Taylor sat at the piano in his apartment staring at the cell phone sitting on the keys, its length spanning from middle C to G, mocking him with its darkened, un-ringing screen. He reached his hand towards it, wanting to check it once more just to be sure that he hadn’t left it on silent, even though he knew full well that his phone hadn’t been silenced in weeks. Before he could let himself take the Blackberry from the keys, however, it started to ring, though the name on the screen was Isaac’s, not the unknown number he had been hoping for.
“Has she called yet?” Isaac asked without waiting for a proper greeting.
“No, she hasn’t,” Taylor sighed, “It was probably that damned Barry White impersonator. Zac is such a fuck-up.”
“You’re probably right,” Isaac laughed, “I’ll bet she liked the flowers, though.”
“I guess we’ll never know,” Taylor stated dramatically, pounding his fingers down on the keys in an E diminished chord to musically advertise his foul mood.
“My god you’ve gotten whiney and pathetic lately. I’d take the old slutty and obnoxious Taylor over you any day,” Isaac told him and Taylor pulled the phone away from his ear long enough to give the finger to it.
“Well excuse me. If you’re so sick of hearing me complain then why do you keep calling to ask me if she’s called yet?”
“I don’t know,” Isaac admitted, “I just figured you needed someone to ask how it was going.” Taylor appreciated Isaac’s efforts to show that he cared, but every time his phone rang he hoped it was Quin and he was getting really tired of feeling like he was going to have a heart attack every time someone called.
“Well, she hasn’t called. I’m trying again tomorrow morning,” Taylor said, pausing for a moment before continuing in a voice that sounded weak and tired over the line, “Do you think this is going to work?”
“I don’t know, Tay. But if you think you might really like her and want to be in a relationship with her, you have to try.”
“I just think if I was doing it right she would have said yes by now.”
“Well, she made you work awfully hard for sex. Did you really think she’d just agree to date without any extra effort on your part?” Isaac laughed.
“Now that you bring it up, why has she been making me jump through so many hoops? Should I be worried? Is this a red flag or something?” Taylor asked with concern.
“If it was a twenty year old, I would say yes. But this is a really unique situation. I would say that she’s just trying to make sure you’re being straight with her; that you’re not just using her or wanting her on a whim. Can’t say that I blame her with the way you approached her about spending the night with you.”
“Fuck you very much,” Taylor said, “I should probably go. She might call.”
“You have call waiting, psycho.”
“Whatever,” Taylor rolled his eyes before hanging up. He looked down at the phone, watching as the screen went dark again before standing and heading for bed.
Taylor left the Starbucks nearest Quin’s shop at exactly nine the next morning, giving himself just enough time to walk there and arrive just a few minutes past opening. It was raining pretty hard but he didn’t care and was doing his best to keep her items tucked beneath his coat so they wouldn’t get wet. Not even the rain could deter him from his fourth and penultimate attempt. It would be better because he was actually going to be there, giving it a personalization the others had been lacking. As far as he could tell, he had timed the whole thing perfectly and he breezed into Noche at ten after nine.
“Welcome to Noche,” Quin said, not raising her eyes from her laptop immediately. Once she did so, she sighed softly and closed the computer. “What can I do for you, Taylor?”
“Well, you can take this stuff off my hands for one,” he smiled, striding towards her and setting the grande Cafe Americano and blueberry scone on the counter in front of her before adjusting his hat.
“Order more than you could handle all by yourself?” she asked, sniffing the coffee before taking a sip.
“Something like that,” he said, pausing briefly before getting to the point, “So, what do you say? Will you go out on a date with me?”
“Taylor,” she sighed, setting the coffee back down, “Why do you want to go out with me so badly?” In that moment, Taylor felt a full-blown temper tantrum threatening to explode and he had to try very diligently to keep it at bay. Why couldn’t she just say yes? What in the hell did she have to lose in going out with him for one meal? One meal was all he needed to find out if there was potential between them. Just one little fucking meal.
“I have to give you a reason?”
“I’m asking for one, yes,” she countered, crossing her arms over her chest and looking at him as if she expected him to respond immediately or get out. Taylor closed his eyes briefly, trying to organize his thoughts so he didn’t revert back to his old way of assuming that things would go his way. Quin had taught him that life just wasn’t like that and it had become very obvious to him over the last few weeks that she didn’t buy into that sort of thing anyway. The look on her face was emotionless yet expectant and he didn’t at all like the fact that she looked as though she already made up her mind. Why was she making him spill his guts if she had already decided that turn him down? Again.
He took a deep breath before launching in, knowing that if he was going to give up on her, it was only going to happen once he had completely cleared his conscious.
“I want to go out with you because you’re gorgeous and sexy and unbelievable in bed. I want to go out with you because you’re smart and because you don’t give in to me. Since I first saw you I have wanted you more every day because you have made me wait. The waiting made me think about things so I could see the real potential between us. If you had slept with me that first night, I don’t know that we’d be here today. Maybe, but probably not. When you said no to me you turned my whole world upside and made me realize that a woman did exist who wouldn’t just do whatever I wanted her to all the time.
“I want to go out with you because you’re confident and you can take care of yourself. And yes, you’re older than me, but I don’t think about that. It doesn’t matter to me at all. I have been with a lot of women and none of them have held a candle to you in any way; not in looks or in personality or in anything else. I want to go out with you because you are the only woman I have ever been able to imagine being in a relationship with. I wanted to go out to breakfast with you the morning after we slept together. I smoked the rest of the cigarette you left in my ashtray because it was the only thing I had left of you after you went away in the middle of the night. In the last few weeks I have been a pathetic, unrecognizable shell of the person I used to be and it’s all because I met you and you changed the way I looked at myself and my actions. And that is why I want to go out on a date with you. But apparently, you don’t. I’m really sorry I wasted so much of your time, Quin,” he stated before turning and walking out the front door before Quin could do anything.
“Um…” Magda said, poking her head in from the back room, “You’re running after him now, right?” Quin just looked at her before her stiletto-clad feet ran her towards the door. Towards Taylor.