“Um…” Taylor started. But before he could finish, he ventured to look over at Kinsey to find her mirroring his pose of looking thoroughly freaked out with the sheets pulled up under her arms, and stopped. She looked at him, their eyes making contact for the briefest of seconds before they both looked back up at the ceiling. Kinsey decided at that moment that she had never hated herself more in her entire life. One second she’d been fighting with Taylor about the fact that her date hadn’t kissed her goodnight and the next second she was naked and straddling him, which had ultimately lead them to the almost painfully awkward situation they found themselves in.
“Yeah… uh,” she paused, “Sorry about that.”
“You’re sorry? That’s all you can say after you basically attacked me?”
“I attacked you? I didn’t hear you complaining much, buddy,” she spat, scooting herself farther away from him, “And besides, you started it last time!”
“Oh, so now we’re even?” he asked incredulously.
“Yeah, I guess we are,” she said, her eyebrows furrowing and her mouth curling down in an over-exaggerated frown. He looked over at her, wanting to be just as annoyed with her as she obviously was with him, but she looked so hilarious all he could do was laugh. “What?!”
“You look ridiculous,” he cracked up. Her mouth dropped open and she just started smacking his arm repeatedly until he finally got the hint and slunk his way out of bed.
“Get out, Taylor. Oh my god!” she groaned, sinking under the covers. Despite the wonderful muffling effect the sheet was having on the sounds occurring around her, she could hear very clearly as he stepped up next to the bed and sighed loudly.
“Kinsey,” he said, sounding far too much like a father preparing to speak sternly to a child for her liking.
“Taylor,” she said, using the same tone of voice, but refusing to resurface. He fisted a hand around the top edge of the sheet and yanked it down, almost exposing Kinsey’s still naked body once more. Thankfully, she moved quickly and kept that from happening. “Can I help you?”
“Are we going to talk about this or what?”
“Do we have to?”
“Well, after one time I didn’t think so. But twice? What the hell?”
“The first time was stupid and drunk,” she said, continuing before he could say something, which she could tell he was desperate to do, “And this time I was just trying to scratch the itch my date didn’t scratch for me.”
“So we’re done now?” he asked, “No more of this?”
“Of course we’re done! I can’t believe it happened twice to begin with…” she said, “Why?”
“I’m just asking. You’re the one who went all berserker and hauled me in here. I just want to make sure I can move about the apartment safely without getting mauled,” he said, starting to make his way towards the door.
“I think you’re safe,” she said, still feeling mortified and wanting to return to safety under the covers.
“Good to know,” he said, “Night.”
“Night,” she mumbled. When he left, he shut the door and turned off the lights behind himself, something she relished in as scooted further towards the edge of the mattress and as far away from the scene of the crime as she could and made herself focus on the TV so she wouldn’t think about Taylor and the taste of his tongue and the way it had felt when he grabbed roughly onto her hips when he came.
Sleep evaded Kinsey for most of the night, so when she finally admitted defeat at eleven o’clock the next morning, she wasn’t surprised to find that even Zac had made his way downstairs for food. The last thing she wanted to do was see Taylor, but it was unavoidable. The more she resisted seeing him, the more obvious it would become to Zac and Isaac and they could only use the fighting excuse for so long. So, she prepared herself before entering the kitchen by taking a deep breath and then went inside, beelining straight for the fridge.
“So, how was the big date?” Isaac asked excitedly.
“It was great,” she replied honestly. The date had been fine. It was everything that had happened after that had become yet another WTF blip on the Taylor-Kinsey timeline.
“He didn’t kiss her goodnight,” Taylor said snarkily into his coffee cup.
“How do you know? Were you spying on them? I know you’d been drinking, but come on!” Isaac scolded.
“Of course I wasn’t spying. Like I cared that much,” Taylor scoffed, “I couldn’t sleep and instead of just laying in bed staring at the ceiling, I decided to wait up to make sure that Kinsey got home safe. Okay, Dad?”
“Well, that was very uncharacteristically nice of you,” Zac said to Taylor before turning his attention back to Kinsey, “But I’m glad you had a good time even though he didn’t kiss you.”
“It’s fine. I mean… it’s good that he didn’t, right?” Kinsey asked sheepishly, sitting down next to Zac and avoiding Taylor’s gaze at all costs.
“It either means that he wants to have another date with you where he will get to kiss you, or he just didn’t want to kiss you,” Zac shrugged.
“Very helpful, Zachary.” Kinsey rolled her eyes and took a big bite out of the apple she’d grabbed. He gave her a supportive smile and put his arm around her shoulder comfortingly.
“I’m sure he wants to go out with you again. He’d be an idiot not to,” he told her. Kinsey looked up without thinking and found Taylor looking right back at her. He was still just the same old annoying Taylor in almost every way, but Kinsey now had the mental image of him naked, knew the noises he made during sex, and had experienced the feelings he was capable of eliciting using a variety of his own body parts and it made existing around “same old annoying Taylor” almost impossible. He was even more annoying than ever, she decided, just like she’d told Tif earlier that week. She couldn’t even decide what was worse, knowing what had happened and wishing she could erase it from her memory or living every second terrified that Zac and Isaac would find out. It was then that she realized the only way she was going to survive the day was to stay as far away from Taylor as possible and there was only one way to effectively accomplish that.
“Zac, I think I need a best friend day. Can we make that happen?” she asked, immediately putting out her bottom lip in her best pout.
“I think I can squeeze you in for a few hours of quality time,” he grinned.
“After we spend a few hours in the studio,” Isaac chimed in.
“Fine, fine,” Kinsey said dismissively, “I’m going to shower. Come find me when you’re done.” And with that, she was finally able to escape. She went upstairs and locked herself in the bathroom where she stood under the scorching hot spray of the shower until her head had finally cleared enough that she could get on with her day. After getting dressed and blow drying her hair, she idly put on her makeup while listening to the sounds of the Food Network on her TV. The guys were known for taking much longer than they anticipated when working in the studio so Kinsey knew that she was in for a potentially long haul. An hour and a half had passed with no Zac, so she stripped the sheets from her bed and washed them. Though she had entertained herself by watching “Anchorman” while her laundry went through the washer and dryer, she was reaching the point of unbearable boredom by the time she had finished making her bed. After securing the bedspread in its rightful place, she collapsed dramatically face down on it.
“Are you trying to smother yourself?” Zac asked a few minutes later, just as sleep had almost overtaken her.
“No,” she mumbled into the blanket before shoving herself over onto her back.
“Sorry that took so long. You know how they get when they’re ‘in the zone,’” Zac said, rolling his eyes and making quotation marks.
“Oh really? It felt like you were only down there for a few minutes,” she said sarcastically. He smiled at her before reaching out to grab her hands. With a forceful forward tug, he pulled her into his arms in a tight hug.
“We have not gotten to spend nearly enough time together since we moved here,” he said into her hair, “I thought that with us living together the opposite would happen.”
“I know, right?” she asked, pulling back and giving him her best fake serious face, “You’re just so darned busy down there playing rock band with your brothers you don’t have time for me any more.”
“Don’t even go there with me,” he said, slinging his arm around her shoulders and pulling her out of the room, “I think it’s time we got best friend bonding time fully under way. What do you think?”
“I think I already have everything ready downstairs so let’s go!” she grinned.
Forty-five minutes later, Kinsey was standing on the coffee table, a Guitar Hero guitar in her hands.
“I just kicked your ass!” she yelled at Zac. He made a talking motion with his hands before reaching forward to flick the back of her thigh hard. “Ow!”
“Don’t be an ass and I won’t be forced to punish you,” he said.
“You’re just jealous that I got five stars and am clearly more musically talented than you are,” she said, spinning around to face him and giving the fake guitar a few aggressive strums before leaping off the table with an air kick.
“Oh yes. Your musical skills are far superior to ours. That’s why Ike is our guitar player but sucks at this game. It’s such an accurate representation of musical ability.”
“That’s just because he’s a big fuddy-duddy who thinks video games are stupid,” Kinsey said, taking off the guitar and tossing it on the couch before plopping down on Zac’s other side, “Ready for step two?”
“Time to watch “Camp” now?” he asked.
“Psh, you know it,” she replied excitedly. Kinsey had discovered the movie on Starz on Demand a year prior and had known immediately that Zac would love it’s low-budget charm as much as she did. Ever since then, it had been one of their favorites and they watched it whenever they got the chance to be alone as Taylor and Isaac had never taken much of a liking to it. After grabbing themselves a few beers and sticking a Tombstone pizza in the oven, they settled in on the couch to watch the movie.
“Is this that stupid movie about musical theater camp?” Taylor asked when he came in the room with their pizza twenty minutes later. He had cut it for them and everything, which signified to Kinsey that he intended to eat some of it, something she knew that neither she nor Zac could allow.
“Just go away, Taylor,” Zac scolded, snatching the pizza from Taylor’s hands.
“Yeah, you and your snarky attitude are not wanted here,” Kinsey stated dismissively, “So just walk your skinny ass out back out the door.”
“You’re welcome, by the way. For bringing you your pizza,” Taylor said, feigning hurt, “And I’m not skinny!” Kinsey and Zac laughed as they saw Taylor look down at himself before leaving.
“He’s going to go lift weights now, you know that, right?” Zac asked her.
“What?!”
“Every time someone makes a comment about him being skinny he goes on a work out binge,” Zac explained, shrugging. Kinsey couldn’t manage any kind of reply other than snort and a shake of the head as she imagined Taylor doing anything more than two sit-ups before getting bored and surfing the internet instead. In fact, she couldn’t really imagine him intentionally doing anything to break a sweat other than having sex, which brought her thoughts back to the events of the previous night. Those were thoughts she definitely didn’t want to have while sitting next to Zac. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just want some of that pizza,” she laughed nervously, shoving the better part of a slice in her mouth hoping that the delicious, terrible-for-her cheesy pizza would magically make her newly reemerged thoughts of Taylor disappear.
“So, what are we going to do with the rest of our night?” Zac asked once they’d both sated their hunger with a few slices, “I don’t know about you, but I’m getting a little stir crazy in here.”
“Want to go out for a few drinks?” she suggested with a smile, “I can be your wingwoman.”
“More like a cockblock,” Zac scoffed, “But really, we should go out for a few beers. I think it’s just what the doctor ordered.” Kinsey looked at him and smiled. It really had been far too long since they’d spent some uninterrupted time together. For so many years it had been mainly the two of them wreaking havoc in between time spent with Taylor and Isaac. But, by the time the guys’ fame had begun, they had become more of a cohesive foursome. She and Zac had always managed to remain closer, however, spending as much time together as they could in order to maintain their friendship.
“So, let’s finish the movie and then get ready to go out.”
“We’re going out?” Taylor asked, popping his head into the room suddenly, prompting both Zac and Kinsey to jump slightly with shock.
“Are you just standing out there? What the hell is wrong with you?” Zac demanded, clutching his chest. Taylor took a step into the room, looking around before darting towards the table and snagging the last slice of pizza before tearing back out, tripping over his own feet and almost falling on his way out the door.
“You could have just asked for it!” Kinsey yelled out, looking at Zac and shaking her head.
“Seriously, what is his deal today? I think he needs to get laid,” Zac laughed and it took every ounce of self-control in Kinsey’s body to not react. She knew that the slightest rapid blink or inhaled breath would let Zac know that she knew something he didn’t. If Zac Hanson was anything, he was terribly perceptive, especially when it came to Kinsey’s tells and little nuances. Even though it was terribly hard for her to do, she managed to keep her reaction completely in her head, and while she laughed hysterically inside at Zac’s comment, she somehow forced herself to only chuckle along with him and turn her gaze back to the movie.
When the final credits started rolling, they hefted themselves off of the couch and picked up their mess.
“So, what kind of place are we going to?” Kinsey asked Zac, her elbow hooked tightly around his arm as they made their way upstairs, “Do I need to get dressed up? Keep it casual? What do you think?”
“Let’s just got to that place Tay found. It was close and pretty decent,” Zac suggested, trying to look nonchalant, but Kinsey knew better.
“You’re just hoping that girl’s going to be there again. You can’t fool me for a second,” she grinned, using the proximity of her elbow to her advantage and giving him a hard nudge before releasing him from her grasp.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. Now go make yourself presentable!” he ordered, pointing down the hallway that lead towards her room until she relented and went to get ready. Before entering her bedroom, she kicked Taylor’s door and waited for him to answer it, which he did a few seconds later.
“Are you coming out with us?” she asked, but from his clothing she already knew he was planning on it. He had already donned typical Taylor outfit of tight-fitting jeans, a plain shirt, and of course, a scarf.
“Well, I’m going out. Whether or not I go out with you guys doesn’t really matter,” he said. She rolled her eyes and stepped towards her room.
“We’re leaving in twenty minutes,” she informed him. And, true to her word, she found all three of them waiting for her by the door twenty minutes later.
“Took you long enough,” Isaac teased, reaching out and putting his arm around her shoulders.
“I didn’t know you were coming out with us,” she countered.
“Was I not invited?” he teased, following Zac and Taylor out the door.
“Of course you’re invited! Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, falling in step beside him as they walked towards the bar.
“Did Tyler call you today?” he asked, and with that question, both Zac and Taylor perked up, obviously waiting to hear her answer.
“Nope,” she said. She realized then that she hadn’t thought about that once all day. She hadn’t been waiting for him to call her because she hadn’t expected him to. Guys almost never called the day after a date, not even the really nice ones. Immediately, she became annoyed at herself for letting her stupid second fluke with Taylor consume her thoughts to the point that she hadn’t even acted like a normal girl and waited for the wonderful guy to call her back asking her for a second date.
“He’ll call,” Isaac told her reassuringly.
“Well, if not I guess I’ll see him on Monday at work,” she said, thankful that he let the topic drop after that so they could walk the rest of the way engaging in their typical routine conversations. They found themselves a table and Zac and Kinsey were sent to fetch drinks.
“Thanks for hanging out with me today,” she smiled as she sidled up next to Zac at the bar.
“Of course! We really shouldn’t have to schedule time together, though,” he said, “I miss spending time with just you, but Taylor and Isaac are always around. See Exhibit A.” He turned and gestured towards their table where Taylor looking impatiently at them.
“Does he think he’s going to die of thirst? Jesus…” Kinsey huffed, paying the bartender for their drinks before grabbing two of them and heading back for the table.
“Took you long enough,” Taylor grumbled as she set his drink down in front of him before sitting down.
“Well, I could have climbed over the bar and made them myself, but I really don’t feel like getting kicked out of here tonight. So we just let the bartender take care of it.”
“Shut up,” was the only reply Taylor could manage to come up with. They sat and chatted until Kinsey’s phone started ringing.
“Is it him?” Isaac asked excitedly. Kinsey couldn’t help but smile at him. It was clear that he was deliriously happy in his relationship with Tif and wanted her to have good dating luck as well, but one look at her phone made her sigh.
“It’s Brenna,” she told them, “Should I let you answer it, Zac?”
“So your sister can try to have phone sex with me? No thank you,” he replied.
“She would not do that and you know it,” Kinsey stated before answering her phone the way she did every time Brenna called, “What?”
“Hello to you, too,” Brenna said sarcastically.
“You’re interrupting our alcohol-infused bonding time,” Kinsey said, “So what’s up?”
“Well, one of the girls on my floor was supposed to go visit her grandma in New York in two weeks, but she found out that she has this massive group project due the following Monday and she has to meet with her group pretty much the entire weekend and therefore can’t go visit her grandma,” Brenna babbled, “So, her parents bought her this non-refundable ticket that she now can’t use, so she said I could use it if I wanted to so I could come visit you!” Kinsey didn’t respond and simply covered the mouthpiece of her phone to address the guys.
“Can Brenna come visit in two weekends?” she asked and they all nodded in agreement.
“Sounds good,” Kinsey told her.
“Really?!” Brenna squealed, “Can we go to a show! I want to see ‘Avenue Q’ so bad!”
“If we can get tickets, sure,” Kinsey said, prompting Brenna to squeal again and Kinsey to pull her phone a good two inches away from her ear to save her eardrum.
“Awesome! Well, I’ll let you get back to your drinking. Tell everyone I say hi!”
“And by everyone you mean Zac. Will do,” Kinsey teased.
“Kinsey! Shut up!” Brenna yelled, “Don’t say stuff like that in front of him!”
“Bye Brenna!” Kinsey said cheerily before hanging up, wondering how they could have possibly come from the same gene pool. Brenna was an incredibly smart and kind girl, but taken to My Little Pony and Barbies when Kinsey was hunting for bugs and playing tag with the guys. They had never been particularly close but had always gotten along fairly well. There had been epic fights over the years and lots of sisterly teasing and attempts to make each others lives miserable, but when it came right down to it, they were sisters, no matter how unseemly it was at times.
“I think she broke my ear drum,” Kinsey grumbled, rubbing her ear lightly.
“She’s a little excited, huh?” Isaac laughed.
“Well, she’s never been to New York and we haven’t seen each other since she went back to school in August. You know how she gets,” she shrugged.
“Now that that’s settled, it’s time we got down to some serious drinking,” Zac announced, flagging over a waitress and ordering shots for all of them.
“Zac, shots are rarely a good idea,” Kinsey said nervously.
“Especially with us,” Taylor reminded him, referring to Cinco de Mayo the year prior when they’d gone through most of a bottle of tequila in about ten minutes and had all been quite sick for almost two full days.
“I’m buying, so you’re just going to drink them and be quiet about it,” Zac stated, giving each of them a sterm look.
One shot turned into four, and that coupled with the other drinks they’d consumed left them all very drunk and very loud on their walk back with the exception of Kinsey. The entire time they were walking back to their place, Kinsey was repeating two words over and over in her head: “Stop it.”
Somewhere between their second and third shots, her typical drunk feelings had started to surface and she found herself almost unbearably horny. It didn’t matter what she drank, the result was always the same. In most circumstances, she was able to ignore it and just push it to the back of her mind, but knowing that Taylor was not only right there, but also very good in bed, was making her avoidance near impossible. All she could think about was getting him back in her bed to sate the longing working its way through her entire body, but she knew she couldn’t. They had agreed that morning that it was over and as she had to keep forcing herself to remember, it was Taylor. It was Taylor and sleeping with him was wrong. Sleeping him and hiding it from everyone was even more wrong. Hiding it when it was happening on the other side of their condo was almost unforgivable and she knew that. She knew every reason why having sex with Taylor was just a terrible, awful idea in all senses, but after she’d watched him pretty much the entire way back, she was having a harder and harder time repeating her internal mantra.
“Are you okay, Kins?” he asked her, but she didn’t answer. Zac and Isaac were up on the stoop, both of them looking for their keys in their coat pockets. Something about the way she looked at him must have given him a little insight into her thoughts because he breathed in sharply before dropping his voice to a whisper, “My room, fifteen minutes.” She bit her bottom lip and had to fight against the pleasurable shudder that went through her at his words. So, he had been thinking about it, too.
“Taylor, we can’t,” she said very unconvincingly.
“Then don’t come,” he stated simply before going to join his brothers. They brushed their teeth in silence and he tapped his watch at her before disappearing in to his bedroom. She went in her own room and changed out of her clothes and into her pajamas before going to look at herself in the large mirror above her dresser. She looked drunk and she wanted to smack herself. Why had she done all those shots? She could have said no. They would have given her huge amounts of shit for it, but she could have. Then, she would be just getting ready to go to bed, not standing there with the room spinning around her trying to decide whether or not to go to Taylor’s room. If he hadn’t been so damned good, she knew that she would be snug under the covers already. But he was, and he wanted her again, too.
“No,” she told her reflection before shutting off the light and heading for her bed. But just as she sat down on its edge, she heard a knock sound from the wall that conjoined their bedrooms. Without even thinking about it, she got up and left her bedroom for his.
“I thought you weren’t coming,” he said cockily, standing next to his bed and looking every bit as wasted as she did.
“Just shut up,” she breathed before shutting off the lights and closing the distance between them.