Starter // Chapter Nine

“Twice! She’s turned me down twice! I mean COME ON!” Taylor ranted the next day. After he had watched Quin walk away from him for a second time, he had walked in the opposite direction, away from the venue and from her, went into the first bar he saw to drink himself into a stupor. He had been flirting with another girl all night with every intention of taking her home. But when the next morning came, he couldn’t remember her name or even what color her hair had been. What he could remember was leaving her there at the bar. He had slept by himself again and awoke feeling alone on many levels.

Everything he had known about himself was suddenly wrong. He had always been self-confident, to a fault according to some, but he knew himself and what he was capable of. He was charming, and even though he didn’t usually sleep with a girl more than once, he was always nice to them before and after. And, as he played through his two encounters with Quin in his mind, he knew that even though he might not have been as smooth as usual, he had been nice to her. Flirty and nice. So why hadn’t she even given him her number?

“She doesn’t want to have sex with you. Thank god, it looks like women get smarter as they get older,” Zac grumbled, “Can we talk about work now?” Isaac and Taylor both ignored Zac and kept walking, Taylor looking increasingly frustrated and Isaac looking increasingly exasperated.

“I mean, what did I do wrong? I left a group of fans to chase her down! I haven’t slept with another girl since I met her. Why won’t she have sex with me?” Taylor shouted in the middle of Central Park. Isaac groaned and rubbed his hands over his eyes before giving Taylor a hard shove.

“Will you keep it down?” Isaac asked him through gritted teeth. Taylor rolled his eyes and kept walking towards their destination.

“I’m having a crisis here, Ike. You think you could just let me talk about it?”

“Talking doesn’t usually involving screaming about your sex life in the middle of New York City,” Isaac said.

“Who heard me? Those old guys playing checkers or the nutjob with the purple spandex and mismatched rollerblades? Who gives a shit?” Taylor asked incredulously, sipping his latte as they continued to walk towards the Apple Store.

“Just be quiet,” Isaac said, waving his hand dismissively and picking up his speed to walk next to Zac instead. Taylor sighed and dropped his half full Starbucks cup into the closest garbage can before fishing his cigarettes out of his back pocket. He lit the first one to poke its way out of the pack and inhaled, relishing in the feeling of that first drag of the morning. Isaac and Zac’s continual complaining about his smoking habit forced him to either wait until they were already outside to smoke or endure hours of nagging. When he could stand to wait, he usually did because his nicotine cravings were less obnoxious than his brothers’ whining.

“So what are we going here to get again?” Taylor called up to them as he had been keeping a safe distance from them the whole way through the park.

“I need a new iPod. Zac broke mine,” Isaac said.

“It was an accident!” Zac said defensively as if Isaac had just accused him of murder.

“Whatever. You’re buying me a new one,” Isaac stated.

“And why did I have to come along for this?” Taylor asked, pausing briefly to stub out his cigarette in an ashtray before trotting to catch up with them.

“Because after that, we’re going out to lunch to meet with the head of the studio to discuss our contract, that’s why.” Taylor saluted Isaac before following them the short distance they had left to travel to reach the store.

Taylor opted not to go inside knowing that its bright lights and pristine white interior would be too much for his mild yet constant hangover headache. Instead, he opted to play with his Blackberry, finally taking the time to examine the features he’d never had the opportunity to check out before. He was looking up their various favorite restaurants and bars on Google Maps when an idea struck him, one that was so painfully obvious that the second he thought of it, he hated himself for not thinking of it earlier. His fingers nimbly typed in the words “Noche, New York City” into the search engine and he waited nervously for the page to load.

“Come on,” he urged. She could have lied to him and told him any random word, knowing that he would be completely unaware if it was a real shop or not, but as he sat there and chewed on the side of his thumbnail idly, he hoped with everything in him that she hadn’t. Thoughts of finding Quin again had been consuming him since last night. It wasn’t even completely about the sex anymore. All he wanted was for her to give him a chance, any chance. He knew that it was partly because he needed to reclaim the manhood she had effectively stomped into the ground twice, but it was also because he was still drawn to her in ways he had never been drawn to someone before.

When the page finally loaded, his heart started pounding against his chest as he saw a listing. Her store was really called Noche and it was only a ten minute walk away. Taylor didn’t stop to think and he certainly didn’t worry about the fact that he was leaving with his brothers down in the store. He took off running away from the giant glass cube towards Noche. Towards Quin.

Ten

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