To say I had a hangover was most definitely an understatement. I felt like I had been ran over by a double-decker, brought back to life, dragged face-first through a parade, had a herd of elephants stomp all over me, and then maybe even a little troll jump on my head all night long. I hadn't felt like this since my freshman year of college at Kappa Sigma's masquerade party. That was the night I swore to myself I would never drink again.

Obviously that didn't happen.

"I feel like you should be getting up soon or something," My cousin, Sara, commented loudly as she passed my bedroom. I groaned in disagreement.

"It's far too early to be getting up. Or doing anything really." I mumbled, my face pressed down against the pillow. I heard Sara laugh in the distance,

"It's almost 2 pm! Surely it's not too early."

If I hadn't had such a bad migraine I would have snapped my head up at her. Since I did, though, it remained firmly in its' resting place against the pillow, "2pm?! In the evening?! Ughhhhhhhh how?" It was a rhetorical question but one to which my snarky Sara had an answer to.

"Well, when you go out all night drinking…" She didn't finish the thought but I was sure she was smirking at me. If my eyes would open, they would have been glaring daggers at her. "Anyway! Any plans for the day? I'm thinking of going to the mall maybe, but I figured I should ask you first to see if you wanted to come or needed anything."

"There are a few things wrong with that sentence." I began, "One, I hate the mall. You know this. Two, even if I enjoyed the mall long enough to be within its' proximity, I have no money to spend. I blew it all on grad school and now I'm unemployed. My life is a joke."

Sara laughed, to which I felt even more annoyed with her, "Oh, that's just the hangover talking. Your life isn't a joke! You've got your PhD! Anyway, I'm gonna head out then- be safe!" And just as quickly as she came (annoyingly enough), she walked out the door, and I proceeded to swear over everything I loved, respected, and admired that I would never drink again. Ever.

Colin felt so bad about our little riff that when I had finally come alive from the grave (around 5pm), he had offered to take me out to coffee as a hangover cure. While I had absolutely zero motivation to get out and do anything, at all, ever, my flight home was booked for the following week and I knew I didn't have much time left in London. I may as well make the best of it to the best of my ability.

Luckily it was a sunny day, so I was able to hide my face behind my favorite pair of Ray Bans, and dressed casually in leggings, flip-flops, a pastel colored v-neck, and a cardigan. That was the beautiful thing about London- no matter the month in summer; it was almost always a cool spring day. The temperature hardly ever went above 80 and it felt so good compared to the west-coast humidity. I found myself smiling (despite my ever-persistent migraine) while walking to the Starbucks that Colin wanted to meet at.

So desperate I was for coffee, that I placed in my order at the front before he even got there. When I looked up from my iced drink, I saw Colin grinning at me and sauntered over to him.

"How're you doing there, mate?" Colin asked, as I shrugged before leaning in for a quick hug.

"I feel awful and you're to blame." I retorted, taking a sip of my iced coffee and cringing a little bit at the word 'mate'. It was obvious that Colin felt guilty about our small argument the other night, and his use of the word 'mate' was to assure me that we were just friends, and he felt nothing else for me. Right. But Colin just let out a hearty laugh and continued acting like nothing was wrong, and I guess we were forced to move on from the previous night without even acknowledging it. Colin wasn't one to talk too much about his feelings.

I almost wouldn't have noticed him if Colin hadn't introduced me. We had been spit firing back and forth about the very recent How I Met Your Mother finale that had aired before my arrival in London. He, of course, thought it was brilliant, and I, on the other hand, could write paragraphs about what was wrong and how many things I hated and how the entire show was a disappointment to mankind and the fans that had waited 10 years to meet the Mother. I digress.

You know when you see someone, and you recognize them, but you're not sure how you know them or where you know them from? This was that moment. Colin introduced me to his friend, Tom, and I could have sworn I knew him before. Or that I knew him from something. At first Tom didn't say much. After we exchanged pleasantries he mostly listened to Colin and I babble and argue back and forth with a bemused look on his face. It wasn't until he finally made a comment that I almost spit out my coffee.

"Geez, I would hate to have any of my films reviewed by you." He was grinning, and I feel like my heart literally stopped.

Tom.

Films.

Films…

Tom? Tom….?

My face paled at the realization. Here I was jabbering on and on about a TV show that really had no impact on my life (or did it though? Ugh life can be hard sometimes), I had hardly paid attention to attention to him even though I knew him from somewhere, and the answer had been glaring back at me the entire time. How had I not noticed?

"Tom Hiddleston?" I asked point-blank.

"Nothing gets past you, eh?" He replied with a chuckle; my brows furrowed.

"Tom Hiddleston as in Loki? As in Captain Nicholls? And Coriolanus?"

"You're missing a couple here and there, but, yes, in the interest of time, I would be that Tom." I stared at him, and had to refrain from dropping my jaw. How did Colin even know Tom Hiddleston and why is it that he hadn't told me about him sooner?! Not that I was one to fawn over actors or anything like that (I was approaching my thirty's did I really have a choice), but it would have been nice to know!

"How do you two even know each other?" I asked skeptically, looking from Colin to Tom. They both began laughing, and Tom's sounded very mischievous. Like an "Ehehehe" type of laugh. I wanted to throw up it was so stupidly adorable.

"It's a funny story, actually-" Tom began, but Colin quickly cut him off.

"Yes but probably one that doesn't need sharing," Colin gave him a quick look, and then continued, "But the short story is that we both went to acting school together way back in the day."

"You act?" I asked Colin, baffled. I had never known that about Colin, but I guess, how would I? In the short 3 years we had been friends, we never talked much about our personal lives, it was usually all business and no pleasure. Well maybe some pleasure, but that's a story for a different time.

Colin swirled his coffee around and shrugged, "I debated it for a little while, but it wasn't anything I was that great at."

"Don't sell yourself short, man!" Tom chimed in, and I found my eyes snapping over to his face at the sound of his voice. It was such a unique voice I felt drawn to it every time he spoke, "Colin was good, he definitely had potential."

"Why'd you stop?" I asked, looking back over to Colin.

"After the first year I just didn't think I had it in me. I felt exhausted already and I wasn't sure I could handle the lifestyle of moving around all the time and never being one hundred percent sure if I would have a job or steady income. I love being here in London, I didn't really want to leave."

Tom rolled his eyes, "Colin is being quite dramatic; he could have stayed in London and worked for the theatre. You wouldn't have had to leave unless you chose to."

"But Hollywood is in Los Angeles and you know most of the good work is there."

Tom shrugged, "True, but that doesn't mean you have to stay there all the time. I'm home quite a bit now and I've been pretty successful."

I snickered, "Pretty successful? I'm pretty sure The Avengers, Thor, and Thor 2 made more money in the months they were playing than my entire family lineage has ever made combined."

Tom laughed sweetly, "The success of a movie isn't just from the amount of money it makes, darling."

Darling. The pet name made me want to curl up into a ball and die. In a good way, though. I think.

"Anyway," Colin pressed on, clearly annoyed that the attention had been drawn away from him,- maybe he actually would have made a good actor…"It wasn't like I had a very strong possibility of being successful, anyway. Figured I'd make your life a little bit easier by dropping out of the race early." He grinned at Tom as Tom began to laugh, and I seriously felt like I had entered some sort of twilight zone.

Here I was, having coffee with one of my best friends whom I had known for three years. All of a sudden he tells me he had really aspired to become an actor just a few short years ago. On top of all of that, I was sitting at my usual Starbucks table, talking to Tom Hiddleston about anything and everything. Pinch me.

Pinch me again because I still don't believe it.

We had all stayed at Starbucks chatting for so long that around 7, Colin got up to order another drink. I sheepishly asked for another, and Colin happily obliged, which left Tom and I alone. My heart was beating so fast I felt like it was going to jump out of my chest.

"So tell me about you. All I know is that your name is Elaynah." The way he said my name made me want to jump off the nearest cliff. He enunciated every part of my name in a way that I had never heard before. It rolled off his tongue beautifully, and it was as though he was treating it with respect. Like that could even be a thing.

I shrugged a little bit, "What is there to say? I just graduated with my PhD in counseling…my life is somewhat of a joke, I don't know what to do next."

"I find that hard to believe; you just completed years of some very grueling coursework. Surely you have somewhat of an idea of what you want to do with it, or you wouldn't have come all the way to London to do it."

I almost hate that he seemed to know so much about me in only a few hours that I barely even realized myself. Another part of me, though, felt like I was on cloud 9. Tom had an incredible way of making you feel smart and confident, while subtly complimenting you in a way that made your existence seem worthwhile.

"I mean, I guess ideally I want to work with children. I absolutely adore them and love how their brains work. I wish that I could still be a child; still feel things for the first time and wake up genuinely excited about life. I feel like I'm lacking passion in mine right now, and that's why I'm not sure what to do."

Tom looked at me for a moment, as if trying to read my soul. Like all my life's complications and answers were hiding deep beneath my pupils, and he was the only one who could read them. I felt my breath hitch involuntarily; does he have this effect on everyone?

"What do you think you should do?" He finally asked after felt like an eternity.

I sighed and glanced away, "I feel like I should stay here. I feel like I should go. I feel like I should start over. Honestly I just don't really know."

Tom let out a small chuckle, "You're a poet and didn't even know it!"

I grinned and rolled my eyes, "I didn't mean to."

"Yes, well, hence the saying 'you didn't even know it'."

"Do you take pride in being an insufferable know-it-all?"

Tom feigned shock, "I don't claim to know everything, darling, I just act like I do."

"That's what your biography should say on Wikipedia- Tom Hiddleston: a loser who acts like he knows everything."

"Loser?! Where are these hurtful words sprouting from?"

Colin interrupted with our drinks before I could get in another word. Tom grinned at me over the tops of the coffee lids and I glared back at him.

This was going to be a very interesting "friendship".