I'm a few steps behind Bentley and Tom, which makes sense because their legs are about three times as long as mine, and I'm wearing four inch heels.  We fly through the lobby, and are just in time to catch a glimpse of Keegan running out through the main glass doors.

"What did you say to her?" Bentley asks, his voice low and barely audible.  I rush to keep up with them, grabbing at the sides of my gown and lifting it up as we hurry.  It would be terribly dramatic and glamorous if I weren't stumbling along like a little hobbit in drag.  Tom shakes his head slightly, and looks to the side at Bentley.

"I'm not repeating it." Tom's jaw is clenched and he won't look at me.  My heart is pounding in my chest, and I'm not sure whether to be concerned or angry or amused.  We push through the glass doors out into the London night, and I'm surprised it's gotten rather chilly out.  I shiver as the wind picks up. 

"You asshole! You absolute piece of shit!" Keegan comes flying out of nowhere, and for a second I think her head is going to start spinning around.  She looks absolutely infuriated and completely terrifying.  We all jump backward, and Tom pushes an arm out in front of me, shoving me back and to the side.

"You're drunk.  You're drunk and making a scene." Tom says, his voice still low and calm.  Keegan laughs, shaking her head in dismay.  Bentley looks at Tom and then at me. 

"Oh, must not make a scene!" She waves her hands in the air.  "Tom hates making a scene! Well, if I want to make a scene, I will make a fucking scene!" She screams and although there's no one outside at the moment, we all glance around.  Bentley leans into Tom and mumbles into his ear.

"I'm going to call you a car." He reaches into his pocket as Tom nods.

"Keegan, you need to go back to your hotel." He puts his hands out toward her, trying to be calming and soothing.  "Bentley's calling you a car, and you can go back to your hotel and sleep it off, and I promise you'll feel better tomorrow."

"Better?! Better about what?! The fact that you've been fucking that piece of trash all summer?" She points at me, her eyes wide and blank.  I take a step forward, feeling my blood start to boil but Bentley looks at me and shakes his head almost imperceptibly as he starts muttering quietly into his phone.

"Keegan. Stop." Tom's voice is steel and I can tell he's angry now. Keegan looks at Tom with wild, frantic eyes.  In almost an instant, she goes from enraged and angry to heartbreakingly sad.  Her big eyes fill with tears, and she hunches over, sobbing loudly into her hands. 

"Jesus." Bentley grumbles, looking at her over his shoulder.  Keegan cries loudly, wailing like a child in the midst of a temper tantrum.  The stages of drunken Keegan. 1. Loud, obnoxious, flirty. 2. Enraged, angry and belligerent. 3. Weepy, pathetic and sad.  Both Tom and I have dealt with all these stages of hers multiple times.  This time though, they are directed entirely at Tom and I and it's embarrassing.  We're not totally sure how to handle it when normally we are the ones trying to diffuse the situation.

Tom turns away from Keegan and I would have laughed if I weren't so distressed.  All we needed was an errant paparazzi to walk by, and turn this into a complete catastrophe. Tom looks comically upset- frustrated, disgusted and not amused at all.  I will call it his 'I'm living in a nightmare' face.

"I need to take her back to her hotel and calm her down." He dips his head low, talking into my ear.  I nod, shivering slightly as the wind picks back up. Tom shrugs out of his jacket, and places it around my shoulders.  It's warm from his body heat, and smells like him.  Behind Tom, I hear Keegan curse at us and continue to wail.

"I've got two cars coming." Bentley walks over and puts a hand on Tom's shoulder.  Tom reaches over and shakes Bentley's hand.

"Thank you, mate.  You should go back in. Any minute a pap is going to notice us and start taking photos.  I don't want you wrapped up in this." Tom groans and looks at his wrist, checking the time.  Bentley nods.

"What? A love quadrangle between you, me, your lovely baker friend and a hysterical yoga instructor doesn't sound like a good headline to you?" Bentley says good humoredly.  I hold back a laugh as Tom stares at him wide eyed, and then shakes his head quickly. "I'm going to leave with you guys anyway.  James is meeting up with his lady friend any moment, so I think I'll call it a night."

From a few yards away, Keegan begins screaming in our direction again.  Most of it is incoherent, though I do make out something about cheating and being "soul partners". Tom walks back over to Keegan, and she continues screaming at him, and starts smacking him on the arms. 

"This is embarrassing." I whisper under my breath, pulling Tom's coat tight around me. 

"Please, love, this is just a regular Saturday night in Hollywood. Or this case, London." He winks at me as two dark cars pull up.  I hear Tom yell out in relief, and Bentley seems to spring into action.  I'm not totally sure what the plan is but, I rush forward as well.

"Let's go, Keegan." Tom says, gently pushing her toward one of the cars.

"You're coming with me.  We have to talk." She grinds out, clinging to the front of Tom's shirt. 

Here's the thing. I'm not often a hugely jealous person.  I'm not.  And when it comes to Tom, I have for the last five years, been able to almost completely turn off that portion of my brain when it concerns him.  But for some reason, seeing Keegan—this woman who has hurt him so deeply, and now who is making a horrific scene on what is supposed to be an amazing night—clinging to him like a desperate child, I feel my blood pressure rise quickly.

"Let's go, Keegan.  You need to go home." I step forward and take her by the arm.  It's like handling a toddler, and I've handled this toddler before.  Keegan whips around, grabbing Tom's coat from my shoulders and throwing it angrily at him.  It hits him smack in the middle of the face, and he grabs it quickly.  She's lost it.  She's officially lost it.

"Don't you fucking touch me, Charlie! You pretended to be my friend. For five years you pretended and really you were just after Tom! You're a fucking parasite!" She points her manicured finger at me, and I have to admit, a teensy, tiny part of me feels bad.  It sort of does look that way, to the average outsider.  The rest of me just feels angry. Really angry.  The kind of angry where you start making a mental list of all the people you will have to apologize to in the morning.

"Are you serious?!" I say, my voice coming out much more shrill that I had intended.  Tom gives me a look, as if to calm me down and remind me that she's crazy, but he doesn't say anything.  He knows there's no stopping me.

"I should have known. I should have known you two were going on behind my back." She pushes Tom and his shoulders sways back, but he doesn't budge.  Tom has been rather quiet, but he knows the routine.  Anything he says, she will just twist and use to make herself even angrier.

"Not that you have any right, whatsoever, to judge Tom and I..." I step forward and stop right in front of her.  She looks down at me, her watery eyes surprisingly focused.  "But Tom and I never touched each other until way, way after the fact that you slept with some guy and cheated on him." I grind out. Keegan rolls her eyes and scoffs at both of us.

"Tom wouldn't even touch me for MONTHS." She screams the last word at Tom.  "You wouldn't even FUCK me if I begged for it.  Why? Because you were obsessed with HER!" She points at me and nearly hits me in the face.  I step away, feeling completely embarrassed and...a tiny bit pleased.  I glance at Tom and he's just standing with his arms over his chest, still as a statue.  He's staring straight ahead, and I'm not sure he's even present for this conversation anymore.

"Keegan, I...I don't—" I start talking, explaining things that I'm not even sure about, but then Tom steps forward.

"No, you don't need to explain yourself to her." He says to me, his voice hard.  He turns to Keegan and pushes her gently toward the open car door.  "Let's go. Now." He orders Keegan into the car, and surprisingly she listens to him.  He shuts the door behind her, if only to keep her inside like some sort of car cage for a hysterical animal.  I step back, because honestly, he's in a strange mood that I'm not sure I've ever seen before.  He turns to me, and puts one long arm out, bracing against the top of the car.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." He says, his voice is much gentler but his eyes are still fierce and quite angry.  I nod.  I'm finding myself rather speechless tonight, and it's a new feeling.

"It's fine." I nod.  He puts his jacket back around my shoulders.

"No, it's really not." Tom reaches up as if he's going to touch my face, but then he hesitates and drops his hand at his side.  He swallows, and I watch his throat move. "I'm going to take her back to her hotel and try to calm her down.  The other car will take you back to my flat.  Is that alright?" He asks softly.  I bring my hand up to his face, gently touching his cheek.  Tom presses his face into my palm, and then turns his head slightly and kisses my palm.

"Yes. It's okay." I nod.  I don't really see that I have any other choice. There's no way I am getting in that car with Keegan.  And she needs someone to take her home. 

Bentley has been standing off to the side, watching quietly like we are some really fantastic, horribly juicy episode of a trashy day time talk show.  He walks over and dips his head low.

"We need to go, I see some press coming this way." He says quickly to Tom.  We nod, and Tom turns and looks over his shoulder.  Bentleymoves quickly and walks to the second car, opening the door and holding it open, waiting for me.  Tom and I follow, and Bentley ducks into the car.

"Go with Bentley.  He'll make sure you get home okay.  And I will be there as soon as I can.  I'll be half an hour, tops." Tom says, taking my hand in his.  I nod, and want badly to kiss him.  To find some sort of comfort in him.  But I see the photographers right over his shoulder, a group of three or four of them walking out from the venue for a smoke break.  I still feel strange being photographed with Tom, and since we haven't quite had any talk about what's going on between us, I'm not sure if it's the best idea to be snogging him when there's paps around.

"Okay.  I'll see you in a bit." I say, nodding quickly.  Tom blinks a few times, looking at me.  It it as if he is deciding the same thing I had just been thinking about.  Should he kiss me? In front of those cameras?

"Tom." I hear Bentley's voice, low and urgent. From inside the other car, we both start to hear some banging, and what sounds like low wailing.  Keegan.  I lean forward and hug Tom, quickly, and he holds me tightly against his chest.  He kisses the side of my face, by my ear.  It's a quick brush of the lips and then he's ushering me quickly into the car.

"I'll see you soon." He says softly, bending down to look in the car.  He leans down, making sure all of my dress is in the car, and then he shuts the door behind me.  As the door closes, I feel this terrible sense of dread come down over me.  I can't quite put a finger on it, but I turn and watch as Tom hurries back to the other car.  I still have his jacket around my shoulders and I hold it tightly to me.  He disappears into the dark car, and I turn back around.  It'll be fine.  He'll make sure Keegan gets back safe, and then he'll be home.  He said half an hour, tops.

"That was exciting." Bentley says drily, but then he looks at me and gives me a warm smile.

"It was...something." I mutter. 

We are quiet most of the way back to Tom's flat.  I think Bentley can sense I am nervous, and a still processing the night.  The twenty minute drive goes by quickly as my mind is racing the entire time, and I can barely sit still. 

"Tom will sort things out." Bentley says carefully as we pull up in front of Tom's home.  I nod and take a deep breath.

"I know.  Thank you for your help tonight.  I know this must be a terrible first impression of me—" I chew on my lip for a moment, putting my hand on the door handle.  Bentley tilts his head and gives me a small smile, his blue eyes kind and understanding.

"Hardly, darling.  And my first impression of you was already well formed once Tom told me you were the one he had to see after the break up.  When he said you were where he needed to go to get his life back together." Bentley says.  I'm surprised and I can't hide it.  It's too late, and I'm too tired for it.

"Did he say that?" I ask.  Bentley nods and then reaches over and hugs me.  It's a warm, friendly hug and I needed it badly.  I squeeze back.

"He did.  He said he needed his center.  That must be you." Bentley lets go, and I falter slightly. 

"Thank you for telling me that."

"Of course.  Now get inside, and try to have a good night." He says with a chuckle.  I smack him on the knee and then the driver is opening my door for me. 

"Thank you, Bentley.  If you ever want to be miserable and find yourself in a humid, tiny little town, feel free to visit me in Maryland." I laugh.  He nods and then presses his fingers to his lips.

"Absolutely, Charlie.  Good night." He smiles softly.  I turn and thank the driver, and then make my way quickly to Tom's house.

 ****

As soon as I step inside the house, I feel heavy.  It feels weird to be there, without Tom and knowing where he at the moment.  It feels strange, and hollow inside.  I stand at the front door, dropping Tom's keys on the little dish on the side table by the door.  I turn on a few lamps, and then turn them off, not sure what I'm doing or where I'm going.

I feel this insane, frothy buzzing in my head, and it makes it impossible for me to stay still.  I pace around his first floor for a few minutes, sitting down on the couch and then going into the kitchen for tea.  I set the kettle on, and then I am back, wandering around his home in my bare feet and gown.  My heels were kicked off almost immediately after stepping through the front door.

It's quiet.  Annoyingly quiet.  I walk over to his stereo, fiddling with the buttons for a minute, but I can't figure out how to get it set up.  I know he has an iPod somewhere around, but I can't seem to find that either.  I give up after a few minutes, and then I keep pacing through the long, narrow rooms.  My feet slide on the cool, smooth wood floors and my dress makes a soft wooshing sound as it follows behind me. 

What is he doing right now? Is he in the car with her still? Is he in her hotel room? What is Keegan doing? Is she still hysterical? Is she trying to convince him to stay? Or do something else?  My mind is racing, and I feel like I'm one of my mixing bowls.  All the ingredients have been chucked in, and now everything is swirling and colliding together.  Sane thoughts and crazy thoughts are mixing together and it's hard to differentiate between the two anymore.  What if Tom's not fully over her? What if he goes back to her? What if they kiss again? Or worse?

I shake my head, as if the physical act of shaking it will dislodge those thoughts and send them flying out of my ears.  I want those thoughts gone. 

I have not had a serious relationship with anyone since Chase.  By choice. I've always kept things light, and easy and carefree and once I saw them heading in a more serious direction, I would always call it off.  It was easier.  It was simple and no one got hurt.  I didn't get hurt. 

And there was never the possibility of being with Tom.  So, I never had to challenge the way I did things.  He was off limits. And I could just float through my love life with...well, the exact opposite of the title.  I floated through it without any love.  It didn't hurt.  That empty, sore, painful hole in my chest that had been punched through by Chase was left alone.  So, it didn't necessarily heal, but there wasn't anyone there who was constantly prodding and poking it.

But I feel it now. I feel it all too much and it's frightening and it makes it hard to breathe.  I'm Charlie.  Good old "love 'em and leave 'em Charlie", as Tom likes to say.  What happens when I love them and I don't want to leave them? What if they leave me? What if he leaves me?

I run up the stairs, and as I do, I start taking off my dress.  I yank at the pins in my hair, and pull off the uncomfortable heavy jewelry I'm wearing.  I unzip my dress, yanking at the zipper and frantically pulling the heavy material off my arms and chest.  By the time I'm in Tom's room, my arms are full and I'm standing in just my underwear.  I stop at his bedroom door, switching on the overhead light. 

His bed is lovely.  Still big, and fluffy and inviting.  His clothes are on the floor, and draped over the chair, and there's a towel lying by the ground next to the bed.  There's a book on his nightstand, and a half filled glass of water.  His running shoes are by the bench in the corner and I can smell his cologne in the air.  It's Tom. He's everywhere.  What will I do if he goes back to her? Or worse? What if he decides that he didn't want Keegan, but he also doesn't want me either? What do I do then? Besides lose my best friend, I lose...Tom.

I drop my clothes on the floor, and slip into my pajamas—an old, threadbare tshirt and a little pair of frilly shorts.  He made fun of me the other night for wearing them, slapping me playfully on the ass and calling me a "lady".  I sit on the edge of the bed and look around.  London is his world.  His life.  Where do I fit in? It's not Maryland, that's for sure.  He's always been just Tom to me. My Tom.  But he's more than that.  He's got a life in London, and a career that is quickly becoming more and more demanding. 

There's a hard, terrible lump that has formed in my chest and I don't know what to do with it. I don't feel like myself anymore.  So much has changed in just a few short weeks, and I am struggling to stay upright.  I push my hair back into a messy bun, and walk out of his room.  I practically run down to the kitchen and start rifling through his cabinets. 

I don't even think.  I pull out flour and sugar, which I find easily.  He has eggs, which I remember saying he bought recently so he could make me breakfast.  And thankfully he has butter.  It takes a bit longer to find a few other things—baking powder, and brown sugar, and chocolate.  He doesn't have chocolate chips, but I find a stash of chocolate bars, so I can chop them up into chunks. 

I start baking, letting my instincts take over.  It is easy to forget. It is easy not to feel, not to think, not to worry, when all you have to do is measure and mix and crack and beat.  And then you can just fold and stir and level out perfect little teaspoons full of dough.  It's tactile. It's real.  It's right in front of you, and nothing else really matters. 

So that's what I do.  I make a batch of chocolate chunk cookies.  Tom's favorite.  One of them, at least.  I use big chunks of chocolate, and the best white to brown sugar ratio that I know of.  So they are crispy and buttery on the edges, and soft and tender in the middle. And while those bake, I make a second batch, this time of brown sugar oatmeal raisin. Those are just slightly sweet, with plump raisins and chewy oatmeal. 

I do all the dishes, and I switch out pans of baked cookies and unbaked cookies.  I make little stacks of cookies to cool on make shift cooling racks. Time passes, and more time passes.  I've made almost 4 dozen cookies, and it's nearing three in the morning, and Tom still isn't home yet.  I debate calling it a night, but I know I won't sleep.  So I grab the dishes I just cleaned, and I start making lemon bars. 

I squeeze fresh lemons, I grate the zest.  I make a sweet crumbly crust, pressing it down hard into to the bottom of the pan.  I make lemon curd, and I layer everything in citrusy, bright layers. I let that bake for some time in the oven, and then I stick the entire pan into the fridge to set and firm, so I can cut them later and dust them with powdered sugar.

And once the lemon bars are finished, and Tom still isn't home, I let myself cry...just for a few minutes, standing over the sink.  I wipe my eyes with a rough paper towel and I splash my face with water.  And then, I wash the dishes again, and I go upstairs to bed.  His bed.  His empty bed.