Title: Coffee Break
Author: Star (star55)
Part: 1/1
Rating: PG-15
Pairing: Tom/James (YAY!!)
Genre: Romance, fluff
Summary: Tom asks James to meet him for a coffee break…
A/N: Dedicated to Emma orpheous87 for bringing James into our Role Play and making me crave Tom/James for about a month now *hugs tight*
Disclaimer: Not mine, not now, not ever. *is saddened by this*


Coffee Break

Sighing heavily, Tom sat down in the corner booth of his favourite café. He unfolded his newspaper and smoothed it out in front of him. He stirred his spoon in his coffee and licked the foam off it. His eyes scanned the words of newspaper as he munched happily on his chocolate chip muffin, crumbs falling onto the table.

“Sorry I’m late.”

Tom looked up to see a harassed looking James slid into the seat across from him. Tom closed the paper and gave James a soft smile.

“Thank you for this,” James said. He took a large sip of the coffee Tom had ordered for him.

“You look tired,” Tom said.

James let out a dry chuckle. “You try having twins and tell me that you’re not tired all the time.”

“I only have the one child, and she is a princess.”

James rolled his eyes. “Trust you to have the perfect daughter while I got stuck with twin boys. They’re at their terrible two stage.”

“Ah, I remember when Milly went through that,” Tom chuckled. “They grow out of it.”

James made a noise. “Somehow I don’t think these two will…” he trailed off, taking a bite of his muffin. “So, how are you? It’s been ages since you asked to catch up.”

Tom shifted in his seat. “We haven’t seen each other in a while; I miss hanging out with my best friend.”

“I thought Danny was your best friend?”

Tom watched as James’ Adam’s apple bobbed as he drank his coffee. “He is, but he has been busy with Dougie and the life they have together.”

“How many kids do they have now?” James asked with a smirk. “Have they reached the two dozen mark yet?”

“Ha, ha,” Tom said dryly. “No, they’ve got three but they’re planning on having another one soon.”

“I never pegged Danny and Dougie to have a large family.”

Tom shrugged. “They are really good with kids; I have never seen such devoted parents before.”

James nodded and they got talking, catching up on their lives since they last spoke to each other. Tom admitted to James that he was miserable. The only thing he seemed to live for was his daughter, Milly. He knew it wasn’t healthy to live through his five year old daughter but it was the only thing that seemed to keep him going through the days.

James listened to him talk, like he always did. They finished their coffees and went for a walk down to the park, the afternoon spring sun shining down on them. Tom missed talking with James, something they used to do so often when they were younger.

James said how he was in between jobs and how his ex-girlfriend loved that. He hated that he couldn’t see his boys as much as he wanted to. Tom sympathised with him, if anyone had tried to take away his daughter after her mother died, he would have been a wreck.

“I mean, I get Ethan and Cooper every couple of days, but it’s not enough, you know?” James said as they sat down on a park bench. “They’re my sons; I don’t want to be a part-time dad.”

Tom nodded. “I can’t understand why Emily would do that to you,” he said.

“Because she’s a bitch,” James said shortly. “She saw me as they guy from that band that had a lot of money and she wanted that. She didn’t want me to fall in love with her, she got what she wanted, half of my things and both of my sons and left. I hate her.”

Tom put his hand on James’ arm, not able to comprehend how someone could do that to someone else. Especially not to someone as nice and kind hearted as James. James said that he was going for custody of the boys as Emily was a heavy drinker and he believed she was unfit to look after their children. He just hoped he would get custody of them, nothing meant more to him than his sons.

They shared tales of their children’s escapades and laughed over the things kids came out with. James said he was glad that he had boys and not a girl as he would hate having to do the whole ‘girl talk’ to her when she got older. Tom groaned and hung his head in his hands, not wanting to imagine how that conversation was going to go.

A while later, Tom looked at his watch and cursed. “Sorry, I’ve got to go get Milly from school,” he said.

James nodded. “No worries,” he said. “We’ll catch up soon, yeah?”

Tom nodded. “Yeah, that would be nice,” he flashed James a smile and briskly walked to his car. He pulled up outside of his daughter’s school just as the bell sounded. He made his way to her classroom and smiled brightly when she bounded over to him.

“Look what I did, Daddy!”

Milly waved a drawing in front of his face and Tom praised her on it. It was a drawing of her and Tom in the park. He smiled and took her hand, leading her back to the car.

“Daddy, can we have an ice cream?” Milly asked as they got inside the house.

“No, we can’t, it will spoil your dinner,” Tom said hanging up her school coat on the rack.

Later that evening after Tom had put Milly to bed, his mobile phone went off. He sat on the couch to and looked at his phone, seeing a text from James. He smiled to himself and text back.

A few hours and fifty text messages later, Tom arranged to meet James the next day for coffee at the same café.

Tom went to bed that night feeling better than he had in a long time.

*****

Over the next few weeks, James and Tom met up regularly for coffee in the afternoons after Tom finished work. More often than not, James would come back to his place after collecting Milly from school and he would stay for dinner.

Milly loved having James around as he knew just as much as her dad about music. She would often ask James and Tom to sing her to sleep and both males could never say no to her angelic face.

After a week, Tom met James at his place as he had Ethan and Cooper for a few days. He didn’t realise how right James was when he said they were a handful. Both boys were so full of energy that Tom was worn out after an hour with them.

He praised James on his stamina. James had laughed it off, saying that he had gotten used to them.

Tom knew that he was falling for his friend and wondered if James had any idea how he felt. It was though Tom had reverted back to being a teenager and didn’t know what to say or do around James until the blonde asked him about it.

To say Tom felt embarrassed would have to be an understatement. He was a grown man; he wasn’t supposed to have crushes on his friends. He fobbed it off and didn’t tell James the real reason, instead he just made something up and James took his word for it.

One afternoon found James knocking on Tom’s door, smiling happily. He immediately pulled Tom into a hug and Tom blinked, hugging James back.

“What happened?” Tom asked.

“I got custody!” James said happily. “Emily rocked up to court drunk and I got custody!”

Tom smiled. “That’s fantastic!”

James hugged Tom tight to him and pulled back, pressing his lips to Tom’s. Tom blinked as he pulled back. There was a moment of awkwardness before their lips met again.

Tom wound his arms around James’ shoulders and leant into the other male’s touch. Everything felt like it slipped into place and he felt so elated just to do this with James.

“You have no idea how long I have wanted to do that,” James said as he pulled back. He pressed smaller kisses to Tom’s lips. Tom smiled, hands cupping James’ neck softly.

“You have no idea how long I have wanted you to do that,” Tom replied kissing back.

James smiled softly at him, bringing his hand up to cup Tom’s cheek. They kissed for a while longer, glad to have finally crossed the line to being something more.

Tom didn’t want to move from James’ arms, afraid in case it was all a dream. He felt so right being with James, everything seemed to slip into place and he felt content for the first time in a long time.

“I have to thank you though,” James said after a long while.

“What for?”

“For asking me to meet you for coffee that day,” James replied. “Because if I hadn’t have come, we wouldn’t have this right now.”

Tom melted into James’ arms, kissing him tenderly. He was glad for that coffee break too.

*****


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