IMAGINES: Celebrity Encounters Starring You (54 page)

You get dressed, seeing that you picked your
I ONLY DATE SUPERHEROES
shirt. That makes you laugh to yourself, a sound that barely bounces off the walls. Last are your dark green Chuck Taylors. Tom’s written
Loki’d
on the toes of them, but you don’t mind. They’re his color, anyway.

Your coffee is ready by now, so you go and fill your mug, wiping away what spills on the brown countertop. The smell is amazing, and leaving the coffee black, you put the lid on top and head to the living room.

Your jacket and purse are on the couch, right where you left them when you got home. Hopefully you weren’t so tired that you left your keys in the car. Again. Luckily, they’re there, in your purse waiting for you to unlock the doors to the cream-colored Volkswagen Bug downstairs. You get your stuff and head out, turning on the living room light before leaving. It’ll be dark when you get back. It’s always dark when you get back.

Then you remember the umbrella. Which is why it pays to think forward, you remind yourself. You grab the yellow umbrella, just in case.

Your apartment building doesn’t have an elevator, so you walk down the flight of stairs to the lobby. Outside the glass doors, you see a few cars pass by. It’s still dark out, one edge of the sky barely orange with the rising sun.

The word
orange
has your head turning. It has always intrigued you, how it’s the one word that doesn’t rhyme with anything. You’re thinking over words that could possibly work with it as you walk to your car.
Florenge Gorenge Lorenge Door hinge
. That would work, but it’s two words. Not one.

The drive to the set doesn’t take very long. You listen to the
radio the entire way, regardless. It’s something you’ve done from day one, and singing to songs you know helps you relax. The job you have is hectic. Any form of relaxation is appreciated in this business.

You’re surprised that you’re not completely stressed-out. Or about to pass out from exhaustion. The crew’s been running nonstop for the past week and a half—
Get them to hair and makeup!—Is he done yet?—Are you finished so you can help on the extras?

You almost lost your temper more than once.

Pulling into the lot, you find a spot and park, turning off the engine. Then you sit there. Just for a minute. Once you get out, you won’t be back in until it’s time to go home. Whenever that is.

You give yourself a pep talk every day before you get out of the car.
Everything’s fine. I do this every day. Don’t let people get on your nerves. Don’t get nervous. Shaky hands can’t apply eyeliner.

Finally you get out. Grab your things. Put on the jacket because it’s a little chilly. You run by the food tent and grab a granola bar and an apple. People are milling around the trailers, talking and laughing. You have to go get everything set up for the day and then you’ll join them.

You work in your own trailer, even though it’s pretty small. It’s got one large (optimist) room and a small (realist) bathroom. At least you have a couch.

Throwing your stuff on an end table, you begin to sift through all of your supplies. You do this every morning, just like everyone else, to make sure you don’t need anything. So far, you have plenty of foundation and eyeliner. Powder’s good. Eye shadow: check. Sponges: ready to go. Now for the hair stuff. Hair spray. Extensions are a go. Razor: ready for launch. Hair dye: might need it, it’s been a couple of weeks. That’s it. Everything’s here and ready.

So you peek out the window of the trailer, the sun barely beginning to lift from the horizon.

When you hear a knock on the door, you know that the schedules for the day have been posted. You’ve got the overall schedule at home on your fridge, and one inside the trailer on the wall with all the photos you have to use. Fair enough to say that this changes, a lot.

Opening your trailer door, you pull the blue sheet of paper from the bin screwed to the door. Yep, it’s changed. He’s not on call until one, so you’ve got free time until the extras show up. You kind of wish that you’d known about this earlier; you would’ve slept in a little. Or watched the news on the TV at home instead of on the mini one here. You let out an exasperated sigh and duck back inside. You turn the air-conditioning on now, knowing that you’ll desperately need it later.

Grabbing a Golden Delicious apple, you begin eating it and go to your wall covered in paper. When you were given this trailer a month ago, it was sparkling clean. Now it’s covered in pictures and notes, drawings. Some black hair dye is on the floor from that time you spilled it by accident. Well . . . you had reason.

You never take the notes off the wall unless absolutely necessary, and the hodgepodge mural has gotten a bit out of hand. You know that your trailer is the most chaotic, yet organized, among those of the entire makeup/hair crew. A lot of this is thanks to a certain person who goes by the name Loki, who decided to leave all kinds of threatening letters around.

By far, your favorite is
Mortal, if you scour my face with that hideous scrub brush again, I shall make sure that you do not live to tell the tale.

When that had shown up two weeks ago, you replied with a crying sad face on the same paper. Two hours later his rebuttal
was taped to the mirror:
I’m sorry. I did not mean to make you cry. But I’m sure you intended to make me cry when assaulting my face with that horrible brush!

You tear down two or three of the little notes that don’t matter anymore, like
Get more sponges
and
More cotton balls
. That’s when you remember that you
are
out of Q-tips (“cotton-buds,” as Tom sometimes referred to them). You throw away the core of the apple in the wastebasket beside the large makeup counter. Grabbing the remote and clicking the television on, just so there won’t be so much silence when you get back, you leave and run down the lot.

From the trailer full of supplies you grab a box of the cotton swabs. A sheet on the table by the door demands that you write down your name and what you took, so you scrawl your signature and check the appropriate little box. Your watch says that it’s ten till six; the sun is practically up now.

Maintaining a slow jog, you need less than a minute to reach your trailer. MacKensie yells at you as you’re opening the door, “Extras aren’t coming until two now!”

“Thanks!” you yell back, shaking your head as you enter the cool trailer.

Inside, your eyes are greeted with the lanky form of a man who is much too tall for the small couch he’s lying across. His feet are up at the end. The crook of his arm is covering his eyes, the other arm dangling down to the floor.

“I’m not due on set until one,” comes that impossible English accent.

You’re not ashamed to say that he made you jump. He was always doing things like this. “Why do you make it your goal in life to scare me?”

He laughs. “Why are you so afraid of me?”

“It’s not that I’m afraid of you. ‘I will make sure you don’t
live to tell the tale’ does. Wouldn’t a well-written death threat scare you?”

Tom uncovers his eyes and has them fixed on you, teeth sparkling white in a dazzling smile. With a slight laugh and hint of cynicism he retorts, “If it were well written . . .”

You sigh and cross over to the other end of the couch where his feet are and shove them off, giving you a place to sit. “Extras aren’t in until two.”

“So we do nothing for a while.” Tom puts his feet in your lap.

“There’s nothing to do.” You overdramatically wail, “You’ll bore me to tears!”

It’s his turn now: “And you’ll drive me insane!”

“How sweet, Tom—no wonder all the girls love you!” You chuckle, playing with one of his shoelaces.

“I try.” His debonair shrug is followed by a small laugh that in turn makes you smile. Even though he wasn’t exactly being serious, everything he says has a distinct sincerity to it.

“But two o’clock, really?” he then complains. “I could have slept in. Or made some use of my time. Why don’t we do something until then?” He asks it so nonchalantly, as if you’d been friends all your lives.

“I could decorate your shoes.” You start to untie one of them. “It’s only fair.”

Tom pulls his feet out of your lap almost instantly. “No, no, no, no, and no. Not my good shoes.”

“And these weren’t
my
good shoes?” You laugh. “And I love how you said that
you
could’ve made
use
of your time.”

“I could have! And those look like they’re about to die.” He points at your sneakers.

You love times like these. They’re so easy. Too bad the entire job isn’t this way.

“Name one thing you could’ve done that would’ve been productive that you couldn’t do here.”

Now you’ve put him on the spot. And he doesn’t say a word. He just sits there, looking like he’s deep in thought, yet you know that nothing is going on back there. He’s probably just planning on pranking you again.

“Uh-huh,” you smirk, “you can’t think of anything.”

“Fine, you’re right.” He sighs, plopping those black sneakers back in your lap. “I can do anything here.”

There’s a moment of silence, which both of you enjoy. He’s closed his eyes again, probably drifting off into some dream only Tom Hiddlestons have. You continue playing with those off-white shoelaces, wanting to tie the two shoes together, but think better of it. No use in giving him an even better reason to prank you.

“Off,” you demand, throwing his feet to the floor. You hide your laugh behind an evil smile when he almost falls off the couch.

“That was not very nice,” he mumbles, sitting up and grabbing the TV remote.

The room is filled with the nasal voice of an anchorwoman talking about the weather. You walk to the door to grab your bag, lugging it back to your end of the couch. Inside, there are your notebook and pens, plus a million other items that held no particular utility being in a purse. That fishy-looking granola bar has been in there since your trip to Indiana last year. Then you see the little Loki action figure your older brother got you when he found out about the job.

The little Loki falls out as you pull out your laptop, intent on updating your Facebook. You’re not fast enough, and Tom grabs the figure before it’s stowed away. His long fingers turn it over in his hands, eyes scrutinizing every detail before turning to you. He’s got that mischievous grin plastered all over, and he’s definitely brewing something behind those eyes.

Anyone bursting through the door would think he was about to eat you.

You know much better though. You see the playfulness behind those changing irises, the ideas spinning around in that brain. All about how to humiliate you for having a mini-version of him in your purse.

“It’s not what you think, Tom,” you say before he can embarrass you too badly.

Tom smiles at the doll and opens his mouth as if to say something, but acts against it. His shockingly bright eyes dart up to you. You nearly lose your breath waiting for him to speak.

Finally he pipes up, “Then it shouldn’t be any different that I have an action figure of you. Or is that a bit odd?”

That sinks in after a brief second. “Maybe . . . a little.”

“If you’re allowed to have one of me, I should be able to have one of you.” Tom wiggles his eyebrows, letting out a laugh.

“Can I have it back now? It was a gift from my brother.” You frown, trying desperately to hide the chuckle that’s threatening to escape.

His laughter dies down slowly, but that smile remains. “Is he older or younger than you?”

Greg is three years older than you, and much, much taller. You love him to death, him and the little rascals you call children. His wife is a sweetheart, always calling you to make sure that you’re eating right and taking vitamins and saying things like “Did you see what they’re saying on the news about your movie?” and “I can’t believe you’re with all those celebrities right now! Take pictures for me, dear.”

You wish you could take pictures.

“Older.”

“Ah, so he is the Thor in your life,” Tom says.

The funniest part? Greg made sure to get a Thor figure too. He kept it for himself.

“You could say that, but I’m much nicer than Loki.”

Tom pretends to be offended. “He’s only misunderstood. No one understands him like I do.”

Your laptop has booted up, so you open your browser. “Well, this script makes him look like an insane . . . well, to be frank . . . an insane bag of cats.”

Tom then concedes that Loki is
quite
evil, but tries to defend him in every way that he can. You argue back and forth on the subject for at least thirty minutes, deciding that if you don’t forfeit, the argument would never end.

Facebook was overgrown with many, many, many wall posts from your friends and family. Sadly, when you got home, there wasn’t much time for anything other than reading for a few minutes and turning out the lights. Cora had been writing you the most, even sending a few letters through the mail every once in a while. Cora, your fourteen-year-old niece, is the person in your family that you relate the most to. If you had a sister, she would be it. Although there is a very . . .
passionate
love for Tom Hiddleston in her heart.

It takes several minutes to reply to everyone, and just as you begin to wonder if there’s a limit on how many private messages you can receive from one person, Tom starts clucking his tongue. Clearly he’s doing it just to be annoying.

You sigh loudly, seeing if that gets your point across. It doesn’t.

Cluck.

Cluck.

Cluck.

“Tom!” you say. “Please. Stop!”

He feigns innocence. “Am I bothering you?”

The glare you send should properly give him an answer. He just grins in return.

“Have you ever googled yourself?”

Tom doesn’t look up. “Once or twice.”

That’s enough incentive for you to do it. You click the search bar and quickly type
Tom Hiddleston
. Information abounds.

“You went to Eton, and Cambridge,” you read aloud. “And RADA . . .”