Kinsey sat at her desk late Friday morning trying to endure her way through the last day of a painfully long week. Her trysts with Taylor had not been as frequent this week as she would have liked because Isaac and Zac seemed to always be around, much more so than they had been lately. Kinsey knew that this was actually a good thing, and she was thankful to get more time to spend with Zac, but she was genuinely missing her alone time with Taylor, a fact that was still a little funny to her.
As her mind was working its way through one of her favorite time-passing fantasies, one involving Taylor shoving her against a wall in the entryway and taking full advantage of her while his brothers were just down the hall in the living room, a knock on her door frightened her to the point that she almost gasped out loud.
“Wow, you were really zoned out there, weren’t you?” her co-worker, Regina, asked from the doorway. From Kinsey’s first day on the job, Reggie had always been nice and they’d made pleasant enough conversation in the lunchroom or waiting for the elevator. But, Kinsey had been quite the hermit since her unfortunate encounter with Tyler and Reggie had been trying a little harder to reach Kinsey of late. Kinsey didn’t mind at all, since she thought they might be able to become friends eventually and liked having a girl to chat with every once and awhile, even if it was just about how lousy the coffee was that morning or the potential life-sucking properties of fluorescent bulbs.
“I guess so,” Kinsey blushed, willing the fantastic mental images to be gone from her brain immediately, “What’s up?”
“Something just arrived for you,” Reggie said with a huge grin, “I swear, you’ve gotten flowers more times since you’ve started here than I have in my entire life.”
“Flowers?” Kinsey asked. Reggie grinned and disappeared before reappearing in the doorway with a huge and truly beautiful bouquet of Viridiflora tulips, “Oh my god.”
“Whoever the guy is who keeps sending you these, I’d keep him around.”
“Oh, this guy can’t be the same as the last one,” Kinsey told Reggie with an uncomfortable laugh.
“Nice,” Reggie laughed back, “Well, enjoy. They’re gorgeous.”
“They sure are,” Kinsey said, taking them from Reggie’s outstretched hands and smelling them appreciatively. She looked at the card out of curiosity and shook her head as she tore apart the carefully sealed envelope and read the note tucked safely inside.
“For the awesome BJ I’m sure to get now… isn’t that how this works?” it said in Taylor’s messy scrawl.
“Dick,” she rolled her eyes and buried the card deep behind her least used credit cards before setting the vase down on the edge of her desk. Their beautiful green and white petals kept distracting her as she tried to finish up her morning work in time to go to lunch at noon. She forced a smile onto her face as she was interrupted again, but the smile turned genuine as she spotted an elated looking Reggie standing in her doorway.
“There’s someone here to see you,” Reggie practically giggled. Kinsey wanted to snarkily ask when she had become her own private secretary but Reggie stepped aside to reveal Taylor’s smirking form behind her, sunglasses still on and his hands buried deep in his pockets. Once Reggie had disappeared, Taylor made his way inside and sat down at the chair on the opposite side of her desk.
“Pretty flowers, douche bag,” she drawled, tidying up a few stray papers on her desk as she spoke.
“Douche bag? I dropped over a hundred dollars on those, so you could at least, I don’t know, thank me or something,” he said to her, leaning back to get comfortable in the chair.
“I would but I just can’t take you seriously with those things on,” she said, gesturing towards his sunglasses. He sighed heavily and whipped them off, dropping them to the polished surface of her desk before giving her a pointed look. “Much better. But I’m still not thanking you because of the bullshit card.”
“That’s the closest thing to romance you’re getting from me, baby,” he teased.
“Oh, that doesn’t surprise me in the slightest.”
“Ouch,” he groaned, clutching his right hand over his heart and feigning pain, “Now would you get ready to go so we can go get lunch?”
“You’re taking me out to lunch?” she questioned as she stood and pulled on her coat.
“Something like that,” he said with a little half smile.
“Should I be scared?” she asked as she slung her enormous red purse over her shoulder and followed him out the door, pulling it shut behind her.
“Have I ever given you reason not to trust me?” he asked as they passed Reggie’s desk. Kinsey tried her hardest not to make eye contact with Reggie as they passed, but couldn’t help herself and was forced to hold back a laugh at the look being sent her way. Reggie was clearly impressed and Kinsey was sure she would be hearing all about it when she got back. It really was interesting how fast acquaintances could start to turn into something more, she mused as they got on the elevator.
“No you haven’t,” Kinsey replied, “Surprisingly enough.” Once the doors were closed, Taylor leaned over and placed a kiss to her lips.
“I had a little run in with Tyler on the way to your office,” Taylor admitted to her as they were seated in the back of a taxi headed for some unknown destination in the city.
“What happened?” she asked with concern.
“Not too much. Just gave me a stupid frat boy shoulder bump as he passed me. Jealous bastard,” Taylor laughed, “Not that I can blame him.” Kinsey felt her skin go ablaze with that comment and found herself relieved instead of disturbed as she probably should have been when Taylor lead her to the fourth floor of the Bryant Park Hotel where he had a room reserved for them with room service already delivered.
“Do you want to eat first or-?” he started to ask, but Kinsey’s mouth silenced his before he could finish. Kinsey allowed herself to be lead towards the bed as pieces of their clothing started to make a path behind them.
“Why did you do all this today?” Kinsey asked, gasping as his mouth made contact with the incredibly sensitive spot just below her ear.
“I’ve just missed spending time with you this week, that’s all,” he said before kissing her, more softly than before. Kinsey didn’t want to admit that this was different. She didn’t want to admit that him buying her flowers was pretty epic in terms of their relationship or that him whisking her away to a beautiful hotel room for a few stolen minutes together wasn’t the most romantic thing she’d ever had happen to her, however perverted some of his intentions for the latter obviously were. But even that felt different. He was moving a little differently, a little more deliberately.
As they moved together on top of the comforter, Kinsey noticed that his fingers were taking a little more time to trail over her skin and he was definitely spending a lot more time actually kissing her than usual. And then there was the moment when they locked eyes and he kissed her softly right after he had fully entered her. The hidden part of Kinsey’s brain that still thought of Taylor as the old pain in the ass who used to torment her panicked, but the rest of it swelled with hints of an emotion she rallied to force back into submission. She was just letting the wonderful and surprisingly tender sex affect her thoughts. That was all, right?
When they had finished, Taylor held Kinsey close. She laid her head on his chest and listened for his heart rate to slow, but it didn’t. It kept pounding just as hard as it had immediately post-orgasm and for some reason that made her nervous. She tilted her head to look up at him and found him staring hard at the ceiling with a look of intense concentration taking over his handsome features.
“Taylor, are you okay?” she asked. He looked down at her and his face softened.
“No, I’m awful,” he teased, leaning down to press a kiss to her forehead, “I was just thinking that for some reason, I was feeling just as weird right now as I did after the first time we slept together.”
“Should I be offended by this?” Kinsey asked, only half-joking. He gave her a desperate look before his immediate response.
“No! All I meant was that it felt… different. Like it was new all over again? And no, I don’t know what I mean by that enough to elaborate,” he laughed.
“I know exactly what you mean,” Kinsey told him, practically breathing a sigh of relief that he was at least aware of how different this encounter had been than all of their others. She pushed herself to a sitting position and went to fetch the room service cart. When she took the tray off the plate, she grinned when she saw a salmon burger and salad beneath.
“Will that do?” he asked, suddenly right behind her, the full naked length of him pressed against her from behind.
“Just perfectly, thanks,” she said, forcing herself to pull away before she got too distracted by his nudity. She had to eat lunch and be back to work in about twenty minutes. Taylor’s plan had been great, but hadn’t exactly left her a lot of leeway in terms of scheduling.
“A cab will be here in a few minutes. Sorry you don’t have a lot of time to eat,” he said, pulling on his jeans while she retrieved her now rumpled clothes from the floor.
“It’s okay,” she shrugged once her sweater was pulled back over her head, “I’ll manage. It was worth it.” Taylor sat with her at the table beside the window while she ate her lunch and then they headed back for the main floor where a cab was waiting for them, just as Taylor had promised. Kinsey was almost five minutes late getting back from lunch, but decided that the whole experience, though strange it had been, was well worth a potential reprimand.
Kinsey had just gotten settled at her desk, ready to start the afternoon, when Reggie slipped in and closed the door behind her.
“Was that Taylor Hanson?” she demanded as she sat down.
“It was,” Kinsey said, “He’s one of my best friends, we grew up together. I actually moved to New York with him and his brothers.”
“So, are the rumors online true then? Are you two dating?” Kinsey sighed, preparing herself to lie.
“No, we’re not. We have a really interesting relationship that a lot of people misinterpret. Ever since TMZ took notice, things have gotten pretty crazy for us.”
“Well, I hadn’t seen a picture of him for awhile, so I looked him up online after you two left and that’s when I saw the picture of you two making out last weekend.”
“Taylor was drunk and thought it would be very amusing, that’s all.”
“I see,” Reggie said, but clearly wasn’t sold, “Well, I’m sorry to pry so much. I know we don’t really know each other very well but it isn’t every day a celebrity comes in here.”
“Don’t worry about it. I’m used to it by now, trust me,” Kinsey said.
“Well,” Reggie said as she stood up, “I should probably get back to work. Maybe do at least a few productive things today.” Kinsey laughed at waved at Reggie as she left, hoping that maybe she really was starting to get a female friend here in New York City. The fact that she had started coming in and talking to Kinsey when the flowers arrived showed that she wasn’t just some crazy fan trying to infiltrate into the guys’ lives. In reality, Reggie just seemed like a nice person who had maybe taken advantage of the flower opportunity to finally have a more than passing conversation and Kinsey didn’t mind in the slightest. Once she had cleared her thoughts, she opened her e-mail and prepared herself to finish the rest of the day.
As Kinsey stumbled through the front door on the following Friday evening, she honestly couldn’t believe that she had made it through the week. Between things getting progressively more stressful at work with the increased responsibilities they’d given her due to her good work and continuing to hide her relationship with Taylor from Zac and Isaac, Kinsey felt stretched paper thin. All she had wanted to do was go home and put on some comfortable clothes to veg out in front of the TV, but she had been coerced into going out for a drink with Reggie and a few of the other girls from work. It had been fun, but her feet were aching, her stomach was growling and her sweatpants were calling to her. When she had finally removed her coat and shoes and shuffled her way into the living room, she found that the guys were already in there, all of them looking as exhausted as she felt.
“Long day in the studio?” she asked, immediately regretting her inquiry.
“Well,” Isaac replied with obvious irritation, “We could have gotten much more done and yes, it was a long day.”
“We got plenty done, my god,” Taylor sighed, rolling his eyes.
“I’m running away,” Zac groaned, glaring at his brothers before pulling a blanket over his head, building a little makeshift fort for himself and his beer. Kinsey looked at them and shook her head before going to the kitchen to fix herself some dinner. She didn’t understand why they didn’t just go their own separate ways when they were this pissed off at each other. That’s what she would have done; just gone away and calmed down. But they had never really been ones to do that. It was probably because they were used to being around each other all the time, especially when tired and grumpy on tour, but Kinsey hadn’t realized the extent of their togetherness until they had all moved in together. But whatever their reasons for sticking together even when angry, it made her a little uncomfortable and she planned to eat her dinner in the kitchen where the air wasn’t running thick with tension. She had just settled down with her pasta and salad when Taylor came in and plopped down in the chair next to her.
“Rough day in paradise, eh?” she asked. He just grunted and let his forehead drop gently to the table surface.
“I just wish we could spend a whole productive day without getting mad at each other. I don’t know what the problem is with us right now. This didn’t used to happen so regularly,” he told her.
“I guess you had to take the fighting you used to do with me and transfer it somewhere else,” she laughed lightly, not expecting him to join her, “But seriously, you guys hadn’t been spending that many full days down there until the last week or so. Maybe you’re just out of practice?”
“You might be right. We’ve definitely been slacking. I think we might need to spend tomorrow down there. Do you mind?”
“Of course not!” she said, looking down at him and feeling her heart ache lightly at the distressed look of his face. In all their years of friendship, Taylor had never let himself show any vulnerability to her. She couldn’t help but think that if he had, things might have been different for them. She might have seen him differently earlier, because this Taylor was severely less arrogant seeming. This Taylor felt like, well, a normal human being and Kinsey had to fight back a laugh when she thought about how funny it was that it was weird being around a normal acting Taylor. Sure, she had seen the guys worried as a group about a business decision or upset about something, but one-on-one he had never shown her this side. He had always been cocky smiles and nonchalant statements. Though she knew that she shouldn’t, she reached over and smoothed her hand over his hair.
She watched the way his golden locks slid through her fingertips before settling back in place. She bit her lip and thought to herself about how she had always loved Taylor’s hair though she had never told a soul before and hadn’t even admitted it to herself really. Way back then, back when their fighting had first started, she had first noticed and wondered if it felt as soft as it looked. It did.
“What are you going to do tonight?” he asked her once her fingers had broken their contact and they’d resumed a less intimate positioning. She shrugged and took a bite of her salad.
“My date book’s a little sparse these days,” she said.
“You could always give Tyler a call,” Taylor said, rolling his eyes as Zac walked in the door, immediately stiffening as Zac eyed them curiously.
“What are you two talking about?” he asked.
“Nothing much,” Kinsey said, “He looked like he was going to go jump off the roof so I asked him what was wrong and he was telling me about what went down in the studio today.”
“Well, you’ll get a less biased opinion if you ask me, the only person down there who wasn’t in fight-mode today,” Zac snipped.
“No, you were too busy being a douche who refused to stand up for what you really wanted,” Taylor snapped back.
“I am not talking about this any more today,” Zac said sternly before storming out of the kitchen and heading upstairs, his heavy footsteps on the stairs echoing all the way to the kitchen.
“I thought we were done fighting for the day,” Isaac mumbled to himself as he walked in the kitchen.
“We need to work all day tomorrow to get this stuff fixed,” Taylor said in an effort to change the subject.
“Agreed,” Isaac nodded, “We’ve just been getting so distracted lately. We need to get refocused.”
“Well, I’m sure that I haven’t been helping. I’ll do whatever you guys need me to in order to keep you ADD losers on track,” Kinsey smiled.
“Yeah, you have been distracting. Why don’t you work on that?” Taylor asked.
“Oh god, not you guys, too,” Isaac groaned, obviously having missed completely the look of amusement on Taylor’s face, “I’ll be in the living room.”
“I should probably go talk to Zac, see if I can get him to calm down,” Kinsey said, putting her dishes in the dishwasher before heading upstairs. She found Zac in his bedroom, the door ajar, his own little signal that he wanted someone to come talk to him. Kinsey had a sneaking suspicion he was hoping it would be her.
“Oh Zachary,” she called out in a sing-song voice from just outside his door.
“Come in,” he mumbled and she could imagine him lying on his stomach, head at the foot of the bed, watching TV with a pillow mashed against the lower part of his face. When she pushed the door open gently and walked inside, she instead found him lying on his back with a pillow on his face. Kinsey sighed and went to sit down next to him and snatching the pillow away and tossing it towards the foot of the bed.
“What was going on down there today?” she asked.
“Well,” he started, sitting up beside her, “We were working on a few things, trying to get some lyrics written, making a few chord progressions more interesting, and we hit a wall. And we tried to get around it, but we went on for about three hours of solid arguing. It was awful.”
“I’m sorry, Zac,” she said, sitting down next to him and finding herself immediately pulled into a side hug.
“I just thought that moving here would be good because we could work here and it would be convenient, but I think we keep getting distracted because home’s just up the stairs.”
“Well, I already told Taylor and Isaac downstairs that I’ll do whatever I can to keep you guys on track. I hate it when you guys don’t get along,” she said.
“Me too. But we’ll get past it. We always do,” Zac sighed, leaning over and placing a kiss to the corner of Kinsey’s mouth, “I don’t know what I’d do without you, Kins. I love you.” Kinsey looked up at him, seeing that he was still the same old Zac, the one she had trusted with so many things over the years. And now she felt terrible sitting there with him when she for the first time in her life, she felt inclined to take Taylor’s side. Taylor was the person she really wanted to be consoling and reassuring. It was that exact moment that Kinsey knew what all of the feelings she’d been having meant, and it absolutely terrified her.