"Guess what I've been doing with my morning?" Joe brought the phone away from his ear and stared blearily at it for a moment before asking, "Who the hell is this?" Warm laughter greeted him at his (admittedly less than polite) question. "Tom Hardy, love, who else?" Who else, indeed. "You're not the only British friend I have," Joe mumbled, struggling for coherency and to actually wake up enough so that he could follow the conversation. "Possibly not, but I'm still hurt you wouldn't know my voice," Tom replied, sounding every inch the wounded friend. Not that Joe was buying it. He had just spent the better part of six months working with the guy, not to mention the month long press tour they'd just wrapped up, so he was well familiar with all of Tom's tricks. So he liked to think. "That's just your ego talking." "And it is rather fragile, especially where you're concerned." Uh huh. Now Joe had heard everything. "Why're you calling me at..." Joe glanced at his alarm clock, then groaned as he flopped back onto his pillow, "six fucking A.M.?" "Did you know that there's a YouTube clip of you singing a Lady Gaga song?" Joe always had this theory that talking with Tom was like being dared to go into a non-sequiter factory and make it out alive and without getting lost. "Yeah? And? Are you calling to bitch about the shitty sound, because I really didn't have anything to do with it." "I thought your website and shows were supposed to be about indie art, not doing cover songs of the world's most popular artist." "They're about doing whatever you want to do, free of constraint," Joe replied, then paused. "You hated it, didn't you?" "Now who has the fragile ego?" Joe could practically see Tom's Cheshire, toothy grin. "You're the one that woke me up." And yeah, he was almost (almost) whining, but he didn't think anyone would blame him for it. "Tell you what, get dressed and come down to the lobby, and I'll take you out to make up for it." Joe frowned at his phone before putting back to his ear. "You're in New York?" "On my way to Los Angeles and thought I'd have a quick layover to see you. You should feel flattered." "I'd feel more flattered if it wasn't 6am." And, honestly, could he possibly sound more petulant and four years old right about now? "I'm the one that just got off a five hour flight," Tom pointed out in a completely reasonable tone of voice that Joe kind of hated. Mostly because it made him sound like a bad friend for wishing he could roll back over and go back to sleep for another three hours. "I hate you when you're reasonable," he replied, certain he could kill Tom with the power of his mind if he concentrated hard enough. Which was pretty hard to do pre-caffeine. "But you love me because I'm getting ready to buy you coffee." Joe also hated Tom because Tom had freaky mind-reading skills. "And breakfast," he demanded, because it was the least Tom could do. "That too," Tom conceded, and honestly, how was Joe supposed to argue with someone that capitulated so easily? "Five minutes," he sighed, and kicked his blankets to the foot of the bed. Tom so totally owed him for this.
|