“One grande black coffee, the Times, and two bottles of Dasani. Anything else before I head upstairs?” Kayla asked as she dropped their usual items on the table next to the soundboard like she had done every morning for the last month.
“Is this really your job? Don’t you have something else to do?” Zac teased her, snatching one of the bottles off the table before heading in to warm up.
“Yeah, like something important?” Taylor asked, taking his coffee and looking at the cup before sighing.
“Oh, what could possibly be more important than catering to you three?” she asked, shooting them a fake grin before heading for the stairs. Taylor’s hand shot out to grab her wrist, halting her progress towards the door.
“Is this supposed to be funny?” he asked, holding his cup in front of her face while refusing to relinquish his hold on her arm.
“Is there any way it isn’t funny?” she questioned. Isaac, his curiosity getting the best of him, came over to intervene, taking the cup from Taylor’s hand and immediately cracking up. Kayla had somehow between Starbucks and the studio, managed to draw a scarf right under the lid.
“Good one,” Isaac said approvingly, patting Kayla on the shoulder before handing Taylor his drink back.
“I’ll get you back for this,” Taylor warned, tapping his finger to the pen-drawn decoration before spinning in the chair to face the soundboard.
“Oh I’ll just wait with bated breath for that one, Scarf Boy,” she laughed.
“You two are awfully chummy,” Isaac said, adjusting several of the knobs while listening to Zac play through one ear of a set of headphones. Taylor rolled his eyes.
“She’s nice and I see her as often as you do.”
“Be careful. Natalie would castrate you if she saw you flirting with someone like that.”
“I was not flirting. God, Ike. Trust me, you would know if I was flirting and so would she.” Isaac laughed loudly at that.
“Oh, I forget you’re such a lothario, little brother,” Isaac replied sarcastically.
“Not anymore, I’m not,” Taylor said under his breath,” I don’t even think my wife likes me.”
“Don’t be ridiculous, Taylor. Of course she likes you, she loves you.”
“There’s a big difference between like and love, Ike. And she hardly even looks at me anymore, let alone anything else. It’s just nice to have a person of the opposite sex who will talk to me at all. Natalie just talks at me, tells me what to do or what I need to do. And when I actually try to have a conversation with her, she acts like I’m bothering or disrupting her…”
“All couples have problems, Taylor. You guys are just going through a rough patch.”
“A two year long rough patch?” Taylor asked. They sat there in silence for a few moments, listening to their younger brother get ready for the day.
“Why didn’t you say something before?” Isaac finally ventured to ask.
“Say what?” Taylor shrugged, “That I’m miserable? That I’ve thought about doing something I swore I would never ever put my children through?”
“Well, yeah. If you don’t talk to us about it then who are you going to talk to?”
“I’ll deal with it,” Taylor said. They both almost fell out of their chairs when they heard someone clear their throat right behind them. Taylor’s stomach felt like it had dropped about a foot as he sat there unable to picture anyone other than Natalie standing there in the doorway. He knew without looking that she was standing there and that she had heard every word he’d just said and the thought made his blood run cold. But, when he turned around, slowly and almost in perfect sync with his brother, he saw Kayla standing there looking slightly uncomfortable.
“I’m really sorry to interrupt, guys, but I just have some paperwork that needs to be filled out. Just standard stuff for the new month, shouldn’t take more than a couple of minutes,” she said, attempting to mask her discomfort.
“I’ll take care of it,” Taylor said, setting his coffee on the table and shooting Isaac a look that told him he needed to see what she had heard. Isaac nodded and turned back to the board, pulling the headphones on fully. He followed Kayla up the stairs, his heart thumping wildly behind his ribs. Even though he now knew that Natalie hadn’t heard his confession, he couldn’t get his body to stop reacting as if she had.
“I hate to bother you guys once you’ve started working for the day, but the boss man says I had to get them signed right away and-“ she babbled, obviously trying to fill the silence and to make Taylor believe she hadn’t heard anything.
“How much did you hear?” he asked, toeing the door to her office shut behind him. He felt his arms instinctively cross across his chest and hoped that he didn’t look like too much of an asshole standing there before her. He just needed to know so he could then figure out how to handle it.
“Too much,” she answered honestly, sitting down in the plush black chair behind her desk, “and I really do apologize. I panicked and didn’t know how to interrupt. I made a poor judgment call and I invaded your privacy.”
“You just can’t tell anyone what you heard me say. Not even Zac,” Taylor said.
“I would never tell anyone,” she said motioning for him to sit down. He did so tentatively, and then felt himself relax as she finally gave him a smile. “For starters, it would go against this confidentiality agreement I’m about to make you sign. And besides, I like you. All three of you I mean. I wouldn’t ever do anything to hurt you or your business.”
“We appreciate that,” Taylor said, smiling slightly at her little slip and taking a deep breath before continuing, “And, we like you too.”
“Well, that’s good to know,” she said, sliding the required paperwork across the table at him and getting the topic back on track, “If we hated each other, it wouldn’t make for very good business.”
“No, it really wouldn’t.”