“Damn it, Zac! Those were my brand new Ralph Lauren boxer briefs and you stretched them out with your fat ass!” Taylor shrieked, throwing the dirty piece of laundry at Zac’s face.
“Shut up, Gaylor. The fans like my ass and you’re just jealous that you’re not-” Zac started.
“That I’m not what?”
“Oh, I don’t know… built like a man as opposed to a girl or a twelve year old boy!” Zac said, “And plus, I thought they were mine otherwise I obviously wouldn’t have worn them.”
“Like your cheap ass wears Ralph Lauren,” Taylor huffed under his breath before storming out of Zac’s hotel room and stomping childishly down the hallway. He knew that he was behaving like a spoiled child but was too tired and too annoyed to care much. The door of his room was still standing ajar, so he promptly slammed it shut as he reentered the luxurious five-star room. The Pollack prints on the walls vibrated with the force and Taylor looked incredibly satisfied with himself.
“Could a twelve year old boy do that?” he screamed at the wall that was shared with Zac’s room. And with that, he collapsed backwards onto his king-sized bed, staring at the ceiling and wishing sleep would take him quickly.
Their show that night had been the last of the tour and Taylor was so mentally and physically exhausted that he could hardly even function, let alone function like a normal twenty-four year old, especially when he was (not) looking forward to listening to his brother hump the crap out of his girlfriend all night. Especially when that girlfriend was a heinous bitch. He couldn’t help but think that the walls in such an expensive hotel should have been much more soundproof as the headboard starting thumping erratically against the wall.
“I can’t take this,” he said to himself before getting up and heading to his suitcase. He decided on a pair of tight jeans, t-shirt, and of course, a black scarf before heading down to the hotel bar, a pack of cigs in his back pocket and a wad of cash clenched in his fist.
The bar was mostly deserted due to the late hour, but Taylor didn’t mind. He just wanted to drink two glasses of Jack on the rocks, smoke three cigarettes, and then go pass the fuck out upstairs and sleep until he could finally go home. Go back to his condo, to his best friend, and to the life he tried his hardest to lead when he wasn’t on tour. The next several months of his life would be spent reading, spending time with his best friend Flannery, and playing the piano–playing non-Hanson songs on the piano, to be exact. He loved the band and he loved his brothers, but those times in between recording and tours were his favorite times because then he could just be Taylor and not be Taylor Hanson.
Just as he had lit up a cigarette and had a short glass set in front of him on a napkin that he would surely shred OCD-style while he was there, his cell phone started to vibrate and skid across the shiny black bar top. If the name on the screen had been any other name, he would have ignored it, but instead it was hers.
“Hey Pumpkin Tits,” he grinned as he answered the phone. He could just picture her sitting in her computer chair, rolling her eyes at the nickname he used only to annoy her.
“How many times have I asked you not to call me that?” she sighed, and he knew that she was rubbing her eyes in irritation.
“Only every time I’ve called you that since the first time we saw ‘Not Another Teen Movie,'” he replied, sipping his drink for the first time. A look of near-orgasmic bliss crossed over his face as the bitter liquid passed over his tongue.
“Well stop it. Every time you call me it you make me miss you less…” she said, not meaning it at all.
“Oh Flannery, I wish you were here with me right now. I have a glass of whiskey and about five extra cigarettes,” he said, trying to tempt her.
“Well, I don’t wish I was there in bum-fuck wherever the hell you are. Plus, you’ll be home tomorrow and then I’ll be glad to steal your cigs and drink all of your alcohol,” she smiled.
“I can’t wait. This has been the longest fucking tour we’ve ever done. Isaac and Zac’s girlfriends are insane and I’ve wanted to beat myself in the face with a 2×4 more than I could ever hope to count.”
“But has the tour been good since I last talked to you? The performances?” Flannery asked, sipping the glass of wine in her hand.
“Oh the performances have been amazing, it’s just everything before and after them that has been painful,” he sighed before tapping his now empty glass lightly against the bar to gain the bartender’s attention.
“Well stop dwelling on your personal life. Tour isn’t about that, it’s about promoting your music. Three months of personal torture is worth it if you put on a lot of good shows, right?” she shrugged.
“Flannery Bruckner, always the voice of reason,” he said blandly.
“If you don’t like my responses, then don’t bitch to me,” she replied before yawning exaggeratedly, “Well Puppy, I’m going to bed. My best friend is coming home tomorrow and I need to spend time with him or he might throw a bitch fit.”
“How come you can call me Puppy but I can’t call you Pumpkin Tits?” he laughed, stubbing out his finished cigarette before fishing another out of the half-full pack.
“Because mine is endearing and yours sounds like a bad porno name. I’ll see you at the airport tomorrow and you’d better not be late.”
“I’ll tell the pilot to fly really fast just so we can make it on time just for you,” he said before hanging up the phone not even waiting for her response. Flannery had been his best friend ever since she bitched him out in line at Starbucks for taking the last Venti lid Then she had promptly realized who he was, felt like an enormous idiot, and paid for his drink. With her, he could just be himself and not have to worry about what she would think of him or if his every action would wind up on a message board or on the front of a tabloid. Though he and his brothers hadn’t often graced the covers of gossip mags, there was always the fear that one drink too many or an ill-placed touch would land him on the cover of Star or OK!.
“Oh my god! It’s Taylor Hanson!” a girl whispered obviously from the other side of the bar. Taylor sighed and tried to hide his face behind his increasingly empty glass. Not even the brown liquid was there to mask his face. Why had he worn the scarf? The scarves were a dead give away. He inwardly cursed his sense of fashion and tried to act like he was any other guy at the bar. Without even finishing two cigarettes, he left a $20 on the bar and headed back up to his room, leaving the slutty girls and the prospect of more Jack behind. The little bottles in his room would have to suffice, and he knew that they would quite well.
The halls were quiet as he traversed them. All he wanted to do was smoke, get blitzed, and wash away the stress and emotion this tour had brought down on him. The rumor mill had been churning with a renewed vigor ever since their first show, everything from Zac supposed knocking up his girlfriend Sheridan to Isaac being an asshole (which really was more of a hidden fact than a rumor) to Taylor being gayer than a three dollar bill. Oh yes, the gay rumors seemed to follow him with every wearing of a tight pair of pants and every cross of his legs. He was used to them after ten years of perpetual speculation, but sometimes he just screwed random girls in club bathrooms and venue dressing rooms to prove everyone wrong. But somehow, amazingly, his real sexual exploits seemed much less interesting to the general population than his imaginary ones.
His room was dark and cool, and Taylor welcomed its cave-like existence with a buzzed smile, bee-lining for the minibar. Once he had mixed himself a ridiculously strong beverage, he sprawled out on his stomach in the middle of the bed, his laptop opened in front of him.
“I love you, Wireless Internet Gods,” he said to the computer, fighting the urge to kiss the screen as a new Firefox window opened in front of him, “Let’s see what they’re saying about me today.” A trip to his bookmarks led him to Livejournal where he went straight to his “friends” page to check out the latest Hanson news. If only they knew that I was on here, he thought, I wonder what they’d say then. A post of the “Most Hilarious Hanson Pictures Ever” caught his attention. He clicked the link and took a long sip of his drink. There was the trademark picture of Isaac in the pink cowboy hat, the photoshoot of them strangling each other and being idiots, and then it began. He caught sight of a responder with a link to the best funny pictures of himself and he followed before he could give it a second thought.
Most of the pictures were of him caught making stupid faces or sporting a quasi-erection on stage, but towards the bottom were several that just flat out pissed him off.
“Just because I carry a messenger bag I’m gay??” he asked his computer screen, “Okay, so I cross my legs… lots of guys cross their legs. It’s comfortable, you scavenging assholes!” He continued to scroll down, a scowl overtaking his face when he recognized Zac’s LJ username as having posted a reply. “Mother fucker!”
LOL! God, could he be any gayer if he tried?
i_love_zac replied
“God, if people knew that was Zac, what the hell would they think,” he mumbled under his breath, the effects of the whiskey in his glass hitting his system much faster than usual due to the small dinner he had consumed before the show, “I hate you, you son of a bitch!” He slid his way to the head of the bed where he proceeded to repeatedly pound the heel of his shoe into the wall, hoping desperately that he would awaken Zac from a post-sex slumber. Instead, he was greeted by complete, unsatisfying silence. As if the occasional rumors and comments weren’t enough, he now had to see that his own brother was perpetuating the lies and suspicion. He slammed the screen of his laptop closed and wriggled around on the bed attempting to pull his cell phone out of his pocket. After an intense struggle, he victoriously yanked it free.
“I win!” he announced triumphantly into the dark before flipping it open and calling speed dial number 6.
“What do you want, Taylor? I’m getting ready for work,” the owner of the phone asked.
“My fucking stupid brother is spreading gay rumors about me on the internet,” Taylor pouted.
“Taylor, you’re spreading gay rumors about yourself dressing and acting the way you do.”
“Tre, don’t be such a dick,” Taylor spat, not really wanting the opinion of his “out and proud” gay friend, especially one with a self-proclaimed unfailing gaydar.
“I’m not being a dick,” Tre sighed, “I’m just saying that you bring it on yourself by being you. Unless you want to be not you, you’re going to have to deal with it like a big boy and not call me up whining like a little bitch because you can’t take on your wannabe frat boy brother.”
“You’re no help at all.”
“What do you want me to do? Start a rumor that he’s gay?” Tre asked. Taylor shot up and started practically jumping on the bed.
“Would you do that??” he asked, narrowly missing stepping on his laptop several times as he walked in circles on the soft mattress.
“Of course not! No one would believe that Zac is gay… we are talking about Zac, right?”
“Yes. Isaac’s too much of a douche to bother figuring out Livejournal. He thinks he’s way above something like that,” Taylor explained, finally sitting back down, his back against the headboard and his glass still clutched firmly in his grasp.
“Yeah, I can see that. But I really need to go. I don’t want to be late. I’ll see you tomorrow, right?”
“Yeah, Flannery’s coming over right when we get home, so just come over whenever.”
“Sounds good. If I think of it tonight I’ll let it slip to a few people that Zac likes to take it in the ass in exchange for a hit of X,” Tre laughed.
“Really??” Taylor asked.
“No! Jesus! Destroy your brother yourself, I have tips to make. We’ll discuss this tomorrow,” Tre said before hanging up abruptly. Taylor frowned at the phone before chucking it towards the end of the bed, cringing when it collided noisily with his laptop. He consented to just sitting there in the dark, reflecting on his life.
Sure, he knew that being a celebrity came with certain consequences, like anyone and their mother (or brother) being able to say whatever they wanted about him, and his every move and statement being documented and overanalyzed. But he just didn’t understand why people cared so much. They’d been trying to show their fans since the day of the release of ‘MmmBop’ that it was about the music, not about what color his toothbrush was or what kind of cologne he wore or whether he liked to have sex with men or women. And despite their efforts, people still cared about those things. He couldn’t blame them for it; it was just what fans did and he was very glad to have them as fans. He just wished that every once and while he could be Taylor Hanson while also being just Taylor. To not have to put a big fake smile on his face whenever he was out in public. Sometimes he was sad. Sometimes he was mad. And sometimes he was getting piss-ass drunk alone in the dark in his hotel room. He wasn’t always piano-humping, breathy-moaning, piano-playing Taylor, and he wished that every once and awhile, he could get praised for that rather than ripped to shreds.
Just as he was about to give in and try to sleep, the headboard thumping started back up again. He was about to be forced into four minutes of discomfort so he tossed back the remains of his glass, rubbed his hands across his increasingly stubbly and tingly face, and flopped down on top of the covers.
“Gaylor has left the building,” he announced to the black space around him before lifting a fist to pound it against the wall and couldn’t help it as one thought repeated in his head: “Am I home yet?”