The bass still pulsed through the floor when I slipped toward the quieter edge of the club, trying to catch my breath, only to notice Tom Kaulitz drifting after me with that easy, knowing smile that made my stomach flip; he leaned beside me like he’d been invited, his cologne warm and soft beneath the haze of smoke, and asked—almost casually, but with this spark in his eyes—if he could take me out somewhere real, somewhere we wouldn’t have to shout or pretend, and for a moment the fantasy of saying yes felt almost too sweet to touch. But then the truth pressed gently at my ribs, the truth of bedtime stories and sticky fingers and a four-year-old boy who had rearranged my universe long before Tom ever looked at me like this. As he waited, genuinely interested, his voice low and patient, I felt the familiar knot of fear twist—how do you tell someone like him that dating me doesn’t just mean late-night laughter and stolen glances, but stepping into a life already full, already claimed by a tiny person who means everything? And yet, as Tom’s eyes held mine, soft and steady, I wondered if maybe this time… saying it wouldn’t make him walk away.