black dress, not because it needed tugging, but because your hands needed something to do.
The second dress was mercifully easier than the red carpet gown.
Still expensive. Obviously. You had borrowed this one from Matilda too and Matilda did not seem to own anything that was merely nice. Everything was either impossibly elegant or casually worth more than a council tax payment. But this dress, at least, allowed you to breathe. Black, softer, shorter, with lace across the neckline and sleeves that made it feel romantic rather than terrifying. It clung without imprisoning you. It moved when you moved. You could walk in it without feeling as though the fabric had its own agenda.
Sarah had zipped you into it back at the hotel while Tom had gone ahead to attend the party downstairs, at the resort, after some serious peer pressure.
He had not wanted to leave first.
That had been obvious.
Not to everyone, maybe.
To you, definitely.
The screening had wrung him out. You had seen it in the lift on the way back from the theatre, the way the adrenaline kept flickering through him, bright and unstable. He had laughed too quickly at nothing. Gone quiet too suddenly. Touched his hair three times in under a minute. Checked his phone, put it away, checked it again, then forgotten entirely what he was looking for.
People had wanted him everywhere.
The director. The cast. Festival people. Journalists. Luther, who had clapped him hard on the shoulder and said something like, “Come on, mate, you’re not hiding already,” before dragging him toward a waiting car with two other actors and a woman from the production team.
Tom had looked back at you from the corridor.
Not dramatically.
Not possessively.
Just once.
As if leaving you behind, even with Sarah, still went against some instinct in him.
You had waved him off.
“Go. I have to change. Sarah will deliver me safely.”
Sarah, from behind you, had said dryly, “I am fully capable of transporting one nervous girlfriend through a hotel corridor.”
Tom had not looked reassured.
“Text me when you leave.”
“Tom.”
“And when you arrive.”
“Tom.”
He had pushed a hand through his hair, making the carefully arranged mess worse and therefore better.
“I know. Sorry.”
You had softened then.
Of course you had.
Because he could stand in front of hundreds of people while they applauded him for seven minutes, but leaving you to change dresses for half an hour apparently required a tactical operations plan.
You had gone to him, cupped his jaw with one hand, and kissed him once.
“Go be brilliant and exhausted at famous people.”
His mouth had twitched against yours.
“I’m already exhausted.”
“Then just be brilliant.”
He had looked at you for half a second too long.
Then Luther had called, “Tom, come on!”
Tom had shut his eyes briefly.
You had laughed.
Sarah had made a noise that sounded suspiciously like fond judgment.
And then he had gone.
*********
Now, standing in the afterparty entrance with Sarah beside you, you realised you had made a grave mistake.
Because sending Tom ahead meant finding him.
And finding him meant scanning a room full of people who all looked as if they belonged there while you felt like someone had accidentally let a library assistant into a very expensive aquarium.
For almost two minutes, you looked around.
Then you saw him.
At first, only the back of him.
The dark suit. The messy hair. The line of his shoulders.
Your body recognised him before your mind had finished placing him.
He was near the bar, a little to the side of the main crush, holding a drink he was not really drinking. Luther was there too, along with two actors from the film and someone you vaguely recognised from a show Mia had once watched in the background while doing homework.
Tom was smiling.
Not the public smile.
The tired one.
The polite one.
The one that said he was listening, trying, present enough to be gracious and absent enough that part of him was probably still sitting in the dark theatre with the credits rolling.
And around him—
Oh.
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
There were three women.
Not one.
Not two.
Three.
All beautiful in the particular early-twenties way that made beauty look unfairly easy. Glowing skin. Bare shoulders. Glossy hair. Tiny dresses or sleek suits or whatever the hell people wore when they had never once worried about whether sitting down would make their stomach fold visibly. They stood close to him in a little half-circle of perfume and laughter, their bodies angled inward as if Tom were a warm fire in winter.
One of them touched his arm.
Very lightly.
Just once.
Probably meaningless.
Possibly European.
Definitely enough to make something ugly and hot move through your chest.
You stopped walking.
Sarah stopped with you.
She followed your gaze.
Then sighed so quietly it was almost not a sigh.
“Ah.”
You said nothing.
Tom laughed at something one of the women said.
It was not even his real laugh.
That made it worse, somehow.
Because you knew the difference.
You knew the laugh he gave when he was amused but not comfortable. You knew the laugh he used when he had not understood exactly what someone meant but had worked out from context that laughing was safest. You knew the way his fingers tapped once against the side of his glass when he was overstimulated. You knew the way he glanced sideways, searching for exits, people he recognised, you.
But jealousy was not reasonable.
Jealousy did not care that his feet were angled away from them. It did not care that he had not touched them back. It did not care that his smile had edges. It saw three beautiful young women looking at your forty-year-old boyfriend like he was something rare and interesting and still entirely available.
And then jealousy, because it was a pathetic little creature, whispered:
Of course.
Of course they would.
Look at him.
Look at you.
You hated yourself instantly for thinking it.
The room seemed louder suddenly.
The dress felt tighter, even though it wasn’t.
Sarah’s voice came carefully beside you.
“Do you want to go over?”
You swallowed.
“No.”
“Do you want me to accidentally murder them?”
You looked at her.
She lifted one shoulder.
“Professionally, of course.”
Despite the burn behind your ribs, you almost laughed.
“No.”
“Shame.”
You looked back.
The blonde one was speaking now, head tilted, smile bright and sharp. The woman in the silver dress laughed and leaned closer to Tom’s side, as if the room were so loud she had no choice. The third one, dark-haired and terrifyingly elegant, looked at Tom’s mouth while he answered.
Your hand curled around nothing.
Sarah noticed.
Of course she did.
“For what it’s worth,” she said, “he has looked at the entrance four times in the last two minutes.”
You blinked.
“What?”
“Tom. He is looking for you.”
You stared at her.
“He is surrounded by three women who look like perfume adverts.”
“Yes.”
“And one of them just touched him.”
“I saw.”
“And you are calm?”
Sarah gave you a sideways look.
“I have known Tom a while. That is not a man flirting. That is a man trapped by politeness and possibly dissociating.”
You stared at him again.
His fingers tapped the glass.
Once.
Twice.
Then he lifted it to his mouth, did not drink, and lowered it again.
The blonde said something.
Tom smiled.
Then looked past her.
Toward the entrance.
Toward you.
He saw you.
The change in him was immediate.
Not theatrical. Not rude. But immediate.
His face opened.
The tired politeness fell away like a coat slipping from his shoulders. His eyes fixed on you across the room, and for one second the whole party seemed to lose him. The women were still talking. Luther was saying something. Someone laughed beside him.
Tom was looking only at you.
Your jealousy did not vanish.
It stumbled.
Confused by evidence.
Then Tom said something to the group, already moving.
The blonde touched his sleeve again, perhaps to finish her thought, perhaps to keep him there.
Tom did not quite step away sharply, because he was not cruel.
But he did step away.
His body made the decision before the conversation could argue.
He crossed the room toward you with long, slightly impatient strides, weaving between people, drink still in one hand, the other pushing through his hair as if he had forgotten entirely that a stylist had suffered for that shape earlier.
Sarah murmured, “See?”
You said nothing.
Because he was coming toward you.
And because you were still furious.
And because you were relieved.
And because relief made the fury even more humiliating.
Tom reached you and stopped far too close for public decency, which, given the room, was probably saying something.
His eyes moved over your face first.
Then the dress.
Then your face again.
His mouth parted slightly.
“Oh.”
You lifted your eyebrows.
“Oh?”
He looked at the lace at your neckline, then very deliberately looked back into your eyes as though remembering he was a civilised man.
Barely.
“That dress.”
Sarah coughed.
Tom ignored her.
You hated that your skin warmed.
“Matilda’s.”
“Remind me to thank Matilda.”
“For lending me clothes?”
His gaze flicked down once more, not subtle enough.
“For many things.”
Sarah made a sound.
“I am going to get a drink and pretend not to have heard that.”
Tom looked at her then.
“Thank you for getting her here.”
Sarah softened despite herself.
“She is intact.”
“Mostly,” you muttered.
Tom’s attention snapped back to you.
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing.”
His eyes narrowed slightly.
Not suspicious.
Concerned.
Always too perceptive when you least wanted him to be.
“Darling.”
You looked past him.
At the women behind him.
One of them was still looking over.
Of course she was.
Tom followed your gaze.
Then he understood.
You saw the exact second.
His expression shifted. First confusion, then recognition, then something almost tender, which was so unfair you nearly wanted to kick him.
“Ah.”
You crossed your arms.
“Don’t ‘ah’ me.”
His mouth twitched.
Brave of him.
“I wasn’t aware I had ‘ah’d’ in a tone.”
“You did.”
“Right.”
Sarah reappeared suddenly, handed you a glass, handed Tom nothing because he already had one, and then vanished again with the look of a woman delighted by trouble she did not have to solve.
Tom stepped closer.
“Were you jealous?”
Your head snapped back to him.
“Absolutely not.”
“No?”
“No.”
“Because you look a little murderous.”
“That’s just my face.”
His mouth pressed together.
The bastard was trying not to smile.
You pointed one finger at him, champagne still in hand.
“Do not laugh at me.”
“I would never.”
“Tom.”
“I am fighting for my life not to.”
You glared at him.
He did laugh then.
Not loudly. Not cruelly.
Softly.
Warmly.
Completely unable to help himself.
Then, because apparently he had decided tonight was already too ridiculous to survive with dignity, he leaned closer and murmured, “And for what it’s worth, these three women over there were unfortunately a bit dull. I lost them halfway through a conversation about TikTok.”
You looked at him.
“TikTok?”
The party roared around you.
A camera flashed somewhere near the entrance.
A woman shrieked delightedly at someone famous.
Tom’s eyes stayed on yours.
“Yeah. TikTok.”
Oh.
That was worse.
Better.
Worse.
You swallowed.
“To be fair, they are very young.”
His mouth quirked, but he kept it gentle.
“Yes.”
“And very beautiful.”
Tom tilted his head a little, watching you like he knew the shape of the trap before he stepped into it.
“Yes.”
Your eyebrows shot up.
“You’re supposed to say no.”
“I am not stupid enough to lie to you about objective reality when you have eyes.”
You made an affronted sound.
Tom’s thumb moved again.
“They were beautiful. And I don’t care.”
Your chest hurt.
You looked down at his shirt collar because looking at his face felt dangerous.
“I know I’m being ridiculous.”
“You’re not.”
“I am. You’re at Cannes. People flirt. That’s normal. You’re—”
You stopped yourself.
Tom tilted his head.
“I’m what?”
You took a sip of champagne to avoid answering.
Wrong move.
It made you cough a little.
Tom’s mouth twitched again.
“Very elegant.”
“Shut up.”
He smiled.
You looked away.
Then muttered, “You’re you.”
His smile faded.
The room moved around you.
His voice came softer.
“And you are you.”
You rolled your eyes because otherwise you might cry again.
“Profound.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
“No, I don’t think you do.”
His fingers tightened at your waist.
Not hard.
Enough.
“I am not standing in this room wishing I were with some twenty-two-year-old in silver lamé who asked me whether I enjoyed kissing Rami Malek.”
Despite yourself, you blinked.
“She asked you that?”
“Yes.”
“What did you say?”
“I think I said ‘totally. He is an excellent kisser’.”
A laugh broke out of you.
Tom looked pleased.
“There.”
“That’s a terrible question.”
“It was not her best.”
You glanced back, then stopped yourself.
“Don’t make me feel bad for her.”
“I won’t.”
“She’s probably lovely.”
“Probably.”
“I hate her.”
Tom’s smile widened.
“Naturally.”
You took another drink, smaller this time.
He watched you over the rim of his own glass, still not really drinking.
“Do you want to meet people?” he asked.
You looked around at the room.
The lights. The faces. The photographers. The slippery laughter. The constant movement of people who knew when to air kiss and when to embrace and where to stand so the camera caught their good side.
“No.”
He looked relieved so quickly you nearly laughed.
“Thank God.”
“You don’t either?”
“I should.”
“That wasn’t the question.”
He looked down at you.
Then admitted, “No.”
There was the man beneath it.
Not the actor. Not the subject of red carpet photos. Not the handsome thing three women had decided to orbit because they liked the shadow he cast.
Just Tom.
Overwhelmed, fidgeting, tired, proud, still slightly stunned by the ovation, and looking at you as though the entire party was something to survive until he could get you alone.
You softened.
He saw that too.
His mouth brushed your temple, quick and warm.
“Come on,” he said. “We’ll do the least possible amount of socialising without being actively rude.”
“That is my favourite kind.”
“Mine too.”
And he kept you close after that.
Not in a showy way.
Not like he was proving something.
Just close.
His hand at your back as you moved through the room. His fingers grazing your wrist when he stepped aside to let someone pass. His mouth near your ear whenever he explained who someone was.
“Producer.”
“French distributor.”
“No idea.”
“Someone very important whose name I’ve forgotten.”
“That man once spent forty minutes telling me about a boat.”
You kept almost laughing into your champagne.
He introduced you to people as if it were the simplest thing in the world.
“This is Y/N.”
Not girlfriend every time.
Not partner every time.
Sometimes just your name.
But the way he said it did the rest.
This is Y/N.
As if your name itself explained why his hand never moved far from you.
Some people were lovely.
Some were not.
Some looked at you with open curiosity, their eyes flicking to your dress, your face, Tom’s hand on your back, the space between your bodies. Some were warm in the way people were warm at parties when they did not expect to see you again. Some said they had seen the interview. Some did not mention it but looked at you as if they had read every word.
Tom noticed those ones.
His body shifted each time, subtly placing himself closer.
*********
Maybe it was the champagne.
Maybe the aftershock of the screening.
Maybe the fact that he had been looked at all evening and still kept looking for you.
But somewhere between the second and third glass, the room started to blur at the edges in a way that felt almost pleasant. Not drunk exactly. Warm. Loose. Less afraid of standing in the wrong place. Less worried that someone would ask what you did and decide you were not enough for the room.
Tom was not drinking much.
You noticed that.
He accepted glasses, took a sip, abandoned them on tables, forgot where he had put them, accepted another, and repeated the process like a man trapped in a ritual he did not understand.
You, unfortunately, were finishing yours.
Sarah appeared from nowhere at one point, glanced at you, then at the glass.
“Water.”
You blinked at her.
“Was that a suggestion?”
“No.”
Tom laughed under his breath and took the champagne from your hand with insulting ease.
“Traitor.”
He kissed your knuckles before you could snatch it back.
“Water.”
“You are both very bossy.”
Sarah handed you a glass of water.
“Correct.”
You drank it because apparently you were surrounded by competent people determined to keep you alive.
Tom watched you, mouth soft.
“Good girl.”
It slipped out quietly.
Not for Sarah.
Not for the room.
Just for you.
Still, your whole body reacted.
Annoyingly.
Instantly.
His eyes darkened as he saw it.
Sarah looked between you both, sighed, and said, “I’m leaving before I become collateral damage.”
You nearly choked on the water.
Tom looked away with the expression of a man attempting innocence and failing on a professional level.
Sarah pointed at him.
“You have twenty more minutes of being visible, then you may vanish without me calling you rude.”
Tom checked his watch.
Immediately lost focus.
Checked it again as if the numbers had changed.
“Twenty?”
“Twenty.”
“That seems arbitrary.”
“It is. But it sounds official.”
You liked Sarah more every time she spoke.
Tom leaned down toward you after she walked off.
“Twenty minutes.”
His breath brushed your ear.
Your skin tightened.
“You’re counting?”
“Yes.”
“That’s rude to the others.”
“They’ll recover.”
You looked up at him.
Big mistake.
He was too close. The room behind him was all soft gold and movement, but his face was sharp enough to make your chest ache. Blue eyes, tired and bright. Mouth a little wine-dark from the evening. Hair touched too many times by his own restless fingers. A few silver threads at his temple catching the light.
And he was looking at you like the party had become background noise to a much more dangerous thought.
“Tom.”
“Hmm?”
“Do not look at me like that in public.”
His mouth curved.
“Like what?”
“Like that.”
“I’m merely standing here.”
“You are never merely standing anywhere.”
That made him smile properly.
Then he bent and kissed you.
Not red carpet brief.
Not hotel hungry.
Somewhere between.
A warm, lingering kiss at the edge of the party, his hand sliding from the small of your back to your hip, your fingers catching at the front of his jacket before you could remember not to. The room did not disappear this time. You were too aware of it. The flash from somewhere. The murmur nearby. The fact that people could see.
But that only made the kiss stranger.
More intimate for being public.
More yours because he was choosing it where anyone could look.
When he pulled back, you were breathless enough to be annoyed.
“You did that because of the Tik Tok women.”
His eyes glimmered.
“Partly.”
You smacked his chest lightly.
“Tom.”
He caught your hand there and held it against him.
“Mostly because I wanted to.”
Your fingers rested over his heartbeat.
Fast.
Not wildly.
But not calm either.
You looked up.
His smile faded into something more honest.
“This whole evening is very strange,” he said.
You softened at once.
“Yeah.”
His thumb moved over your hand.
“I keep feeling like I should be… somewhere else. Or doing something else. Or saying something more intelligent than I am.”
“You gave a speech in front of half of cinema and didn’t faint.”
“Barely.”
“And everyone loved the film.”
His gaze dropped briefly.
Still not used to receiving it.
Still suspicious of praise even when it had come from an entire theatre on its feet.
You moved closer.
“They loved it, Tom.”
He swallowed.
“I know.”
“Do you?”
He looked at you then.
And there it was again. The openness from the theatre. The thing he let you see because he did not have enough armour left to hide it.
“I’m trying to.”
Your chest squeezed.
You touched his jaw, forgetting the party for one second.
“You were wonderful.”
He leaned into your hand by the smallest amount.
“You already said that.”
“I’ll say it again.”
His mouth touched your palm.
A tiny kiss.
Soft enough that no camera would understand what it meant.
You did.
“Careful,” you whispered.
His eyes lifted.
“With what?”
“Me.”
His expression changed.
Heat first.
Then tenderness.
Then something almost wicked.
“I am trying.”
You laughed under your breath.
“Badly.”
“Yes.”
You stayed like that too long.
Long enough that Sarah materialised again, apparently summoned by the threat of scandal.
“Tom.”
He did not look away from you.
“Yes?”
“There is a photographer getting very emotionally invested in the two of you.”
You dropped your hand from his face instantly.
Tom looked over.
A man with a camera immediately pretended to photograph someone else.
Tom looked back at you.
His mouth twitched.
“Very subtle.”
“You’re both impossible,” Sarah said. “Come and speak to Ira for five minutes, then you can do whatever this is somewhere less public.”
“This is affection,” Tom said.
Sarah stared at him.
“This is a headline waiting for better lighting.”
You snorted.
Tom sighed but obeyed, because Sarah had the power of a woman who could organise chaos with a phone and one eyebrow.
The final twenty minutes became forty.
Of course they did.
There was Ira, emotional again after another round of congratulations. There were producers. A journalist who was not technically interviewing but was absolutely interviewing. Someone from a distributor who kissed you on both cheeks and told Tom the film was “devastating in the finest way,” which sounded like a compliment and possibly a threat. There was a famous actress who told you your dress was beautiful and then moved on before you could say anything more intelligent than “Oh, thank you.”
Tom held your hand under a small cocktail table through most of it.
He fidgeted with your fingers instead of his own.
Tapped your knuckle once.
Traced your ring finger absentmindedly.
Pressed your palm when conversation dragged too long.
You began to understand that the public version of his life was made of tiny negotiations with discomfort. He knew how to stand, how to smile, how to answer, how to give enough without giving too much. But underneath it all, his body was always looking for something real to hold.
Tonight, apparently, that was you.
By the time Sarah finally reappeared and said, “You may leave now before one of you combusts,” you were beyond ready.
Tom looked at you.
“Right,” he said quietly. “Let’s head back to the room then?”
You turned to him far too quickly.
“Yes.”
Too eager.
Instantly too eager.
Tom blinked.
Sarah stopped looking at her phone.
You felt your face heat.
“I mean—yes. That’s a good idea. Long night. Very tired. Shoes hurt. Room is…”
Tom stared at you.
His mouth began to move.
You pointed at him.
“Don’t.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were about to.”
“I was only going to say you seem enthusiastic about rest.”
Sarah made a tiny noise that might have been a laugh and might have been her soul leaving her body.
You glared at him.
“I am enthusiastic about taking these heels off.”
Tom looked down at your shoes.
Then back up at you.
Very slowly.
“Of course.”
“And sleeping.”
“Naturally.”
“In bed.”
“Where sleeping traditionally happens.”
Sarah closed her eyes.
“I cannot stress enough how much I wish I were not standing here.”
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